NWA TNA - 09/10/03
by James Kalyn
Recapped: 09/15/03
Nashville, TN

KJames199: Scott I am stealing your NWA TNA gig again this week if that's okay
ScottieKStones6: what if it isn't okay!
KJames199: Well then I'm not gonna steal it
ScottieKStones6: actually go ahead if you really want to
ScottieKStones6: because I would but I don't actually CARE
KJames199: Well you can do it if you want
KJames199: But I asked Cubs and he said you weren't gonna this week
ScottieKStones6: well I'm just saying I would
ScottieKStones6: but since you brought it up I assume that you want to
ScottieKStones6: which is a little more than I can say for me
KJames199: I will do it if you're not gonna is all
ScottieKStones6: I would but if you're gonna I'm not
ScottieKStones6: what I'm saying, more or less, is sure
KJames199: You can do this week's, Shane Douglas in a big match plus live Roddy Piper should equal hilariousness
ScottieKStones6: oh wait that's RIGHT
ScottieKStones6: the big hair v. hair match
ScottieKStones6: ok I'll do this week

So yeah. Hi! Scott will be back on Wednesday. Until then, you get me, and I got a one-cent clip show.

We open with the fuzzy TNA logo and a highlight video. Lots of big X Division moves, lots of guys who aren't with the company anymore. Lots of Jarrett and Raven, lots of bad computer graphics. They really need some help with those.

Our hosts are Mike Tenay and Don West. They intro an X Division video package, which is basically the X Division stuff from the opening video package. Lots of neat moves, but it's easy to lose interest when you just see them out of context.

Back to Tenay and West who introduce the first clipped match; or rather, they introduce the video packages that introduce the first clipped match. I'm pretty sure West believes that Tenay really is a professor.

Video packages run down the history between Michael Shane, Frankie Kazarian, and Chris Sabin, as well as Don Callis, MBA introducing the Ultimate X match.

Chris Sabin (c, Detroit, MI, 216 lbs)
v. Frankie "The Future" Kazarian (Anaheim, CA, 220 lbs)
v. Michael Shane (San Antonio, TX, 212 lbs)
X Division championship Ultimate X match, August 20, 2003

No limits, no ladders! The steel posts in the corners look easy to climb, and I believe the cables that form the X are actually steel ring ropes, but I'm not sure. Jeremy Borash introduces Sabin as the "current, reigning, and defending" X champ. He's nice and thorough but he won't wear a damn tie.

Sabin hits an enzuigiri on Kazarian and is the first to hang from the cables. Shane makes the save. Kazarian picks Sabin up on his shoulders and Shane - hanging from the cables - goes for a rana. It doesn't work. At all. Splat. Shane and Kazarian head back up to the cables, but Sabin takes them both down with a springboard dropkick. Then he gets a chair and starts hitting people with the chair he got.

Can he stand on the chair to get the belt? What about multiple chairs? Or tables? For that matter, if there's no disqualification, what's to stop you from using a ladder? I mean, really?

Sabin takes down Kazarian with a Sudden Impact or a Gunnslinger or a whatever on the chair. Meanwhile, Michael Shane is bleeding a lot, I guess from a chairshot. Shane stops Sabin from reaching the belt by smacking him with a chair, and we CLIP to a neat move where Sabin dropkicks a sitting Kazarian in the face while giving Shane a Samoan drop. Kazarian and Shane climb the ropes. Shane sends Kazarian to the mat, but then Sabin climbs over and powerbombs Shane off the ropes. Nice!

Apparently the belt fell around here, but they clipped that. Sabin and Kazarian are hanging on opposite sides of the belt. They kick and they kick and they both fall. Back up on the ropes, and Kazarian boots Sabin to the mat... just in time to see Michael Shane come speeding along the ropes to steal the belt. This is a pretty neat idea for a match. (9:47 aired)

Back to Tenay and West. Boy, that X Division is exciting! So's the tag team division!

Triple X (c, "Prime Time" Elix Skipper &"Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels, 475 lbs)
v. America's Most Wanted ("Wildcat" Chris Harris & "Cowboy" James Storm, 498 lbs)
World tag team championship cage match, June 25, 2003

As AMW enter the cage, West and Tenay do a great job of running down the history between these two teams. He also talks about Sgt. Slaughter and Don Kernodle against Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood, and notes that this is the first ever cage match in NWA TNA history.

Apparently, Triple X is not wearing S.E.X. shirts because Vince Russo owns the rights to the name and he's not letting anyone use it. I don't really know what this means, and I sure don't care.

Tenay notes that this match is not a climbing contest - it's victory by pinfall or submission. I like that rule, but I don't get why there are tags in a cage match. Just let all four dudes fight.

Harris and Storm dominate to start, culminating with a bulldog on Daniels. It doesn't take long for Daniels to take over, and soon Harris is bleeding badly from the forehead. It's one of those gross cuts where you can see fresh blood coming out and running down and ew. Skipper tags in and hits a springboard moonsault for two. Harris comes back with a clothesline and we have a hot tag. A loving crowd chants "kill the cowboy." Undaunted, Storm takes out both Skipper and Daniels and lands a powerslam for two.

Daniels comes back with this really weird and sloppy and painful-looking knee to the back of the head. Now Storm is bleeding too. Daniels holds Storm for Skipper, but Skipper trips over his own feet while climbing the ropes and receives a "you fucked up" chant.

Harris tags back in and backdrops Skipper into the steel. Then he scoops Daniels and runs him headfirst into the cage, like how Kevin Nash tried to ram Rey Mysterio headfirst into that trailer that time. A full nelson slam gets two. He goes for the Catatonic, but Daniels reverses into the Angel's Wings - it only gets two.

Storm and Daniels brawl into a corner, then up the corner, then along the top rope, where Daniels beats Storm's head into the cage a lot. Skipper takes Harris and throws him into the cage, then hits this weird inverted headlock takeover. He climbs the cage, but Harris follows him to hit a top rope powerbomb for two.

Daniels picks up Storm and hits the Last Rites, but Harris makes the save. I notice that we're not too concerned about tagging anymore. Harris and Daniels brawl into a corner, then up the corner, then along the top rope (this seems so familiar), and then Harris spears Daniels off the rope. Skipper grabs Storm and goes for the Play Of The Day - he doesn't get all of it, but it gives him a chance to scale the cage and leap off the top with a cross body block from the top of the cage. The crowd chants "TNA" at the behest of head cheerleader Jeremy Borash. Skipper climbs the cage again, but Harris tosses him all the way to the floor. Daniels panics as he realizes he's left alone. Skipper tries to climb back in but he's knocked off the cage by Harris as Storm superkicks Daniels. AMW goes for the Death Sentence on Daniels, but they don't get all of it and they only get two.

Skipper climbs the cage, Skipper's knocked to the floor again. Storm grabs Daniels, Harris climbs the cage, and the Death Sentence off the top of the cage wins it. I don't know if this was the match of the year, but it was pretty damn good. (17:48 aired)

Tenay and West show some clips of Glennnn Gillllbbbberrr... Disco Inferno introducing Simon Diamond and Johnny Swinger. AMW gets attacked, strapped, hung, and Diamond and Swinger win the tag belts with a Problem Solver (like a 3D but with a DDT instead of a Diamond Cutter).

Oh man, now I get to recap Shane Douglas' feud with Raven! James Mitchell tosses fire at both Raven and Alexis. Didn't he blow some fingers off practicing that? Oh well, back on the horse, I guess.

The fire-throwing horse.

You know, "Clockwork Orange House Of Fun" is not nearly as cool or ominous or impressive as Raven seems to think.

Shane Douglas spears Raven through a table. You know what miss about ECW? I miss Rhino goring Sandman's wife through a table on every PPV. That always looked awesome.

Not looking awesome: the Raven's Clockwork Orange House Of Fun graphics. They have a very SCTV look to them. Actually, all NWA TNA graphics looks like something you'd see on SCTV, but these ones are especially bad.

This is a COHOF match (haha "cohof" sounds funny) with The Disciples Of The New Church ("Killdozer" Brian Lee & Slash) and Shane Douglas against Raven, Alexis, and Julio Dinero . Raven talks a LOT through his entrance video. For some reason, there is an hourglass. Apparently, COHOF means that there will be a bunch of weapons hanging around the ring. Raven bleeds right away. Alexis hits some guys with a cane, then tosses the cane and nearly takes out the referee in hilarious fashion. Raven puts Douglas through a table, but then an arm drags Raven under the ring. When Raven gets rolled out, he's out cold and Douglas pins him.

More clips. Ahahahaha, Shane Douglas is making the most awesome bug-eyed face. It reminds me of when Jimmy Snuka was on Piper's Pit in the spring during those two weeks when Roddy Piper was back in WWE. Anyway, Piper was trying to antagonize Snuka, and Snuka could show no emotion at all - he'd just stare. Yeah. Douglas looked like that.

You had to be there.

Raven drops Douglas with a Raven Effect DDT, but Mitchell shows up on the big screen to show Julio and Alexis all tied up. Lee has a torch and Mitchell talks about Raven's moral dilemna. Sure enough, Raven abandons Douglas to save Julio and Alexis. Backstage, Raven finds an empty room, as Mitchell has brought Alexis and Julio to the ring. Isn't that always the way, crossing paths like that? Raven rushes the ring for the save, but falls victim to the group and winds up in a bodybag.

One week later (or maybe many weeks later, I wasn't paying attention): Raven calls out Douglas, but the lights go out and the mystery man attacks Raven again. Then there's a not-a-Royal-Rumble and Raven makes a shocking return. You can tell it's shocking because Shane Douglas goes bug-eyed again. A Raven Effect secures a win and an NWA title match for Raven.

In the title match, the ref gets knocked out and can't count the pin for Raven. Slash interferes, but Raven does the ol' oh-ho-I-see-you-brought-powder-with-which-to-blind-me-well-I-will-kick-it-into-your-face trick. Blinded, Slash hits a Whirlybird on the wrong guy, that being champion AJ Styles. And might I just say that I love the fact that the demonic, Satanic, disciple of the new church has a finisher called a Whirlybird. Anyway, Douglas interferes, Styles hits a Styles Clash and wins.

Now we see Shane Douglas cutting tiny amounts of Raven's hair from the end of Wednesday Bloody Wednesday. Next week: Raven and Shane Douglas, hair versus hair.

But before Shane Douglas, there was Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett and Raven fought in April, and Mike Tenay has said about eight hundred times that this was the most important match in TNA history. On this show, though, it's a big clip job so I'm not recapping it. Hey, there's The Harris Boyz and Mike Sanders and Fat Mike Awesome who kinda looks like Meat Loaf used to, and now in comes Perry Saturn and Sandman and New Jack and Justin Credible, who was on Meltzer's radio show this weekend and who sounded like a really nice guy. Just sayin'.

Man, that's a lot of outside interference by a lot of guys you don't see much of anymore.

You know, I'd much rather have Justin Credible teaming with Lance Storm on Raw instead of this stupid thing where Storm dances around and pretends to have charisma. But then I'm an ECW mark, and besides, I hate almost everything on Raw these days, and over half of everything on Smackdown. Maybe it's best they don't use my ideas.

Actually, it's probably not.

Anyway, Jeff Jarrett triumphs over interference by like a hundred guys, a Conchairto, being handcuffed, and a Raven Effect DDT. Partly this is due to Sabu making a surprise appearance to attack The Extreme Revolution. Mostly, though, this is because Jeff Jarrett is the greatest wrestler to ever live and he's not boring or crappy at all. Dusty Rhodes shows up to congratulate Jarrett on winning.

Oh good, here's more clips. Vince Russo hits Raven with a bat so Disco Inferno can beat him. Russo looks WEIRD without a goatee. Next week, Russo hits Disco (arg Russo stay away from Disco) so Jarrett can win. The week after THAT, Russo hits Jarrett with a guitar (earning a gigantic pop from the heel section in the process) allowing AJ Styles to pin Jarrett to take the NWA world title. I tire of recapping video packages. Russo kisses and hugs the belt.

Next package: Jarrett and Sting against Styles and... OMG it's Sean Waltman in a track suit. Sting looks good. Waltman... no. The highlight comes when Sting takes down Styles with a Scorpion Death Drop while simultaneously DDTing Waltman. Jarrett tags in and hits the Stroke on Styles, but Russo comes in with a batshot for Jarrett. That's just what NWA TNA needs, a whole bunch of bats.

Anyway, Raven runs in and so does Douglas. Jarrett hits the Stroke on Styles off the middle rope for the pin. Raven, Sting, and Jarrett clean house. Raven and Jarrett have a staredown, but Sting separates them and raises both their hands.

Now we recap the AJ Styles/D'Lo Brown feud. Styles beats D'Lo in their first world title match thanks to interference by Sonny Siaki who I don't like at all. We get some quick clips of table and ladder bumps, including the stupid ladder match where both D'Lo and Styles grab the belt at the same time. There's a neat spot in a cage match where D'Lo climbs the cage and Vince Russo tries to shake the cage, but he's handcuffed to Erik Watts. Watts and Russo fight, hitting the cage, and sending D'Lo to the mat for a loss.

Next: War Games. I already recapped this. Ahahaha there's that sign again. Look out, sign! Shane Douglas is coming for YOU!

This Wednesday: Roddy Piper live and uncensored. That should be hilarious. Or really sad. Also, it's Raven against Douglas in that hair match. As well, Scott Christ makes his long-awaited return to thecubsfan.com unless he doesn't tape the show.

As for me, I'm going to bed now. Goodnight.