A Detailed Look at a TNA House Show

I am a pro wrestling fan. There, I admit it.

I used to watch religiously back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s but really stopped paying attention around 2006. I go through periods where I’ll have nothing to do on Monday nights, so I’ll check out Raw but after a few weeks I’ll go do something else. I still keep up with most thins, however, thanks to the awesome website The Blog of Doom.

However, I still leap at the chance to attend live events. They’re pretty fun, you’ll feel better about yourself after witnessing some of the ugliest, smelliest people in attendance, and it’s just something to do.

Back in May I found out that TNA, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, would be coming to town on July 28. TNA is the #2 promotion in the country, behind WWE. Founded in 2002 by Jeff and Jerry Jarrett as a refuge for both up-and-coming wrestlers and wrestlers blackballed from WWE, the promotion held weekly pay-per-view shows from its inception until 2004, when they purchased a one hour TV slot on Fox Sports Net. After a year of airing their show iMPACT! on Friday afternoons, they were picked up by Spike TV where they can be seen on Thursday nights.

TNA films their show in the Universal Studios theme park in Orlando and has only recently branched out and started doing house shows across the country. I was at one of the very first house shows in January 2008 when they came through Austin and had a good time, so I jumped at the chance to get tickets when I found out they were coming back.

The show was held at Austin Music Hall, a venue downtown that was recently renovated. It looks pretty nice and would be a blast to see a music show at, however it was kind of awkward for a wrestling event.

One of the perks to the tickets I bought was that I was granted access to a special Meet and Greet before the show. We were allowed in at 5:30 p.m. (two hours before the show began) where we were greeted by former TNA commentator Don West. You may have heard of him from one of those QVC-type shopping networks, where he sold GEM MINT TEN baseball cards and such. He was hawking more merchandise here. After welcoming us and going over the rules of the Meet and Greet he started hawking merchandise, explaining that we needed to have TNA merchandise for the wrestlers participating in the Meet and Greet to sign. Since I own zero TNA merchandise, I wound up purchasing a souvenir program for $20, featuring pictures of everyone on the roster. Kind of a ripoff, but whatever. He was also hawking these specialty guitars with Jeff Jarrett’s picture engraved on them: If you bought one for the low price of $175, you got to go backstage and meet the wrestlers. I can’t play guitar and didn’t have $175 on me, so I passed. There were also other things you could buy to go backstage, such as Jeff Hardy action figures, but who wants one of those?

They did have one special deal, however, the “Brown Bag Special.” If you purchased their exclusive “Impact Wrestling” tour t-shirt for $20, you received a drawstring backpack with four random TNA DVDs for free. Considering most wrestling DVDs run for $15-20 each, this is a great deal, and I had planned on buying a shirt anyway, so why not? I ended up with four pay-per-view events, Genesis 2007, Lockdown 2008, Bound for Glory 2008 and Against All Odds 2009. Not too bad of a haul, as I recall the Lockdown show being very good.

So my mom and I (she took my extra ticket after nobody else wanted to go) lined up around the guardrail for the autograph session. A few wrestlers came out and would sign your merchandise and take pictures. My camera’s memory card ended up funking out earlier that day so I had to rely on my cell phone for pics. My mom took the pictures during this autograph session, and as you can see, they came out… not so good. That’s parents for you, never knowing how to work technology. Anyway, the wrestlers I got signatures from were Hernandez and Crimson (pictured above), Gunner, “The Pope” D’Angelo Dinero and female wrestlers Rosita and Sarita, whose autographs I did not get because they stormed right by my section and kind of got the hell out of dodge. I did, however, later get Don West’s autograph. GEM MINT TEN.

Here’s where things get funny. The Pope, formerly known as Elijah Burke in WWE, signs my program and looks over at my mom and apologizes for not chatting with her more, claiming that he just had Subway for dinner and that his breath smells like onions. My mom laughs and I ask if he had a five, five dollar, five dollar footlong. He chuckles and tells me it was six dollars, but that they jack up the price to ten dollars because he always has to have extra meat on his subs. He looks at all the women in the surrounding area and says “And you know baby I like my sandwiches like I like my women, extra meaty.” Hilarious. He’s signed two or three more people’s stuff by now and my mom is still laughing, so he points back at her and goes “This one is still laughing because she knows she’s going to go home and think about the Pope all night long.” Yes folks, my mother was hit on by The Pope. Helloooo rich new wrestler stepfather!

Don West Hawking Merchandise!

So with the Meet and Greet basically finished, we found our seats. Don West announced that before the show started, we could choose to either get a picture with female wrestler Velvet Sky for $10 or get a free autograph from Brother Devon, formerly known in WWE as D-Von Dudley. I had already spent enough money and the Devon line was shorter, so I got his autograph and got to shake his hand. I also met an A&M grad in line who noticed my hat then my Aggie Ring. See, networking!

Around 7:30 p.m. the show began. Ring announcer Jeremy Borash came to the ring and welcomed us all and went over the general rules about not throwing shit in the ring, yadda yadda yadda. And with that we were onto our first match.

Shannon Moore def. Devon and Hernandez in a triple threat match

I won’t go into the match details because a) people don’t care and b) I don’t remember every move that happened. Hernandez is from Texas so I was surprised that he lost. Shannon Moore sucks, yet was the most cheered person in the match. I don’t know. One of my favorite moments as a wrestling fan was at a WWECW show in 2006 where Shannon Moore was also in the opening match. The crowd was dead silent as soon as the match started, so I yelled to Moore, who had then recently left TNA to return to WWE, “Go back to TNA!” which prompted a burst of laughter from the crowd. Obviously he took my advice.

Mickie James and Velvet Sky def. Sarita and Rosita

Prior to the match, former WWE referee Earl Hebner was introduced. Hebner was the referee who “screwed” Bret Hart (I’m not going into THAT… search “Montreal Screwjob” on Wikipedia), so he put on a pair of Bret Hart sunglasses and strutted around the ring in a funny moment. Rosita and Sarita are Mexican anti-Americans or something. Last time I watched TNA Velvet Sky was a bad guy, part of a group called “The Beautiful People” who placed paper bags over ugly people’s faces. Mickie James is from WWE. The good girls won. People like Mickie James so she was cheered for and you got the general catcalls and such for all the ladies. TNA actually had a really awesome women’s division at one point but they turned it into a joke and now nobody respects it anymore.

“Bound for Glory Series” Match: The Pope def. Samoa Joe

I don’t know what the Bound for Glory Series is but apparently it involves mathematics and the company’s biggest show of the year, Bound for Glory. I’ve already discussed The Pope, but the last time I watched TNA, Samoa Joe was a big fat fuck with a tribal tattoo on his face that looked like a penis. Joe was badass around 2005 and 2006 but terrible booking ruined him and he gained a bunch of weight and just doesn’t care anymore. He looks a bit more in shape now and was able to put on an entertaining bout here. Of course he still lost. This was a pretty good match, actually.

“Bound for Glory Series” Match/World Tag Team Championship Match: Beer Money (champs) def. Gunner and Bully Ray

Beer Money is James Storm (a redneck drunk) and Robert Roode (a millionaire Wall Street investor) who started teaming together a few years ago. Bully Ray was Bubba Ray Dudley in WWE, and I guess he’s a bully now. No clue where Gunner comes from. Beer Money got a lot of cheers and Bully Ray was definitely the crowd’s most hated wrestler. I hear from a poster on The Blog of Doom, r8drsuperstar, that Ray is a jackass in real life, so it was pretty funny to me for him to be the only one the crowd hated.

Intermission: Mickie James was signing autographs at the merchandise stand, for free, and I got a good spot in line. The security guys (Atlas Security, made famous by the old ECW. E C DUB! E C DUB!) handed her my program and she signed it. I asked her how she was doing, twice. Smooth! But I also told her she had a good match earlier (total lie, it was worst match of the night) and she thanked me, and told me she enjoyed it because she barely had to work in it. Ha! I told her to have a good evening and went to some insurance stand (some company was sponsoring the tour) to get more free stuff. Earl Hebner was also selling his crappy T-shirt and signing autographs if you bought one, and Don West joked about it being his 79^th birthday that day.

Crimson def. Jeff Jarrett

I already talked about Jarrett earlier, but he’s been around forever, holding the TNA World Title forever and generally only founding the company so that he could become a big star. I saw him once at my first show back in 1999 where he was in a match with Owen Hart. That was a long ass time ago, so I was kind of excited to see him live again. No clue who Crimson is but apparently he’s undefeated and they want him to be the next Goldberg or something. Meh. Match was a lot shorter than expected and seemed like it had a fluke ending since Jarrett dominated the majority of the match.

Main Event: AJ Styles def. Mr. Anderson

Prior to the match, Borash announces that it's been a long time since TNA has been to Austin (three and a half years!) and they'll be back soon. Uh huh, they ALL say that. Mr. Anderson was known as Mr. Ken Kennedy in WWE, where he said his name twice and injured himself every other week. My friend Kevin is a HUGE fan of his for some reason. AJ Styles was in WCW during its dying days and is pretty much the biggest star to come from TNA. This was probably the best match of the night, as both guys hit all of their signature spots/moves. There was also a morbidly obese dude who was trying to steal people’s seats until security finally noticed and told him to leave.

After the show, Borash told us that we could pay $20 to get inside the ring and take a picture with Fourtune, the name of the group featuring Styles and Beer Money. I didn’t want to spend anymore cash and was hungry at this point (the venue only served alcohol and no food, which created many intoxicated people) so my mom and I left.

Overall it was a solid show. The wrestling was nothing to write home about but everything was solid, and you could tell that the company wanted to give back to the fans. And the wrestlers appeared to be giving a shit, which is different from what you normally hear. And I was entertained, and isn’t that all that matters here?