TNA: In The Zone 4/13/06

Archive

Greetings, and welcome to TNA: In The Zone for April 14th. This is the first episode to air in TNA’s new time slot. 11:00 pm on Thursday nights. If Spike TV really wants to kill this franchise, putting it into an eleven o’clock time slot is surely the way to go. I stated before that TNA should try to turn this time slot into an advantage. Do they live up to the ideas I set forth?

Boy frickin’ howdy.

I said that TNA needed to ramp up the violence, and is week the first image we get is Christopher Daniels laying bloody on the floor. The match is already in progress, and normally I might be inclined to complain about this. However, I think this is kind of a Star Wars beginning. If you don’t know what I mean, remember back to the beginning of Episode 4, A New Hope. There were no calm introductions. As soon as the words crawled up the screen, Vader’s Star Destroyer was blasting the hell out of Leia’s ship. Lucas dropped us right in the middle of the action.

This week, TNA smacked us in the face with a bloody palm. They start things off the right way, by allowing Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels put on what might be a TV MOTY candidate.

Joe actually bites Daniels on his bleeding wound. This Samoan demon then proceeds to paint himself up in his opponent’s blood. Joe is SO stiff here. At one point he floats through so many different submission moves that Gene LaBell would be proud. Don’t know who Gene is? Google it, monkeys. Daniels gets very little offense till near the end of the match, and that’s a shame. However, what he did get done really made him shine. The Island Driver that finished the match really looked like it finished The Fallen Angel.

My take? I think that Daniels should have retained here. I hate run-ins and such, but there had to be a way to book this so that neither guy went out like a bitch. Now Daniels has been beaten by this monster named Joe a few times, and that takes away a lot of the momentum that he had. Joe is supposed to be going on to bigger and better things, but he’s leaving behind a feud that now seems unfinished.

Do I still want to see Joe vs. Sabu at lockdown? You’re damned right I do. However, when the time comes to end Joe’s streak, it should be Daniels that does it, and it should be a clean (but very difficult) win.

Afterwards, Borash is in the back with Sting. Mr. Borden is very talkative here. I like this side of Sting, but I have to admit that I was a fan of the Stinger since he wore the multi-colored make-up and platinum blonde hair.

Next Tenay says that he has an interview with the champ (who still doesn’t show up to wrestle). This is supposed to be an interview, but Tenay isn’t even in the room to ask questions. What this segment is really intended to do is to remind us that Capt. Charisma is still serious about laying down his life to defeat Abyss. Again, they are breaking the conventions that say wrestling shouldn’t really broach the subject of actually KILLING each other. Go for it, I say. It goes back to the time-slot thing. If you are gonna be late night, be as hardcore as you can. Hell, I hope Showtime decides to pick up TNA. Imagine a wrestling show with the dynamics of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit.

Next up is a street fight between Team 3D and America’s Most Wanted. AMW is led to the ring by Jackie’s cleavage, and that makes Dougie happy. Gail pushes Jackie around, and that makes Dougie sad. This match doesn’t get near as bloody or violent as everything else we’ve seen tonight, nor does it get anywhere near the street. Brother Ray did hit Harris with a fan’s replica title belt. That was cool. Also, at one point Bro. Ray tosses Harris off the top rope, and the Wildcat nearly takes out a cameraman. All in all, the match was really kind of boring. The Canadians come out, and then the world shifts, and suddenly everything is all right.

The new paradigm? Spike! I don’t know what they are going to call him (Brother Spike?) but again we see what one little dude can do when he’s pissed off and has a goal. Bro. Spike clears out the Canadians with crotch kicks, and an Acid Drop. Fuckin’ A.

Bottom line? A pretty formulaic match with a great ending. Again, I normally hate this kind of ending, but the re-introduction of LSD was well worth it.

They show us a promo for Sting, setting up his first television match in five years. Somehow I never imagined I’d see Sting talking so seriously about Jeff Jarrett and his taint.

Eric Young again plays the part of a lamb to the slaughter. He does this well, but I think it’s time to reward this guy’s hard work with a serious push. I still think he should have become the harbinger of Sting. Instead he gets put into a match that, on paper, seems to be a squash. To their credit, this match is not booked that way.

TNA brings out one of my other favorites, Alex Shelley. His ringside antics really round out the entertainment value of this match. You have Sting being all serious, Eric Young freaking out, and Shelley doing some great comedy.

Of course Sting won. One Scorpion Death Drop and Eric was through. One Scorpion Death Lock after the match shut up Shelley. That’s as it should be. Sting still gave two of my favorite TNA workers the serious rub. Of course all this draws out Planet Jarrett, which in turn draws out Ron Killings, AJ Styles, and Rhino. Sting claims that this is his team for Lethal Lockdown, an announcement that seems to surprise Killings, even though he’s standing there with three other guys, holding matching baseball bats.

And what was the deal with the Strip-Hop remix at the end, playing the highlights of a show we just watched? It was kind of cool, but still odd.

For a premier in a new time slot, this show was really quite good. TNA really stepped up to the plate here. The one thing that they left out was the new member of the championship committee that they hinted at on Saturday. I still say that this show would benefit greatly from a two hour time slot. There are too many underused talents here.

Anyway, unlike Saturday, when I had a hard time choosing who didn’t suck badly enough to be In The Zone, this week I find just the opposite to be true. Daniels really laid it all out in the ring, as did Joe. Brother Spike is always entertaining, and I know people are tired of me bragging on guys like Shelley and Eric Young. I have to say, for giving the rub, for coming back, and giving younger guys to build off of what he has done, and for hitting Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner with a frickin’ baseball bat, the man called STING is In The Zone.

It’s Showtime Folks!

Dougie

icarusfallz@yahoo.com