RedJed

I read somewhere that the Booker/Joe match is essentially a TLC match inside a cage actually, not just a Full Metal Mayhem match). One would guess TNA might even make up a name for such a gimmick match. So the belt will be elevated in the air like a ladder match, but they can use the cage too. It's an interesting concept that seems simple enough, but could be something unique and memorable depending on the spots they do.

TNA iMPACT! Taping Results - (7/17) Orlando, Florida Report by Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com Impact opens with Booker and Sharmell getting out of a limo with the TNA title over his shoulder. They come come to the ring he cuts a promo about how he's the greatest champ of all time and Samoa Joe can't beat him. Jim Cornette comes out and says Booker can't declare himself champ and he needs to give it back to the real TNA champion, Joe. Joe comes out and tells booker to keep the belt, he doesn't want handouts because he's still champ and will see him at Hard Justice. Beer Money are backstage and says tonight, its not fan revenge its beer money revenge because they are going after the fans too. Kaz is backstage with Jeremy Borash and is upset and says he feels like he let everyone down at the PPV but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Kaz vs. TNA X-Division champion Petey Williams sees Williams winning. There is an Eric Young backstage with JB, but the promo is inaudible to the live audience. Matt Morgan defeated Jimmy Rave in a real short match, maybe 1 minute tops. Post match, Lance Hoyt comes out and says maybe Morgan should mess with the other guy in the band, match starts and Morgan defeats Hoyt. Backstage the Knockouts are screaming at Cornette and he announces a 10 girl Knockouts battle royal for the show with the winner facing TNA Knockouts Champion Taylor Wilde but it was unclear when that title match would take place, next week or the PPV. Team 3D and Kurt Angle come out dressed in black trench coats and masks like Sting carrying baseball bats to "welcome Sting into their fraternity". AJ Styles, Christian Cage and Rhino come out and demand a rematch. Team 3D and Angle accept a six man table match at the PPV. Christian interrupts and says they don't get to call the shots and he says the match will be next week - a 5 table elimination match. The Knockout Battle Royal is done Royal Rumble style with Jacqueline, Gail Kim, Angelina Love, Salinas, Velvet Sky, Roxxi, Rhaka Khan, Traci Brooks, Christy Hemme and ODB. Velvet Sky is the winner. Backstage, Booker T says he will wrestle Consequences Creed in a Stretcher match. Backstage with Black Machismo and So Cal Val with JB. Val says she doesn't know what he (Jay) wants her to do and she can't help it that Sonjay Dutt has feelings for her. Johnny Devine vs. Eric Young vs. Sonjay Dutt sees Dutt pin Young. Lethal comes out and attacks Dutt. Dutt grabs a chair and hits the ring post, then falls to the floor. Val thinks Lethal hit Dutt with the chair and walks out. Beer Money comes out and are looking for fans to attack. They grab a guy in the audience wearing an LAX shirt. The refs come in and save him. They then go after Hector Guerrero, pulling him into the ring and begin whipping him with a belt. LAX comes out and chases them away and help carry out Hector. Consequences Creed is backstage saying he's ready for Booker T Consequences Creed vs. Booker T in a Stretcher match. Booker T wins and as Booker pushes Creed back on the stretcher, Samoa Joe was waiting in an ambulance for Booker T. They go at it. Xplosion Match: Curry Man defeats Kip James. -------Although they didn't announce it yet apparently, the idea according to Meltzer for Booker/Joe at Hard Justice is supposed to be a cage match. Not sure if I agree with already doing another cage match as a gimmick since Lockdown seemed like it was just a few months ago with nothing but cage matches. Maybe they will change that idea up, we'll see. Seemingly, little of next to nothing is official for the next ppv either, which is kind of weird. I'd imagine a gimmick added to a Beer Money/LAX tag title rematch, though, as they seem to be pushing that program like crazy still. Dutt/Lethal again, too.

No wedding. The show was instead the wedding reception. Curt Hawkins & Zack Ryder b Fit Finlay & Hornswoggle with Edge as referee spearing Finlay so Ryder pinned him Edge & Vickie are doing the first dance when Big Show comes out. Vickie then orders a handicap match with Khali, Kozlov, Benjamin and MVP against Show Show NC Khali & Kozlov & Benjamin and MVP It was time to throw the bouquet. Cherry caught the bouquet. Brian Kendrick b Jimmy Wang Yang with Rycklon as Kendrick's bodyguard second Umaga b Mr. Kennedy with the Samoan Spike Morrison & Miz b Jesse & Festus Matt Hardy NC Jeff Hardy ordered after the Hardys put Chavo's face in the cake and Vickie ordered them to fight each other. La Familia beat down both Show ended with Edge and Vickie until HHH comes out and he's got the goods. Edge has been putting the moves on Matt Hardy's girlfriend. No, actually on Victoria Crawford (the wedding planner woman). And Vickie blows up. No Ric on the show, but he was there. ----- Would like to find out more details on the show before I would dismiss it as a dissapointment, but it certainly doesn't sound that great. So Edge and Vicki are probably done now or what? Vicki as a face sounds horrible.

Figure I might as well start a thread on this since its coming up later tonight. Apparently, the advance for the live gate is stronger than any TNA show so far, as three of the four price ranges are all sold out, and the only ones left are the cheap seats. With that said, I don't know how this translates into how many people will be there, as I'm unfamiliar with the capacity for Reliant Arena or whatever this is going to be from. But with people actually purchasing tickets en masse, it should be a hot crowd. The main event is actually strong on paper, and mixing in the two X Cup matches make this one a no brainer to order. There isnt any real filler matches or BS on this show, either. Here is the final card, note the news on how the X Cup matches are going to happen and who's in each as TNA recently released who was in what X Cup matches: TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP SAMOA JOE © vs. BOOKER T (This is a match I'm really looking forward to, most anticipated TNA match for me since Joe/Angle in the cage. While I find it highly doubtful for this to occur, I wouldn't mind Booker T as champion for awhile, maybe til Bound For Glory. Nash could easily turn on Joe anytime here, and he could run-in to cost Joe the match and the title. Another idea, considering this is going to be in Booker's hometown, is Joe turning heel as well. Again, that's highly unlikely but since Booker is going to be getting the cheers anyway tonight, they may explore the idea since Joe's babyface title reign has been kind of just there with no spark. The logical result is just to have Joe go over, but possibly not completely clean to keep Booker in the title hunt) FAN'S REVENGE MATCH FOR THE TNA TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP The Latin American Xchange © vs. Robert Roode & "Cowboy" James Storm (I wouldn't be shocked to see Beer Money, Inc. win the belts here, and this feud continuing. At first, I wasn't feeling the Roode/Storm combination but thanks to a few strong angles lately, I've gotten into them a bit) FAN'S PICK THE STIP - SIX MAN TAG TEAM WAR: AJ Styles, Christian Cage & Rhino vs. Kurt Angle & Team 3D (It's all but a given that this match will be a TLC match, via the online voting, and it should be interesting to see what crazy shit Angle does this time around. Your token hardcore match of the ppv, and it should probably deliver. The other match gimmick ideas is a tables match and a falls count anywhere match, btw. I would imagine they will do the glass tables spot again tonight at some point too. ) THE FINALS OF THE WORLD X CUP TOURNAMENT Featuring the return of the Ultimate X Match Plus, a World X Cup Elimination Match Team TNA vs. Team Japan vs. Team Mexico vs. Team International The 12 man scramble cibernetico style (elimination) match will start the show and will feature these names.... MCMG & Curry Man (TNA) v. Doug Williams, Tyson Dux, and Alex Kozlov (Intl) v. Ultimo Guererro, Ray Bucanero, and Averno, I believe (Mexico) v. Milano Collection AT, Masato Yoshino, and Taichi Ishikari (Japan) (This should be an amazing opener given the talent in this match. Expect some wild spots for sure, and more than likely a decent amount of time given.) Ultimate X will feature Kaz vs. Naruki Doi vs. Volador, Jr. vs. Daivari (Another match that should be pretty good, especially with Doi in there, and Volador, Jr is real good too. Kaz will probably win this and Team TNA will win the X Cup, although since Doug Williams and Daviari are staying after this show, I wouldn't mind Team International actually winning the Cup and feuding with the MCMG out of this or something) GRUDGE MATCH "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal w/ SoCal Val vs. "The Guru" Sonjay Dutt (I'm expecting Val to help Lethal win the match, since this feud really has no legs and I think this should be the blowoff in some capacity. After the match though, and this could happen on Impact too, I can totally see Val going heel and hooking up with some heel to manage) KNOCKOUTS WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP Taylor © vs. Awesome Kong w/ Raisha Saeed (The Impact match was pretty good, and I am thinking this should be just as good, if not better. Question is if the heat will be the same as before since Kong is not chasing the title. I wouldnt expect the chase to last long at all though, and Kong will likely go over here and get back the belt. A feud with her and Roxxi seems imminent) TNA KNOCKOUTS MATCH Gail Kim vs. Angelina Love (I would think Gail Kim loses via some sort of screwjob.)

I'm not sure what to make of this news........Monster Squad was one of my absolute favorite movies when I was a youngin' Bloody Disgusting reports that Rob Cohen ("XXX," "Stealth") will produce a remake of the 1987 cult classic "Monster Squad" for Paramount Pictures. The original, directed by Fred Dekker and co-penned by Shane Black, followed a group of kids hunting down Dracula and his minions who are attempting to take over the world. Cohen himself executive produced the project. Cohen says "I am talking with Paramount about the ownership rights, we just found out that because of all the different companies being bought and sold, (it was so hard to do) but we believe all the rights are back at Paramount. I have been waiting to finish this (third Mummy) film, to really start the talks about remaking it. Maybe I would direct, maybe someone else with me producing. I really think highly of that that film...I mean, how great is it with The Mummy, the Wolfman, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, Frankenstein they all were in it! It would be a prime remake!"

Yeah here in Mankato (city of about only 35,000 people) they are showing it on six screens at one of the three theaters in town and each of the six midnight shows is completely sold out too. I'm sure they would have added more showings if they had anymore screens in the place. So needless to say, after thinking it wouldn't be an issue to get a couple tickets since I heard they were showing it on multiple screens at midnight, I won't be able to check it out tonight, but going to try to catch it one way or another Saturday or Sunday. Which means I might as well do a marathon of the past five films beforehand, since I have a little extra time to now. I bought the special edition box set back a few years ago, so finally will open that up. For what its worth, no single movie has ever sold out of a midnight show here in town before, much less six screens. This is gonna be huge. Hell, Spiderman 3 was the closest I saw to a sell out, but it was still only on one screen here in town back then. Consider also, the impact of the IMAX with the weekend numbers. Seeing it in the IMAX is essentially paying double price for it. And if those showings are completely selling out (and most IMAX theaters are very large capacity) for the first 3-4 days, much less longer, that's a hell of an extra take when you break it down.

I'm sure that if he works any pro wrestling down the road, it will be after that date anyway, probably the Sept ppv or Bound for Glory in October. Once Styles and Angle finish out their program, Trigg against Styles seem imminent.

So I'm catching up on these shows by watching the weeks AWA so far in a little mini-marathon here......random thoughts..... Nelson's no selling the idea of a two ring battle royal was great.......I dont know if that was supposed to be a knock on the NWA or what, as I remember seeing plenty of two ring battle royals or a little something called War Games as well. Or else he just didn't care to educate himself on the concept. The commentary madness during Dick Slater's squash was tremendous. First, Trongard calls him Dirty Dick Rheins for some reason as he walks out to the ring, and in joined by someone called Larry Sisowski (sp?) who is one of the most anxious sounding and unconvincing commentators ever. We then go to the next segment....a god awful interview with JT Southern and DJ Peterson, words can't give this justice just how shitty JT Southern was in cutting a promo that really made no sense. He got lost in what he was even talking about and paused in mid sentence for a few moments. Just fucking brutally hilarious, both in how these dolts couldn't talk for shit and looked funny as hell with their totally 80s cliche look. Some super vintage footage from this two ring battle royal, I couldn't decide whether the Ray Stevens of 87 looked more strange than the Ray Stevens of 74 or if it was the other way around. I actually really got into this old stuff, although it would have been nice to have a camera actually filming BOTH rings at once more often. Instead we seemed to just get what was going on in one ring only, and the second ring was hardly filmed at all. WTF?! And speaking of a major WTF, Nelson goes on and on about some Steve Long guy, Elvis Impersonator at the Showboat?! What a way to end a show...Verne did some of the oddest co-promotions with random people who really didn't ever mean anything to anyone. Heyman was just cutting great promos over and over on these shows My head hurt after the explanation of the tag title change, period. Fuckin Nelson was all over the place with that. Curious what the politics was behind Lawler and Dundee at AWA tag team champs in the first place......I never knew they ever gave them the titles. Was this the start of Gagne starting to partner up with Memphis, WCCW, etc? Super Clash 3 happened about a little over a year after the timeline of this show. So what was the deal with Nelson saying an October 30 show was going to be an "ESPN Wrestling Spectacular?" Did ESPN air live house shows from the AWA every so often around this time? I never remembered that. All I remembered was that they solely taped at the Showboat. As soon as I say this, they show a match from an AWA house show of Rich, McDaniel, and Jerry Blackwell against Adonis and the Midnight Express. This may very well be from the show they were hyping up in the segment before, the October 30 show from Wisconsin. Weird. My god, the crowd is fucking dead as shit for this match. That street fight battle royal video package was fanfuckingtastic shit there. It's a "Chicago Battle Royal" that somehow only made it as far as the Showboat in Vegas. Was this just the AWA's copy of the Bunkhouse Stampede? In a huge shocker, Tommy Rich bleeds like crazy. And for no good reason, we get Condrey and Wahoo again later in the same show in another one of these oh so classic TV title "tournament" matches that Nelson only secretly knows about and not the commentators. GASP~Tommy Rich does a run-in. You don't say. Fuckin Wildfire is all over this shit. As well as Adonis and Heyman.

Its so disappointing to see Kong lose the title to someone who came out of nowhere though. I mean they have her dominate an entire division just to do that? I also never like men vs. women angles in wrestling since it does neither side any good. If the man loses to the woman, it makes him look like a pussy, and if he beats her... SO WHAT? Its a woman, he should be able to beat her anyway. I think it's been established that Kong isn't just like your typical female wrestler. In fact she's probably much more capable of looking credible as hell against guys than any other woman wrestler in a long time, perhaps ever. She has the size to compete against the guys, in the very least. Thinking outside the box of typical wrestling cliches, though, would be crucial to understand this whole concept. I don't think it would really make any guy look like a "pussy" to lose to her, there's really no downside to it, the way I look at it. It will just put her over stronger as damn near a female version of a Van Vader would be the best way to describe it. Let's not use Chyna or Medusa as examples of why man v. women matches can't work, because those are two very bad examples.

TNA is interested in bringing former WWE star Savio Vega in as a road agent, reports the official website of the International Wrestling Association, his home promotion. Following the recent departures of D-Lo Brown and Scott D'Amore (who finishes up at this week's iMPACT! tapings), TNA is in dire need of some more road agents. They only have two guys in Pat "Simon Diamond" Kenney and Glenn "Disco Inferno" Gilberti. -----Bout time they did something about the loss of two significant road agents in the company. I still don't get why they don't hire Raven back in as just an agent as well, helping lay out matches, etc.

Haha, yes! God damn, Ray Stevens was just delivering the most blatant verbal diarrhea I've heard in quite some time there. Speaking again of Larry Nelson, they showed a promo done in the backstage of some house show or something the other night on these shows with Dangeously and Adonis, and the guy looked seriously doped up on some serious shit. For us who watch most of these shows, you all should know which one I'm talking about, I hope.

So I watched this shit again last night on Showtime (car crash effect) and AGAIN, two girls were upset at each other for ridiculous reasons that ended up being just a bunch of misunderstanding. Sat through an hour of it last night during the hot blonde and the other pretty hot blonde (Keasha and, umm, April I think?) in seperate rooms freaking out on the other to all the other girls, what a bunch of ridiculous drama. I also have figured out the girls name who I think I dislike more than any other reality TV "star" in recent memory, the girl on here named Michelle. I've never seen such a neurotic piece of work such as her before. The first night I watched this on Showtime, she was upset at another girl (some brunette who I think was Angie?) about something absolutely pointless and the way she dealt with it was really bizzare, passive aggressive to the max. All I know is that having some old man on here in the mix of late twenty somethings to early thirtysomethings is funny, and I don't know if he has a chance in hell to win the whole thing, but I think it would be great if he did since just about everyone else in this house seems embroidled in paranoid drama with alliances and strategies. From what I've seen, the old man just kind of goes with the flow.

Wow, and did this stuff actually AIR then? That's weird they actually let him just go on like that when it had nothing to do with the show. Regarding Tommy Rich and Heyman's feud in the AWA, I think that was well after Heyman managed him in Memphis when Rich was a heel, in fact I think Heyman started managing in Memphis, initially called Paul Dangerly or something, and Rich was one of his first guys. But since that point, Rich had turned face (and I don't know if he turned while Heyman still managed him in Memphis or if Heyman had left by then, nor for that matter am I sure that Rich turned face when he was still in Memphis) and then they crossed paths in the AWA, and as we saw the other night on the old shows, Heyman starts manages Adrian Adonis, who ends up putting a dress and lipstick on Rich, that was hilarious shit there considering stories of how Rich would essentially swing both ways a bit in the backstage.

On the show that covered Raw, Meltzer said that Booker is staying heel, Joe didn't turn, and Sting isn't going heel. He also said that Joe/Booker at the next PPV would be a cage match, without Sting involved. Didn't Sharmell begging Joe to leave Booker alone make Booker look like a pussy/heel, in his hometown? I think the thought process was that by having her begging Joe to stop going nutsoid on Booker, they were trying to get babyface sympathy for Booker in his hometown. Whether she overdid her role in the match a bit, whether it was intentional or not, is an entirely different point of contention.

Can you expand with details on these three items? Especially Nelson breaking kayfabe on one of the shows, and if there is any footage of that (and/or the Jannetty promo where he's being blown off camera, now that would be hilarious to check out)

Yeah those Chris Benoit murders and the death of Owen Hart sure gave WWE a hell of a boost, eh?

Kong was "womenhandling" Taylor in both of their matches for the most part, and Taylor, in both cases, just applied some technical rollup out of nowhere to beat her. I don't see how Taylor's wins have buried or hurt Kong's credibility in the least, really. Did you see both of the matches they had? It wasnt just as cut and dry as "she can't even beat some blonde skank" - did you not see the weeks of absolute squashing of random chicks before such? Is Kong unbeatable? No, but she is still a very dominant force that I think can easily trade off working against both women and guys back and forth. Her dominance in the women's division has already proven that.

That's completely dependant to the person getting the push and the booking behind it. In this case, I think it was a positive move for sure....the Kong challenge was good stuff and was obviously leading to someone finally getting the best of Kong, and honestly, out of who they could have gotten, Shantelle Taylor isn't a bad idea by any means. Now, if they would have had Shantelle beat Kong as one of the first ladies to accept the challenge, then I could see the argument, but the way this was built, it worked. The reason is was booked the way they did it was because of Houston for the most part. Joe was booked as a out of control heel basically, to get heat, and Booker was given the treatment of the sympathetic face (at the time) which segways into him really getting the fluke "win" out of the deal, then playing back to that he's a heel after all. And it's NOT happening every month....in fact the TNA title has only been held up following a match once to my recollection (last year in the Angle/Sting/Christian match) and in this case (see the Impact tapings) the title wasn't even held up anyway or vacated, the match was just declared a no decision essentially because of all of the chaos. The idea here is to keep people tuned into the product in seeing what is next following the controversy, and I would much prefer that over predictable paint by numbers booking that you can see whats going to happen next from a mile away. The real question mark out of the whole angle is Sting, and I will admit his actions made little to no sense, but that doesn't mean it still wasn't interesting to me. I'm definately intruiged where they are going with him even more than Joe or Booker right now.

Makes sense since him and Rave are the Rock N' Rave Infection......might as well change his last name to Rock instead of Hoyt. Like anyone is going to really care one way or another except, well, you I guess

FYI, Angle/Duds v. Christian/Styles/Rhino and Sky v. Taylor both will happen on the next week of Impact, being taped tonight. So chances are we'll see things changed up differently at the ppv with guys like Angle, Styles, etc. I'm not commenting on Kong/Abyss until I see what's next, if anything. Might have just been a pointless angle at the ppv to give an excuse to bring Abyss out, I dunno. Even if they work a program, I think it is interesting just because it means Kong will likely be moved more into feuding with the guys versus the chicks. Isn't that what alot of us wanted on this board months ago or did we just want to see Joe v. Kong exclusively?

I'm not seeing Edge get the title from HHH this soon, maybe in due time, but not yet. Vicki may very well flip flop on her feelings for Edge for awhile though, since they are, well, married after all. My guess is she might try to help Edge win, but it backfires, and HHH wins. After the match, in subsequent weeks, Edge of course blames Vicki's botched intereference in costing him the match, which then will lead to Vicki bringing back Taker for another match with Edge at SummerSlam. Whatever the case though, I just can't see Vicki as a suitable babyface and after being annoyed with her character for so long, I'm actually enjoying her heel work the past month.

For those of us in MN, got an email that they are having a Raw on Monday, Sept 29 at Target Center, presale is tomorrow morning using the code CMPUNK.

It looks great, probably one last hurrah for both of the aformentioned characters, and Bauer seems to be jumping into Rambo type territory for the movie.

I totally forgot TNA actually did a house show (or two?) in Canada back a few years ago until just now. I think Jarrett won the belt back from Raven at one of those shows when they revised the Montreal Screwjob with Hebner......in retrospect one that probably was worth missing anyway. Here I was thinking this was going to be the first TNA show ever, much less a ppv, in Canada. And yeah, I agree that Gail Kim will probably get a Knockout title shot there, too. Might end up against Taylor, though......I could see them doing some vague USA v. Canada deal with that match possibly since Taylor gives that All American Girl type vibe with her character.

Relating to upcoming areas that TNA will be touring, they are having the Sept. ppv from Canada, a suburb of Toronto IIRC. That should make for a unique setting for whichever ppv that is. I would expect Joe v. Nash to happen there, and I would think Christian would be in some big role on the card too.