TNA Telegraph – 16th June 2011 – Jackie said it was reet petite. I said shut up Velvet..By Andrew Pearson| June 19, 2011 TNA Telegraph So Slammiversary is all done and dusted with mostly predictable results it was still an entertaining PPV in the main which has raised my expectations of this coming month leading to Destination X. I probably say this far too often but there are some good things going on in TNA at the moment we’ve just got to hope that TNA realise what those things are. Anyway on to the show itself. There’s a a highlight package of Slammiversary from Bully Ray, Jarret, Angle and Anderson. Jarrett says it’s over with Angle when he says it’s over, great… The show proper opens with Anderson who appears to be sporting a nice black eye. There’s a pinball machine, a stripper pole, some food and beer in the ring. Apparently this is his championship reception or something. Remind me never to go to Mr Anderson’s house parties. Anderson says he doesn’t need anyone in the back or the fans to help him win referencing the fact that Bischoff helped him win at Slammiversary. Errr, nice party bro… When are we playing Pass the Parcel? Gunner comes out and the commentators remind us that Gunner got a pin over Sting last week. Gunner talks about how Anderson asked him to soften up Sting and so he deserves a title match as reward. Anderson thanks him but says Gunner’s services are no longer required and he wishes him the best in all of his future endeavors, arf. Gunner insists but Anderson says no because there are more people ahead in line than Gunner. Anderson says he is thirsty and pours a beer for himself which of course goes into Gunner’s face. Gunner puts Anderson through the table of food with a sort of rock bottom. I don’t know if it was Anderson’s beer or something on the table but Gunner is proper busted open across his eyebrow and nose. The Bound For Glory series is hyped but not really explained though the fact we’re building to something in October now is a pleasant surprise to the usual build the PPV in two weeks attitude that usually accompanies any TNA booking. Sting is here without any make up on. I have to say that he looks so old every time he does that. D-Von vs. Hernandez – we get a replay of Xplosion where D-Von beat Anarquia and was beaten down post match by Mexican America, only for Pope to make the save with his sparkly pimp cane. Hernandez jumps him to start thanks to Sarita distracting the referee for a bout a minute. D-Von gets a clothesline and then spears Hernandez coming out of the corner massively. Tax notes that Devon has lost a decent amount of weight and he does look a lot better than usual. Pope wanders out and sits next to D-Von’s family apparently Devon’s kids like Pope. Hernandez to roll up D-Von who is talking to Pope for two. Thesz Press by D-Von and here’s Mexican America to run in for the DQ after what 2 minutes of wrestling? Pope makes the save after D-Von’s sons insist he do so but Devon apparently would have preferred to get his ass kicked than be saved by Pope. Look, it gets Pope back on our screens so it’s not all bad… it’s just mostly bad. Anderson storms into Bischoff’s office and says Eric needs to get his dog under control. Eric says he could have a month ago but Anderson turned down Immortal. He says Anderson will have to sort his own problems out and makes it Anderson vs. Gunner as the main event. Kurt is here with his kids and… nope that’s it as we go to break… After the break here’s Kurt, minus his kids so there’s one thing to be happy about. Angle talks about how he didn’t just put a gold medal on the line on a whim. He says that in 1996 he trained hard to make the Olympic team and won a gold medal for his country. Angle says he wants to do it again and is trying out for the 2012 Olympic wrestling team at the age of 43. Here’s Jarrett who says it’s not over yet. He says this started with a handshake in Pittsburgh and it will end tonight. Jeff says he wants one more match and doesn’t care if it means leaving the country or moving to Mexico. Angle says Jeff should have more honor than this and needs to just leave. If Jeff can get a document together by the end of the show saying he’ll go to Mexico if he loses, Kurt will see him in the parking lot tonight. How many years have we been doing this angle? One? Two? We get an explanation of this Bound For Glory series stuff. There are 12 people in it and the winner is in the BFG world Title Match. Points can be won in any kind of match on any TNA show, including house shows I think. Here’s how the scoring works: Submission: 10 points Pin: 7 points Count Out: 5 points DQ Win: 3 points Draw: 2 points DQ Loss: -10 points The top four compete at the PPV before BFG and the winner gets the title shot at the biggest show of the year. RVD vs. Samoa Joe is the first match tonight. Eric Young is talking to Matt Morgan about how he needs to get ready for his TV Title match tonight. Morgan says he needs to get ready for the BFG Series. If any match counts for that, why not beat Young at the same time? Anyway, Young says it has to be a TV star he faces for the TV Title. Morgan says an executive producer here used to be on a sitcom so go find him. Apparently there’s going to be a 12 man X division tournament with the winner getting a contract at the PPV. Austin Aries vs. Kid Kash vs. Jimmy Rave – This is part of the aforementioned tournament. We get a replay of their past time in TNA as each man gets to the ring. Aries wants a test of strength with either guy. Aries is sent to the floor and Rave takes over on Kash. Aries comes back in and that goes nowhere as Kash pulls him to the floor. Kash tries a springboard but jumps into a spear by Rave for two. Aries cleans house and sends them both to the floor to set up a suicide dive to take them both out. Kash takes both guys out with a huge spinning dive. Back in the ring Kash and Aries slug it out with Kash getting two. Aries breaks up a Rave cover after Rave hits his spinny finisher on Kash and plants Rave with a brainbuster. Crowd love Aries and you can see why. Great match, just a shame it didn’t get longer. Knockout Tag Titles: Velvet Sky/Miss Tessmacher vs. Sarita/Rosita – Sarita and Velvet start us off. Mexican America has been sent to the back apparently. Velvet sends her flying and it’s off to Rosita and Tessmacher. The challengers dominate for awhile so it’s off to Sarita again. This is your standard Knockouts match, in that they’re nice to look at but at the same time it’s a lot of yelling and not much on the wrestling. Tessmacher looks incredible in those little shorts but she can’t wrestle that well at all. Everything breaks down but as the challengers want a double suplex, here’s ODB to distract Velvet. The champs double team Tessmacher and a flipping splash by Rosita gets the pin. Post match ODB and Velvet yell at each other a lot and here’s Jackie for the double beatdown on Velvet… well it would be a beatdown if Velvet Sky would allow anything to happen to her. I swear she wouldn’t sell crack to an addict. Hebner: Sorry Velvet I said “More talent in her little finger…” Jarrett signs the contract with Hogan for later. Jeff leaves and Sting comes in. On the 14th of July it’s the rematch for the title or the show after Destination X if you like it. Sting believes him and Hogan says there’s a history between them that no one knows about. Sting asks if there’s a shred of the old Hogan left. Sting rants about Hogan’s legacy in WCW and the catchphrases and Hogan’s legacy that he’s leaving for Brooke and Nick (the failed reality star and the near fatal dangerous driver) which sets Hogan off. Hogan tries to throw him out and Sting freaks out, saying he’s not ready to leave. He goes insane, calling Hogan”Terry” and asking if Terry wants to wear a mask. Sting gets the paint from and paints on Hulk’s face while pushing him into the corner. Sting shouts about making the choice and we finally see Hogan with paint all over his face. Sting was a little too OTT as the maniac but clearly Hogan is being rpimed to be the good guy in management to replace mick Foley which at least makes sense as EB is never going to be a crowd favourite. Jackie and ODB rant about cleaning up the division and Velvet jumps ODB because she’s so stupid she thinks 2 on 1 works better for her. Austin Aries says he’s going to make the X-Division matter again. Eric Young pops up and tries to start a TV Title match with the interviewer. He superkicks him and gets a pin with Aries counting. Oh it was Jason Hervey from the Wonder Years, go look him up on Wikipedia. Bound For Glory Series: Rob Van Dam vs. Samoa Joe – This is billed as a dream match by Tenay. The bell is after a break. Joe takes over to start but RVD reverses into a body press for two and hits the floor. Joe catches a slingshot dives into a belly to belly for two in a solid looking spot. RVD avoids a shot in the corner and hits a spinwheel kick to the face of Joe in the corner. Monkey flip out of the corner doesn’t work though as Rob lands on the apron, only to get clotheslined across the top to the floor. Suicide elbow takes RVD out again and Joe is in full control. They change some reversals in the ring and Joe crushes Rob into the corner. Joe’s skin is blood red for some reason. Kick to the back of the head gets two for the Samoan. Joe fires some LOUD chops but runs into a boot in the corner. Rob tries a spinning cross body but Joe goes old school and just moves out of the way of it, letting Rob crash. I love it when he does that. Knee drop gets two and we hit a modified chinlock. RVD fights out of it and gets a Stunner to set up a superkick. Rolling Thunder gets two. Joe counters a leapfrog of all things but walks into the spin kick of Van Dam’s. A Release Rock Bottom out of the corner takes Rob down again and Joe loads up for the Musclebuster. Rob blocks it so Joe tries a superplex instead. Van Dam breaks it up and the Five Star frog Splash from no where give RVD the win. this was great, I really really liked this match and these two worked off each other very well. Gunner is getting medical attention from earlier. The cuts look pretty nasty actually. Gunner vs. Mr. Anderson – Gunner has Bischoff with him but Bischoff heads to the back rather quickly. Non-title here. Interesting note about Anderson here as his first title match is on July 14, meaning there won’t be a world title match at Destination X. After a brief run around outside Anderson gets that neckbreaker of his for two. Off to the chinlock about 90 seconds in with the champion in control. Anderson has a bit of a gut on him. More shots to the back of the head and then Anderson just hammers away. He slams Gunner but misses a Swanton Bomb. Gunner fights back and gets a belly to back suplex for two. Rolling fireman’s carry slam gets two for Anderson so he hammers away a bit more. And now Anderson calls down the mic? He announces that he’s still world champion and walks into the F5 from Gunner for the win. Steiner vs. Ray next week in a BFG match. Steiner rants about how he can’t play the guitar only beat people up. He makes a joke about Bully ray liking sugar but he;s got no doughnuts. This is one of those so insane it’s funny promos from Steiner. A wrestler has picked up a Guitar Hero guitar for a promo. If you took more than one guess that it was Scott Steiner shame on you. Ray says not to crack jokes. God this match could be awesome or a car crash. Time for the parking lot brawl with the circle of cars and wrestlers making it look oh so authentic. Angle takes him down with relative ease and hammers him. This is shot like a fight instead of a match and Angle grabs an armbreaker. Jeff fights out of it and it’s almost all Kurt so far. Jeff sends him into a car . Jeff says he’ll never leave TNA and tells Kurt to go to train for the Olympics before hitting the Stroke on the concrete. Angl;e is out and so Jeff walks off. Angle gets up as Jeff leaves and they go at it some more. Kurt hits the Angle Slam onto a car and Angle chokes Jeff out with his shirt. Jeff mumbles something and Angle leaves. Ray says Jeff never gave up. Jarrett wakes up and says “adios”to end the show so assuming he quit. Weird really, there was never any rule on how it would end and knocking angle out seemed like the real end. still if this is really then end then I’m happy. I don’t care how many amazing matches these two had 8 months ago now they bore the sh*t out of me. I enjoyed a lot of this show, the actual amount of wrestling probably flatters to deceive but it was still 90% good. A lot of people have a hard on for saying Hulk and Bischoff take up too much of the show but I think they are missing the point that they are on screen running the company and so do need to pop up on the show all over the place. When they do they generally do something interesting and that has a point so it’s not like it’s ego driven totally. I am afraid once Destination X is over we’ll lose the X division again and guys like Kash and Aries et al who could bring a lot to TNA will just disappear into the wilderness. I alsothink Kurt should be away from the title at this time. He’s got an amazing drive and has the talent to push himself into great matches at his age but really you’ve got a new young title holder ready for a new younf challenger to give us something new. Obviously Roode will come back into the picture soon and Morgan and even Gunner seem to be getting the thumbs up from the booking team but the actual number one contender is Angle. I fully endorse Sting and Hogan doing something out of the ring but I pray we don’t see it end up in a match. Oh and Tessmacher and Velvet Sky need to meet unfortunate accidents because I’d rather pull out my eyes and stuff raw chillis into the gaping sockets than watch them in the ring again.
