With pictures, even!
First things first, howdy folks, I’m Mark B., from over at Diehard Gamefan, pleased to meet you. Or something. Whatever. Anyway, while I don’t normally watch TNA, I was told that the shows they put on are generally of reasonable quality by and large, and since I was provided a ringside seat for Hard Justice and I live in the area, I figured I might as well check it out, and since Matthew Michaels asked me to write up a review of the show (largely because he was astonished anyone would actually want to go to the show, apparently), here you go, have a live report with some pictures.
– To begin, TNA had announced a “Block Party†event that was supposed to happen prior to the doors of the arena opening, but heavy thunderstorms and tornado warnings (no, seriously) apparently put the ixnay on that one, which is fine, as the Emily Rose Band isn’t particularly good and probably wouldn’t have gone over very well in Trenton anyway.
– Also, and I don’t know if this is the decision of the stadium or TNA (though I’m assuming it’s the latter), but I haven’t heard so much 80’s metal while waiting for a wrestling show to start in my life. Just saying.
– Now, TNA has this weird rotating camera on a winch that moves from one side of the ring to another, but only picks up the entrance ramp and the side of the arena to the right of that. There’s a reason for this: the other half of the arena was, except for the floor seats, COMPLETELY empty. Seriously, they dimmed the lights on that side of the arena and set off tons of pyro, which, aside from making the inside of the arena look like the inside of a pool hall, also helped to obscure that half of the arena was empty. I don’t know if they didn’t sell the tickets to these seats on purpose or what, but take from that what you will.
– Dixie Carter was also out in the front row signing autographs and taking pictures with fans for about an hour prior to the start of the show. I don’t know why this is, either.
– So we start the show off with introductions of the various announcers, and Jeremy Borash comes out to warm up the live crowd. Halfway through his big explanation of the event, Eric Young came out and announced that, as of Sunday, Brett Farve was a New York Jet. Borash pointed out that this happened on Thursday, the two go through a comedy bit, and then the segment grinds to a halt as they ask if the crowd are Jets fans and the crowd boos the hell out of them. So we get Eric and Borash trying to come up with ANY team the fans might like, with the fans booing the Giants, Rutgers University, and the Devils, in order, before they give up. For the record, Central New Jersey residents tend to be Eagles fans in case someone from TNA is actually reading this, but most Jersey wrestling fans hate the state in general. So, there you go. Also, Eric Young took some time on his way back to the dressing room to stop and sign things for people in the front row, which was actually really cool of him considering he was just there to warm up the crowd, and if I hadn’t been a fan of his before I would certainly be now.
– So Borash goes back to his pre-match warm-up stuff, and for those of you who wonder how TNA gets decent crowd reactions from lukewarm crowds, here’s your answer: we were informed that the loudest people in our individual sections would be given backstage passes by members of the staff for being active and loud. The way Borash played it up was actually pretty creepy, as he made it seem like the staff was going to be spying on us the entire show, but the fans seemed to love it, and it got some really loud reactions for the matches as a result, so I guess it worked.
– We were never actually told that Ice-T wasn’t going to be showing up, so when Filthee came out to perform, the fans were somewhat less than receptive of this (IE they booed the crap out of it). I also have no idea what the hell the third guy in the vest was all about, since most of the audience was male and thus have no real interest in a shirtless guy coming out unless he’s going to wrestle or something. All in all, this was a weird segment.
– Consequences Creed versus Petey Williams was a decent match live, and the crowd wasn’t bored by it or anything, but no one in the arena had any real interest in cheering for anything Creed had to show us until Shawn Davari came out and hit him with a chair. That said, having not seen Consequences Creed before, I’m really curious as to who, exactly, came up with giving the guy an Apollo Creed gimmick, right down to the USA tights and all. Petey was also crazy over with the crowd, who were pretty obviously waiting for the Canadian Destroyer, which is most likely why no one was willing to give Creed anything to work with and booed the crap out of almost all of his attempts at offense. And as far as Rhaka Kahn goes, I don’t know why TNA continues to cut her paychecks, but she is one of the worst managers/valets ever; aside from the fact that she’s generally incapable of delivering realistic-looking offense (check out that high kick she gave to Creed that missed by like a foot) and is neither particularly attractive (people with cellulite-laden asses should not wear pants that call attention to this thing) nor imposing (height does not equal ass-kicking capability), for the vast majority of the match she just stood in front of my section and NEVER MOVED. Hi, we came here to watch a wrestling match, not stare at the back of your head.
– Also, once Shawn Davari, or as he’s known now, Sheik Abdul Bashir, came out and delivered his promo, the fans started up with the knee-jerk “USA†chant, and the woman behind me started chanting “GO HOME!†at him. Yes, Shawn, yes, go back to Minnesota! We don’t want your kind in New Jersey! In all seriousness, this got Creed the babyface reaction he was looking for, at least, and the match between the two should probably be entertaining, if nothing else.
– Moving on, the six-woman tag-team match came off reasonably well live, though the only people who drew any sort of a good reaction from the crowd were ODB and Awesome Kong; Gail got a decent pop, but Taylor might as well be surnamed “Milde†because no one really seemed to care about her one way or the other, and The Beautiful People were met with catcalls and general indifference. The fans were pretty into the match, by and large, though the only time anyone was really cheering like crazy was when Kong was in the ring destroying people (though really, how can you not love that?). Also, that stuff Talia/Velvet Sky was spraying around the ring smelled awful. Just saying.
– Beer Money versus LAX went over VERY well live, and the fans were seriously into the match, with dueling chants going across the arena and lots of crowd heat. Homicide and Hernandez wrestle in local federations pretty frequently and Beer Money, well, their team name is hilarious, so either way the heat wasn’t surprising. Also, Hector Guerrero, Miss Jackie and Salinas/Shelly Martinez are generally great managers/valets/whatever because they know how to stay out of the way and sell the match, so bravo to them. Homicide’s selling of the eyes was fantastic, also; at one point, and I don’t know if the camera caught this or not, he went out to the corner and had Hector borrow a bottle of water from a fan at ringside to wash his eyes out with, which was pretty funny and almost made me believe he was legit having vision problems in the ring. Also, the spot where Hernandez threw Homicide over the rope onto Beer Money was followed up by the ref running over to Hector and saying “Holy shit, did you tell them to do that?â€, with Hector wisely denying any complicity in the action, which was also pretty amusing. Anyway, good match all around that was fun to watch, and the fans loved it, so bravo.
– So the Dutt versus Lethal match was looking to be great from the get-go, largely because, again, Jay Lethal was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and would have pretty much gotten huge crowd reactions even for a stinker of a match. The “Black Tie Brawl and Chain†stipulation, however, pretty much proved to be capable of killing the most rabid crowd, as even with a pretty interesting start (complete with a totally awesome “Val goes to kiss Lethal and he completely blows it off†moment at the beginning of the match), the fans completely turned on it, chanting both “Fire Russo†and “Boring†at various points. I can see how it might have been an interesting idea on paper, but after Dutt ripped off Lethal’s shirt it looked like the guys were dragging a clothesline around with them and the match just kind of fell apart. What a waste.
– The ring crew was running around like crazy during Booker’s promo setting up the various signs and weapons for the “New Jersey Street Fight†match, which, contrary to my expectations, did not involve any sort of gang violence. Except for the part where the match had to be watched on the video screens for about half of it because we couldn’t actually see what was going on in the stands, the match was pretty amusing and did its job reasonably well. It also bears noting that at one point the fans began chanting “ECW†at the wrestlers and Rhino apparently took offense to this, as he shouted at the fans “F*** that, TNA!â€, which was apparently a convincing enough argument for the fans to change their chant. The fans were pretty much into the match and all four guys were well-liked, and they had a fun, enjoyable match as a result. The most over entity in the entire match was the table Team 3D dragged out, in case you were wondering.
The Abyss save at the end was also well-received, though the fans weren’t too pleased with his decision to not cane the hell out everyone in the ring.
– Also, is it just me or does Christian spend every match with his mouth hanging open?
– Angle versus Styles was pretty much the match of the show, and the fans were more than happy to get into dueling chants for both guys throughout the match. You could make the argument, and it’d be valid, that the psychology of the match was kind of all over the place, but it was an intense, enjoyable match that was a blast to watch live and got the fans nice and worked up, and considering what came before it, that’s probably all that was really needed. The way the “Last Man Standing†stipulation was set up (where one guy gets a pinfall or submission, and the other one has to answer the ten count) was confusing to follow at first, but it actually worked out really well in the end and probably helped the match out in the long run, crowd-reaction wise. The bit at the end where the ref flashed the X sign and the EMT’s came out to take Angle backstage was actually really well done and believable until AJ came back and suplexed Angle again, which pretty much convinced everyone that Angle was fine after all, but it still looked pretty cool. Oh, and Sting got a real big pop for laying out Styles. I don’t know why, but whatever.
– And just to make my night complete, Samoa Joe decided to make a big show of posing in front of our section, meaning I got a face-full of Joe’s bag. For the record, if I had ever wanted to go to a TNA show ever again, that pretty much would have changed my mind.
– The Joe versus Booker “Six Sides of Steel†World Title match was pretty well-received by the fans, largely because many of the people attending the show are also ROH fans and as such were more than happy to cheer for Joe. If you want to make your champion look popular, book a title defense somewhere where the fans will love him, I suppose. The match itself was pretty obviously going to be decided by pinfall or submission, as the cage segments were being held in place with plastic zip-ties which started falling off about five minutes in, at least on the side I was on. The match itself was okay, though if you feel the need to do an enziguri four times in one match it’s fairly safe to say your match isn’t going to win any awards, and everything felt rushed because Booker and Joe really only had about fifteen minutes to do anything, though after the Angle/Styles match, I don’t think anyone was expecting this to be the match of the night or anything. Also, it looked like someone from outside handed the guitar in to Joe (most likely the ring crew guy who was standing in that corner on the outside for almost the entire match), so if you were wondering how Joe got the guitar, there you go.
Also, it’s very hard to get good shots through a cage, so this was the best that could really be done. Sorry.
Anyway, the show was decent enough that the fans weren’t really bored or unhappy with the results, but it wasn’t really a good way to introduce the show to the audience, especially an audience made up of cynics and “smartsâ€. As a first-time attendee of a TNA live event I don’t think I’d want to go to another one, especially if I’m going to have to go through another evening of enduring Rhaka Kahn’s ass, bad gimmick matches and Joe’s junk. I didn’t hate the show as much as Aaron did, mind you, but it wasn’t really a show that would motivate me to want to spend more money on the product, and that’s terrible.
