JoeDirt

Quick thoughts on an amazing show: This show reminded me of what was great about IWA. A mix of great old school, hard hitting, intense action in the ring, your blood/tables/highspots/brawling, and then your awesome character development and realistic angles. Just an amazing show, one that wasn't littered with five star matches or match of the year candidates, but one that showed that the best shows don't even need those. First off, the angle with the Thomasellis/Ian/Etc was fucking phenomenal and the best I've seen this year. The Thomasellis come out early in the show to apologize, Patti won't accept it, so they grab John Calvin and take him to the ring to give him their finisher. Ian and Corp and Credible make the save, and Ian sets up him and Credible vs. the Saints later in the night, and Corp vs. the big man Venom. The main event is your old school IWA all over the place brawl with plenty of blood. Everyone bleeds, and Ian takes a NASTY light tube shot as they stuff a bundle down his shirt and smash it with a chair. After that Ian and Credible are duck taped to the ropes and beaten down. Mickie comes in but eats a double stomp. Fannin comes out with Brandon and Josh and they turn heel and beat him down. A bunch of refs come down and are beaten down. The announcers hit the ring and are beaten down and busted open. Everybody is destroyed as Eddie Kingston is on commentary laughing his ass off. Finally the whole locker empties to clear the heels out. Ian sets up the big Thanksgiving Survivor Series match and cuts a heated promo on the guys who turned on him and how he's going to kill the Thomasellis. The crows is in shocked silence as the show ends. Backstage, Corp and Ian cut one final promo with Ian wearing a crimson mask and Corp practically starts bleeding just when Ian says "look at his forehead." Ian says that people have said IWA has lost its edge, but it's coming back and he hopes the Thomasellis know what the fuck they got themselves in to. Amazing, intense, realistic stuff and I give it up to EVERYBODY who took a part in this for doing one hell of a job. The other big story arc from the show is the Hero/Trik stuff. After Trik beats Sweeney he calls Hero out saying Chris hasn't returned his phone calls or emails. He says that at TPI what Chris did was just like kicking him in the balls and spitting in his face. He wants an explanation. Hero of course then kicks him in the balls and spits in his face, and tells Trik to "grow up, little man." After Hero beats Marek Brave later, Trik comes out and says he's grown up a lot in the past few hours, and after he beats Hero this time, Hero can't blame it on a curse. Hero reveals that Ian was thinking about putting him in the TPI but Hero (with an evil smirk on his face) told Ian that Trik wasn't ready. Great, GREAT setup for their match on Thanksgiving night. The other great part about the Hero turn was Ian, after getting up at the end of the show, looking around and saying "where's Hero?" The Abercrombie/Black tables match was one hell of a clusterfuck spectacle. Black's dive off the basketball hoop was amazing. Some of the table spots were insane, especially the knee drop from the top by Josh. Crazy stuff, must see, and Black gets a well deserved win. Nate Webb vs. Brandon Thomaselli is a good solid match. I'll be back with more thoughts as I get to go back and watch more. Thumbs way way WAY up.

There's a local link to a story from WCCO as well. PWInsider just reported it too.

http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_317110540.html Local link, not much info yet though.

http://www.wwe.com/inside/news/eddieguerreropasses

Velocity: 1) LOD vs. Nunzio/Vito 2) Holly vs. Dean 3) Kash vs. Scotty 4) Regal/Birchall vs. Spanky/London SD: * = SS team qualifying match for SD 1) Orton vs. Rey* 2) Lashley vs. OJ* 3) Kennedy vs. Eddie* 4) Juniors match 5) JBL vs. Benoit* 6) Batista vs. Edge Plus interviews by MNM and the Dicks.

HBK/Eddie in the same match will be fun.

Bats/Kane at Mania seems weird. You're thinking a non-title special attraction match, HTQ?

I find that I have to be using explorer, I can't be using Firefox or Mozilla. This is great great stuff. Might have to get myself a subscription before prices go up. It's really fairly cheap and you get so much damn stuff.

I hope he said Wick. I believe Chad used to be Chad Wick, or that's his real name, something like that.

Ian's actually a pretty good old school style mat guy and has had some great hard hitting mat matches in IWA-Mid South. He's way better at that than he is at deathmatches.

Velocity: 1) Juvy vs. London 2) Christian vs. Kendrick 3) LOD vs. Birchall/Regal Smackdown: 1) Benoit vs. Booker 2) Matt Hardy vs. Simon Dean 3) JBL vs. Rey 4) Lashley vs. Vito 5) Holly vs. Sylvan 6) Orton vs. Eddie/Batista

I don't get having Foley and Austin's return matches on a single brand PPV in barely hyped matches.

IWA-Mid South had a great show on 9/9 (Matter of Pride 2005) and the TPI in September also rocked it. Chikara had great stuff with the Tag Grand Prix and I liked Anniversario Orange as well. All Star Weekend #1 from PWG was great.

--WWE is trying to quickly put together deals to bring in Lucha Libre guys as soon as Monday in Sacramento. I'm not sure whether it's TNA's ratings or the articles on how strong Spanish radio has become in so many markets that has spurred the thinking, but they are looking at bringing in several more stars from Mexico as regulars and were trying to get minis, Porky and Mistico that I'm aware of for Monday. None of the deals have been made at this point, and it's going to be an ultra-rush job if they can contact the guys and get them done. Interesting.

Like most WWE, it's on and off.

Velocity listings: Scotty vs. Jobber London vs. Dean Funaki vs. KID KASH Holly vs. Sylvan

The lats match listed was just a dark match I'm sure. Here are the real listings: -Benoit vs. Jordan - If Jordan taps to the crossface he'll never wrestle again, for the US title -Crazy/Psychosis/LOD vs. Regal and Burchill and MNM -Peep Show with Kiebler -Booker T vs. JBL vs. Rey vs. Xtian -- said to be an excellent match -Lashley vs. Nunzio -Eddy vs. Randy Orton -- said to be a pretty good match

I can't see Burchill losing already...especially to someone like Crazy or Psychosis...

BUMP! Old PPV threads are always fun to bump. Especially when HHH/Hogan was your main event. This show was the start of a very depressing time in the company for me. They had some okay things going on here and there, but the general direction was bad. Anyways...thoughts? Comments? Making fun of old posts?

What other big "upsets" happened in WWF, WCW, and ECW history? I'm wondering if there are any surprising ones out there that most of us forgot about. I know Austin lost some matches via DQ in 1996, one to the future Joey Abs, but that's not a REAL upset I suppose. PJ Walker over IRS is a good one, to set up Razor/IRS at the 1994 Rumble... But there have to be some better ones than that out there. Anybody?

That WWF Radio that was at RR94...was that picked up by actual stations around the country? How did that work? Have ref bumps always been around in the WWF? If not, when did they start?

I wonder if Taker got the finish of the SD match against Orton changed because he was losing here. Taker winning that match didn't make any sense with the story they were telling. "I scared you with a vision or your own dead selt, Taker...and then you STILL beat me!" A DQ finish and beatdown as Taker was distracted would have made more sense. Anyways, that's my hunch.

Of course nobody expects him to win. It's just supposed to be a fun, comedic win for Lashley that puts him over huge as a monster babyface. I don't see that being a big problem, especially since I doubt it goes more than five minutes. I'm more offended by the horrific buildup to the main matches on this show. Just terrible, terrible stuff. And I reiterate my claim that we'll see a Dusty finish in the main event.

It's easier to do vignettes for heels because heels can have more character initially because they're allowed to be cocky, dicks, pompous, annoying, etc. Babyfaces tend to be bland (obvious exceptions of course) unless they're given something to fight for...they were wronged in some way or whatever. Just a thought. But I think vignettes could be used more effectively, for sure.