WWE

[Halcyon]

TNA was indeed great last night. Had an excellent time. Here be my report for the observer that wasn't used.

Started off with Alex Shelly vs Eric Young vs Jay Leathal vs Doug Williams for the X Division title. It was a solid enough match, but not nearly as good as it should have been given the calibre of the competitors. Doug seemed over, but was very quiet for the most part during the match. Not a good showing by him if you’re hoping to get signed. Shelly won to retain.

Scott Steiner Creed beat Consequences with the recliner. Plenty of ‘you can’t wrestle’ chants, which I though was a bit unfair. Scott took a drop kick to the chest off the turn buckle which looked like it hurt, but a pretty bog standard match. It’s obviously been a long hard tour for some of the guys, and so far they all look very tied and certainly a step or two slower than they should be.

Taylor Wilde and ODB beat The Beautiful People when ODB running power slammed one of the girls for the pin. A good fun match, with plenty of set pieces for the fans (inc a boob grabs on Earl Hebnor of all people). Taylor and Angelina had a surprisingly decent exchange early on, even managing to successfully tease the hot tag three times. ODB very over with the crowd, for some reason.

Davari, sorry, Sheik Abdul Bashir pinned Brutus Magnus with his feet on the ropes, only for the match to be restarted with and Magnus immediately rolling through a cross body from the turn buckle. Why restart if you’re going to go home within 20 seconds? No crowd heat here at all, and it severely hurt the quality of the match. Magnus has a decent look, and was cut like steak – but his move set is soooo very generic. Will be just another guy within a week if he gets on tv full time.

‘London’ Street Fight between Team 3D and Beer Money to close the first half. Loads of fun, even if not much actually happened. Plenty of broom handles, trashcans and pie trays, and combined with standard brawling in the crowd, it meant that there was massive crowd support for this match. Calls for tables and ECW chants really made this match come alive. Storm and Ruude did their part too, playing the perfect heels. D-Von did very little in the match, looked like he might have been carrying an light injury of some sort. Finish saw a 3D on Storm through a rather conveniently placed table. Standard 3D babyface promo and table give away after the match.

After the interval, Borash and some tv crew from both Bravo (the tv channel that carries TNA in the UK) and Spike came out to film some crowd shots for the next tv advert. He really does know how to gee up the crowd, and the crowd seems willing to chant and shout for TNA. Do these people even watch Impass? How can you go so bat sh*t crazy for a company that produces such bad television? Boggles my mind.

Either way, apparently this is the largest TNA crowd ever…. Dixie Carter ‘confirms’ this later. Wembley Arena holds 12500 people, but I’d estimate no more than 10000 present, what with ring and entrance ramp setup. Foley announces they’ll be doing a PPV or a ‘live Bravo tna broadcast event’ in England at some point in the future, whatever that means.

Samoa Joe and AJ Styles vs Matt Morgan and Abyss. The match played up to Morgan’s massive size all the way through, pairing him with the diminutive AJ Styles. They get the heat on AJ before Joe makes the comeback. Nice spot with Morgan setting up the big boot on Joe, but misses and plants it on Abyss. Styles makes a springboard 450 splash for the pin. Styles and Joe were so very much over with the crowd it was unbelievable, and just highlighted how underused they were this evening. Would have preferred to have seen them in singles matches, or even against each other (to hell with story lines)… maybe next time.

Morgan and Abyss argue and breakup after the match. I was going to ask ‘why is Morgan angry with Abyss, when it was Morgan that lost them the match?’, but then I remembered that nobody cares about them. At all.

Jeff Jarrett vs Kurt Angle to finish the show. A great little match, simple but effective. Most of it was spent trading chops (including numerous ‘woo’ chants), shoulder barges and punches… but if it means if they don’t have to kill each other it’s fine by me. A couple of great belly to belly suplexes from Angle, and a very impressive sunset flip from the turn buckle. Finish saw Steiner come to the ring with a chair, Foley make the save and give Angle the mandible claw, and then a very pain full looking guitar shot to Angle’s head and neck courtesy of Jarrett. It looked like it hurt. Jeff got cut from something, didn’t look like a juice job, but he was defiantly bleeding a bit. Jarrett thanked the fans for helping TNA survive for 7 WHOLE YEARS~!

The rest of the babyfaces came to the ring to thank the crowd, wave goodbye, and generally do babyfacey stuff. Overall, it was a great show, with plenty there to be happy about. TNA certainly know how to treat the fans (in the arena at least), and can put on a really great live show when they want to. They just need to sort their horrible television out.

Edited January 25, 2009 by Halcyon

[Halcyon]

anywho... anyone else stopping up for the rumble?

[Uncle Liam]

anywho... anyone else stopping up for the rumble?

[funkymp]

Jeff got cut from something, didn’t look like a juice job, but he was defiantly bleeding a bit.

[The Nal]

anywho... anyone else stopping up for the rumble?

[metallimuse]

Is it pay per view or on sky sports?

[Sparticus]

box office *cough* justintv, don't give me that look, it was on ss1 then on channel 4 then the greedy buggers put them all on box office when it had previously been included in the sky sports package. I'll stay up for it, edge vs jeff will be good to watch and the rumble is a once a year thing.

Just one question, does anyone have a good valium hookup for cena jbl that street fight they had was ok at best (maybe because they staged it to look like a scene from a bad action flick lol), but it doesn't scream title match lol.

[luckysalt]

anywho... anyone else stopping up for the rumble?

[minute5072]

wont get to sleep for a while yet so will probably give it a watch

kinda tempted to try and stay up to watch the murray match after it....

[metallimuse]

Just heard of someone in the rumble tonight who hasn't been mentioned

pretty huge, don't read unless you want it spoiled

Rob Van Dam

[metallimuse]

box office *cough* justintv,

[metallimuse]

I take it back,it's frozen.

[Halcyon]

not sure I should have bothered. :rollseyes:

[Uncle Liam]

The last

Matt v Jeff

[Halcyon]

Fancy a bit of a chuckle?

comments on www.myspace.com/theonlymatthardy3

The "WWE Universe" in full effect~!

Edited January 26, 2009 by Halcyon

[Gre]

Well I rather liked it... EXCEPT i haven't watched any WWE since the last PPV, and I could tell that Orton was going to win - it was the only story they focused on at all. Stoopid.

[Sparticus]

I take it back,it's frozen.

[Gre]

The pedant in me came out though when undertaker was out as you can't get taken out by someone already eliminated.

Edited January 26, 2009 by Gre

[Sparticus]

That's just payback for Maven - he's still in that 2002 Royal Rumble you know!

[Uncle Liam]

Someone want to copy and paste Matt Hardy bullshit as i'm in school and myspace is blocked.

[Halcyon]

Someone want to copy and paste Matt Hardy bullshit as i'm in school and myspace is blocked.

[Elbear]

Matt you lost all my respect when you turn on your bro and costed him the WWE title, especially helping Edge! explain to me and everyone why you would help Edge!??

i thought Christian was behind all this i didnt expect or beleive it would be his own brother.....DAMM!!

[Halcyon]

Hurrah!

ROH have officially signed a deal with HDnet to start producing a weekly tv show. No idea when they're going to start, or even what format the show will take, but this can only be good for the company.

[luckysalt]

Right just watched the whole of the royal rumble ppv without knowing any results in advance, the undercard, average at best, ECW match was ok, womens title was decent, ahd some good moments,

Cena v JBL was horrible as expected and the whole HBK thing made no sense at all, so he battles his demons and takes out JBL, then thinks better of it and takes out Cena so his debt would be cleared but then just walks off and lets Cena win the match anyway, where is this going? obviously JBL v HBK at mania but the angle was just dumb last night

Jeff v Edge, they tried hard but, it was a case of we've seen it all before, very average, glad Edge has the title back, Jeff just wasn't built up right to have the title at this moment in time, the whole Matt v Jeff thing is stupid, and needs to be very special to get over I think, the crowd really wanted Christian and seemed pissed when he didn't turn up

The actual Rumble well like Gre said as soon as the show started you thought hang on, is Orton gunna win this, then when JBL didn't win the title there went the hopes of HBK winning it, and when Jericho had his little chat with Orton backstage it was clear as day Orton was winning the rumble

But in regards of the rumble match, I'd say it was up there with the best, big names turning up early and althroughout, some excellent in ring action, a few too many walk in the ring and get chucked straight out at the end, although Ziggler and Santino was pretty funny, Santino especialy, hated Brian Kendrick going out straight away but I'd say maybe that was THE best rumble match ever, I really enjoyed it

Now the road to wrestlemania is upon us, I expect the product to pick up, it had better, the Orton angle is very interesting, lets see where they go with it

[luckysalt]

Just heard the plan is Chris Jericho v Mickey Rourke at WrestleMania, hmmmm