It's Time to talk TNA

I don't know if anybody's heard, but TNA is moving their tv show, Impact!, to Monday Nights starting tonight. In a futile attempt to re-start wrestling's famous Monday Night Wars, TNA has decided, what the hey, let's take on the WWE and their flagship show, Raw. Will I watch? No. But I do hope TNA succeeds, or at least does well enough to rattle the WWE some. After all, competition is good for business. I don't think TNA will succeed, but you never know. I want to like TNA, but they just make it so difficult, between their asinine booking and the belief that everybody that ever wrestled for the WWE or WCW should be instantly pushed over their home grown talent. TNA has shot themselves in the foot more than any other wrestling company out there. Every potential breakout star they cultivate, they find a way to screw it up. Whenever they should go one way, TNA usually goes the other way. I haven't watched a full TNA show in three years, partially because it was frustrating to watch, and partially because I really don't watch any current wrestling as a whole, for a myraid of reasons which I won't get into here.

However, since it's such a big day for TNA, I decided, what the heck, I'll watch a few TNA matches and do a review of them for this site. Hopefully there will be some good matches, and if they all suck, well, whatever doesn't kill me only makes be stronger. So win-win. Let's start the madness:

Match 1: Kurt Angle vs. Rhino, Final Resolution 2008 (Special Enforcer: Mick Foley)

They show a video package showing how the match was formed. See, Angle's group, the Main Event Mafia, put a beating on Rhino's friend Christian. Rhino wants revenge. Kurt Angle wants to wrestle Jeff Jarrett, but for some reason Jarrett won't wrestle him and Foley won't make the match. So the final result is Angle faces Rhino. If Angle wins, he gets to wrestle Jarrett at a later date. If Angle loses, he's fired. Well that hardly seems fair, now does it? Foley is here to make sure the Main Event Mafia doesn't interfere. So that's that. This match is rather boring, I must say. Angle hit a lot of different suplexes on Rhino that ultimately meant nothing. Angle put on his finisher, the Ankle Lock. Rhino lasted a full minute before countering out, which kind of killed off the move. Angle hit his other finisher, the Angle Slam, on Rhino, but Rhino kicked out at 2. So a mid-card wrestler can withstand both finishing moves of one of your top guys. That's smart. The best move of the match came when Rhino picked Angle up for a powerbomb, but instead of throwing him down, Rhino flipped him over his back so that Angle landed face-first on the top turnbuckle. Rhino went for his finisher, the Gore, about 6 times, but only hit it once, and that was on the referee. Once the ref goes down, Angle goes to get a chair, but is stopped by Foley. Rhino rolls up Angle for the 2 as Foley is now the official. Al Snow comes out for no particular reason, Mick Foley leans through the ropes to talk to him, but gets slapped by Al for his troubles. While Foley chases after Snow, Angle uses the chair on Rhino, than hits another Angle Slam. Foley gets back in and reluctantly delivers the three-count, giving Angle the victory and the opportunity to face Jeff Jarrett. Afterwards, Angle threatens his foes and drops an S-bomb. Good thing this is pay-per-view. Match wasn't terrible, but there was nothing that was too impressive, either. I give it a 2 out of 5.

Match 2: Jeff Hardy vs. Petey Williams, TNA Impact

Jeff Jarrett comes out with a ladder to do some commentary. Mike Tenay mentions that Jarrett and Hardy have an upcoming ladder match for the TNA Title, so that's why Jarrett has a ladder. Petey Williams comes out with Scott D'Amore. Jeff Hardy has a lame entrance song and seems to frothing at the mouth. But Jeff has to refused his rabies shot to get his hands on Petey. Match was about three minutes long, Hardy hit a couple of spots. Jarrett interferes, than AJ Styles interferes, doing his moonsault into reverse DDT maneuver on Petey Williams. Hardy gets the three count, and he and Styles head to the back triumphant. If these two were given 15 or 20 minutes, it could be a good match, or a huge trainwreck. As it is, it's just a match to set up future matches, nothing more. I'll say a 1.6830 out of 5, since everybody hit their moves.

Match 3: Raven vs. AJ Styles vs. Jeff Jarrett, NWA World Title Match

This match is for Jarrett's NWA Title. This match is from TNA's weekly pay-per-view era. There's also cagedancers, which is a little weird, but whatever. Jeff Jarrett has a bad titan tron, and an even worse shirt. If it were any tighter, Jeff Jarrett couldn't breathe. This is actually quite a good match, as everybody came in with their working boots on. Jarrett hit one of the best dropkicks I've ever seen on AJ early in the match. At first, everyone goes after everyone, but after Styles neutralizes Raven with a chair, Raven gets double teamed by his two opponents. That lasts until AJ guillotine leg drops Jarrett. Raven, now freed, becomes a House of Fire, battling his two opponents quite easily. He gives both men his trademark drop toe hold into a chair, and nearly gets the three on Styles before Jarrett breaks it up. After Styles gets knocked outside the ring, Raven gets Jarrett in the DDT position, wait Jarrett counters for a stroke, until Raven counters and hits the DDT on Jarrett. The referee goes to count, but Shane Douglas pulls Raven out of the ring to the shock of the announcers. He then beats Raven up and drags him out of the building, leaving us with Jeff and A.J. Styles nails Jarrett with the title belt, goes up top, and hits a D'Lo Brown style frog splash, Jarrett kicks out. Styles, charges, but Jarrett counters and throws Styles down HARD with an Alabama Slam type maneuver.  Styles gets up, hist Jarrett with a sit out power bomb, but only gets two. Styles goes for the Styles clash, but Jarrett counters, holding Styles on his back and ramming him into the turnbuckles. Uh-oh, he rammed Styles into the ref. Jarrett goes for a superplex, but gets thrown off. AJ tries a springboard 450, but Jarrett gets the knees up. The crowd is on the edge of their seats. Vince Russo comes out with a guitar, fakes hitting Styles and than nails Jarrett. Styles hits the Styles Clash and gets the victory. Vince Russo comes in with the belt and acts like he won the belt. He's more excited than Styles. Good match, but all the outside interference just doesn't work for me, I'll give it a 2.9528429 out of 5.

Match 4: Don Harris vs. Malice, First Blood Match

I bet you didn't expect me to review this match, did ya? I bet most of you that watch wrestling either don't remember this match, or could never mentally conceive a match of such horror. Malice comes out with Father James Mitchell, while Don Harris is announced as TNA's Head of Security. A much better choice than Doug Dillinger, I must say. These two brawl all over the arena, hitting each other with chairs and ramming each other in guardrails all over the place. At one point, Harris hit Malice with a chair, and this one fan  was just losing it over his excitment, just going crazy and acting like he was having convulsions or something. It was just a chair shot by Don freakin' Harris dude, calm down. Anyway, Mitchell comes out with the Arc of the Convenant, which is filled with the blood of an Asian cougar or something. Harris had the advantage for most of the match, until Malice's partner Slash comes in. He pulls out a shank, but Harris takes it away and jabs Slash with it instead. Mitchell interferes, but Harris boots him, spilling all of the cougar blood on Mitchell. Back in the ring, Harris hits Malice with a side slam, but all of a sudden starts bleeding. I don't know how it happened, but Malice wins. Harris gets beat down by Mitchell and his gang, and Mike Tenay is horrified by their actions. Since it was short, I'll give it a 1 out of 5.

Well, thanks for reading. If you have any ideas for future reviews or posts, or would like to contribute a review or post of your own, than e-mail me at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Reviews can be about pretty much anything, so let your imagination run wild, brother. I leave you with the gift of Jeff Hardy's TNA entrance theme. You will not like it.