By Scott Bowden
October 27, 2005
Scott Bowden’s KFR Heat Lamp: TNA proves they are bound for glory, while WWE’s Vince McMahon makes an ass of himself on RAW
“Thank you for the WRESTLING.”
--Handmade sign of a ringside fan at TNA’s BOUND FOR GLORY PPV
If wrestling fans worldwide would have had the option of flipping back and forth between Sunday’s TNA PPV and Monday’s RAW on USA, the Orlando upstart would have flattened Vince McMahon with the apparent velocity of a Samoa Joe clothesline.
Yes, imagine viewers disgusted with purgatory-proctologist Vince McMahon jack-hammering Jim Ross’s ass—making light of a potentially real colon-cancer threat—flipping over to Spike TV to find AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels working their asses off in delivering yet another state-of-the-art mat classic. In this scenario, TNA wins hands down.
Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps the wrestling viewing public wants toilet humor regurgitated from the WWF Attitude era. Or maybe—just as Stephanie McMahon chastised the live audience Monday—WWE needs to stop doing the same old thing and come up with something original. Like, I don’t know, wrestling, for example.
Unfortunately for wrestling fans, TNA’s BOUND FOR GLORY was a Sunday PPV effort, and not free head-to-head Monday night competition with WWE’s RAW. While TNA’s IMPACT! TV show is currently relegated to a Saturday night timeslot, McMahon had better be looking over his broad shoulders.
Sunday’s TNA PPV show started off in a positive way—and I’m not even talking about the opening match. I hate to make light of Kevin Nash’s condition, and I hope his health is not in jeopardy…but…I couldn’t help but be pleased with the fact that he was out of the main event with Jeff Jarrett. Nothing personal—big Kev has certainly drawn money in his day. But that day was around 1996.
For the fledging TNA to catch up and eventually overtake WWE, they need to promote the antithesis of the Former Fed’s product. TNA seems to have grasped this philosophy…yet they still promoted a Nash vs. Jarrett main event for the World title. (Change is sometimes painfully slow in the wrestling business.) Like I said last week, there’s no arguing that Jarrett and Nash have some name value with casual wrestling fans…unfortunately most associate these former WWF stars with WCW’s dying days, especially the so-called King of the Mountain. (On that note: A minor quibble, but TNA really needs to overhaul some of these nicknames: Diamonds in the Rough? The Charismatic Enigma? The Tall, Ticked-Off Texan? Puh-leese. That being said, you can’t go wrong with The Samoan Submission Machine and the Fallen Angel.)
Sunday’s TNA opener with Samoa Joe vs. Napoleon Dynamite’s favorite wrestler, Jushin Liger, was solid but short. Liger obviously has lost a step or two from the days when I received tapes of his work in Japan in the early ’90s—man, remember how you used to mark out over his Shooting Star Press? (Loved those open-hand palm thrusts, though.) Still, he looked pretty sharp, though they weren’t really given enough time, which is a shame. Samoa Joe’s work looked tight as ever here, and I applaud TNA for slowly building this guy up to be a superstar. (Given the “Joe” chants from the crowd, the guy’s definitely ready for the World title picture.)
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Side-Note Slam: I could be wrong here, but it seems as if Liger has increasingly added open-hand palm thrusts to his repertoire in place of the “high-risk moves” that used to define his career. Reminds me of Mick Foley asking Jim Cornette for his suggestions on a more grounded attack in place of the elbow from the ring apron, which was shredding his hip. Cornette reportedly replied, “Mick, have you ever heard of the Mandible Claw?”
Monty Brown is another guy ready for main-event status, not only for his work but also for his presence—he makes you question if that crazed, intense look in his eyes is merely a work. (Given his NFL linebacker past, I’m not so sure.) At first glance, Lance Hoyt looks like a young version of WWE’s Test—but I’ve never seen Test move like this lanky Texan. Nice false finish, with Hoyt barely surviving the Alpha slam, before eventually falling to the Pounce, which is a wince-inducing finisher, especially within the confines of TNA’s six-sided ring.
While I was a fan of TLC matches years ago, WWE has killed the Ladder Match gimmick with overbooking. While the Ultimate X concept somewhat mirrors the objective of a Ladder Match, the X-Division specialty bout takes violence to a whole new level. Maybe that’s because the Ultimate X idea is still a bit fresh, especially to me, and the death-defying spots come off as being innovative, and more important, unrehearsed. That said, TNA really needs to figure out a way to prevent the damn X prop from falling to the mat, which threatened to kill the bout. Solid work all around, especially with Chris Sabin and Petey Williams, though Matt Bentley impressed as well.
And I’ll be damned if Traci isn’t the ideal opposite to WWE Divas. I mean, you want to date Stacie Keibler—you want to screw Traci’s brains out. Plus, you get the feeling Traci would have your back in a bar fight, an attractive quality for yours truly of late. (Don’t ask.) The sexy girl-next-door gimmick works OK for some of the modern-day Divas, but Traci is sexy in a rough-around-the-edges way, which fits TNA just fine, thank you very much.
Besides, on her Web site, Traci says her favorite wrestlers are Ricky Steamboat, Randy Savage, Chris Benoit, and Rick Rude, so that alone puts her over with me.
The finish might have been marred when the X fell in Petey’s arms, making him the apparent winner. This seemed to confuse not only the fans but also the announcers, as the X had fallen to the mat moments earlier as well. I was surprised Mike Tenay (who was his usual excellent self) or Don West (bearable) didn’t cover it by stating that if the X hits the mat, then the ring crew reattaches the X and the match resumes; however, if the wrestler grabs it before it hits the mat, he’s the winner. Yeah, that sounds a bit hokey, but at least it would have been a somewhat logical explanation. As it was, the finish came off like they ended the bout prematurely. The good news: A rematch has been scheduled for TNA’s first prime-time special on Spike TV on Thursday, Nov. 3.
Just when you thought you’d seen modern-day mat violence at its best, the Monsters Ball bout followed, highlighted by arguably Jeff Hardy’s craziest bump yet. (You read that right.) As a matter of fact, as Hardy kept ascending before delivering a Holy-Shit!-inducing Swanton Bomb that put Abyss through a table, I was saying to myself, “No, no, noooo!” (Coincidentally enough, I reacted the same way to the McMahon ass skit.) Hardy got his comeuppance later at the finish, though, as Rhino administered a vicious-looking piledriver from the middle rope for the pin. Sabu, to me, looked as good as ever, though maybe a bit slower—but what the hell else do you expect at this point in his career? I’m almost surprised the guy’s still walking. Loved those shots at Abyss with the chair, as they made for a great visual, like King Kong swatting at biplanes. By the way, is it me or does James Mitchell look like he should be hosting a weekly Creature Feature a la Elvira instead of working for a major wrestling promotion?
Hard to top the last match, but at least TNA has the balls to encourage their boys to top the previous bout. WWE would have had a Lingerie Pillow Fight or a McMahon (take your pick) skit at the ready to settle down the crowd. No worries here for TNA, as Styles and Daniels had another classic.
What makes their work so outstanding: Styles and Daniels work the daredevil style today’s fans expect, while at the same time come off like they’re actually wrestling, in part thanks to the crisp countermoves during some of the spots. Brilliant timing at the finish, with Styles winning at 29:58 out of the 30-minute Iron Man match.
With Nash out, and Jarrett’s opponent yet to be named, Larry Zbyzsko called for a 30-minute Gauntlet match to determine the winner. (Sad how during these backstage segments, Shane Douglas gave a better heel spiel than Jarrett.) While I appreciated the way the company put Rhino over so strongly (while at the same time making up for Nash’s no-show), I question the decision to add another match, which ultimately rushed the show. I would have preferred Liger and Joe to have another five or 10 minutes, and give the show a little more time to breathe. They probably should have announced that the winner of the Monsters Ball would receive the title shot, but I understand the need to give the fans something more after reneging on the promised main event. (Again, no offense, but I doubt many fans were upset over the Nash no-show. Really, the X title probably has more prestige the NWA World title, given the way the latter has been booked.)
Rhino eliminated Abyss, and Jarrett’s ring-entrance music started almost immediately after the finish, which meant they were rushing the World championship match…giving the bout an amateurish feel. Rhino got the win after a Gore, earning the WWE castoff the NWA title…for a limited time only, anyway.
(I doubt the title was changing hands if Nash had remained in the picture.) A nice Memphis-style brawl followed, featuring the back-from-the-dead Dudley Boys (now known as “Team 3D”).
Overall, a damn good show, and more important, a strong sign that TNA is perhaps ready to become a viable alternative to WWE on a national scale.
He’s an ass, man: As painful as it was for me to view McMahon’s skit during Monday’s RAW, I’ve read that it was even worse sitting their live watching it on the TitanTron. Apparently, the live crowd was speechless over just how bad it was, with the general consensus was that it was even more uncomfortable than seeing a comedian bomb on stage.
I suppose that sums up WWE nowadays: bad comedy. Years back, when Ted Turner and WCW had McMahon backed into a turnbuckle, the WWE owner made a comeback, reinventing his product to find his audience once again, making new stars along the way, and ultimately, reaching new heights. For the sake of the company (and wrestling fans everywhere), I hope head-to-head competition in the form of a Monday night TNA timeslot on Spike comes to fruition. It may be the only way to wake up McMahon.
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