El-P

Kinda.

PPV 7 had quite a bit to enjoy again. Elix Skipper vs AJ Styles was much better than I thought it would, and it's no small part because of Skipper, who dumbed it down, settled the pace in slower mode and was quite good in working over AJ's neck after a brutal looking dragon suplex. I would have never guessed Skipper could work that kind of match. The ending saw an horrible looking bump which looked like a death botch, but AJ quickly finishd the match so it made sense. One of the best TNA match thus far, if not the best. The X division delivered again with Jerry Lynn vs Low-Ki, with AJ kissing way to much ass on the mic to not turn heel at the end, which he did. Low-Ki continues to look like the best guy in TNA, and Lynn is his impressive self in spots. We're building toward a three-way dance, which I could live without as it will get more awkward, but I guess I should get used to it in the X division. Good stuff. And really, that Jeff Jarrett vs Scott Hall brawl was pretty good. Hall kicked Jarrett's ass all over the building, including backstage, where Jarrett shoved Jerry Lynn away in the process, which played a role later (nice attention to detail here). Some funky use of the stretcher with good execution. The old ECW fan in me liked the run-ins cluster which worked in that Lynn had a reason to fuck with Jarrett, then it got just crazier with Don Harris (gulp) showing up as the security guy who then got beat up by the New Church… Anyway, it worked for me, much like the finish where for the first time ever, the Stroke actually looked efficient. Like the previous week, Ron Killings promo was very strong, him adressing that dancer was good stuff although it went a little far at the end (hum… sexual agression anyone ?). He was good confronting Steamboat too (although not adressing the fact Steamboat had won the NWA world title was stupid and illogical, but I guess it didn't fit the storyline, which is even more stupid since we're supposed to be in the NWA) and Ricky was himself a much better promo in the role than I thought he would. The other decent stuff included Slash vs Sonny Siaki and Apollo vs Malice (who really dramatically improved since his Wall days), both perfectly watchable matches in their own ways. As usual, a bunch of crap worthy of ff including Jarrett going berserk on a midget, Disco's segment which involved GoldyLocks (who at least didn't let herself bully) and some amazon looking girl from Tough enough (yeah, already recycling the lowest of the WWE rejects), and some awful stuff with Miss TNA and Bruce. And West is so awful. But the good stuff was really good. 2002.07.31 Elix Skipper vs AJ Styles 2002.07.31 Low-Ki vs Jerry Lynn 2002.07.31 Jeff Jarrett vs Scott Hall

He was truly a terrific worker. Only 54 years old. Sad news.

Nope, it's been going on for a while. "For the win !", "For the championship !", Cole does that all the time and kills pretty much every nearfalls with it. It's unbearable. I've noticed the same thing on the last NXT special too during the big matches. I barely watched the rest of the show, but damn those too elimination chambers match looked awful. And that Kalisto bump, not only was that useless, but it looked like crap too. Oh, and that Naomi/Paige botch was brutal.

I couldn't have said it better. They actually lost me during the final stretch, because it turned into the typical tepid WWE "epic" style, complete with Ownes using Cena's finisher, which is a cliché. Too bad, because it built to a very good match until then. So yeah, good match, terrific debut, but as always, let's see how they manage the following weeks and months. The fact that it was non-title doesn't tell me anything good for instance. Wait, what ? Did I miss an episode here ?

Fucking Vanes Naldi.

And really, that was all Rick Rubin wanting a wrestling mummy. And Mitchell's promo were dirtier than anything "shocking" Russo ever tried.

Thus far, TNA weekly PPV's murder WWECW in term of content, when you ff the crap. And yeah, I guess I'm masochistic. Well, in fact I know why I'm doing this... Episode 7 is still crap, but less so. First off we get a semi-decent ECW original match between Justin Credible and Balls Mahoney. Sadly it still has to end with Balls caving some craniums in with a chair, despite the match being "not extreme rules", which is stupid in itself if you're reviving ECW. Anyway. The whole Kelly angle is apparently leading to a Sandman & Dreamer feud with Knox & Test. Well, at least there's a ECW originals vs WWE guys thematic here, but Steroid Test is not a guy I want to watch. Then you get the debut of that vampire guy, who doesn't get an intro because we cut from a stupid backstage vignette in which Paul Heyman has his security guys beat Guido up and drag him to the ring. Poor Guido, he can work circles around anyone in this roster and he's at a sub-Barry Horowitz level it seems. The vampire guy looks like a metrosexual Twilight fan doing cosplay, he's not spooky at all (as opposed to Dave Heath who looked like a freak). I dig Ariel though. And then the main event of, oh man, Big Show vs Kane. And actually, this is probably the best match of the four Big Show macthes thus far. I wouldn't go that far to say it's good, but it certainly beats a generic Taker match or Ric Flair whoring himself to new lows. Kane looks better than Show here, and the fact they use gimmicks makes it easier to convey the idea that it's ECW we're talking about, although Show's bump through the table looks really deliberate. Of course everything kinda does, and they work a snail pace, but it's a little bit more of an actual garbage brawl this time. This will lead to Sabu vs Show, and the question is, will Sabu be able to drag something semi-interesting out of that big oaf ?

That's an interesting take. And yeah, Jarrett was insane with the chair shots. PPV 6 had some good stuff again, but this time the main event didn't deliver. Funniest moment during Sabu vs Ken Shamrock was Sabu going for a pinfall (in a ladder match), the ref counting and Tenay just explaining "It's ladder vs submission !". Pretty much a nothing match, and Sabu clearly wasn't into it probably because of his broken nose. He still managed to kill himself on a table spot to set up Shamrock climbing the ladder. Ending on a screwjob (yeah, in a ladder match) when Malice ran in. Ok, that wasn't good. Low-Ki vs Amazing Red was good in a very indie way, as Amazing Red really looks like your stereotytpical late 90's/early 00's indie wrestler, smaller than the referee and doing all kind of movie like moves and sequences. Not a big fan of those despite the fact it does look cool when it's smooth. So yeah, the most indieriffic worker of the bunch thus far. Low-Ki looks probably the best of all. Jerry Lynn & AJ Styles vs Flying Evis' (Estrada & Yang) was quite good, with Styles and Lynn on the same page before the inevitable screw-up by AJ on a dive, driving Lynn straight into the barricade. Lynn hits a gusher then proceeds to win the match, to the disgust of AJ, who's a glory hog and really looks like the heel now. He also at times looks sloppy and tries to do too much, especially on comebacks and hope spots which would require simpler stuff. Yang is the best of the Elvis'. Then there was a really good promo segment with The Truth, formerly K-Krush, cutting that racial oriented fuming promo before he gets interrupted by Monty Brown, who does a decent promo himself. I knew at some point the term "Uncle Tom" would be dropped. Killings really looks strong on the mic here and both look like potential stars. Good stuff. Later we get an angle where Elix Skipper betrays Browns, allowing Truth to choke him with a chain. In the decent category, Chris Harris & James Storm have a pretty good match with the Hot Shots. So yeah, a lot less crappy stuff (the Dupps, Jarrett acting "tough") and a few non offensive time killing (Brian Lawler vs Apollo, and Disco Inferno's introduction to his talk show, which wasn't too bad but I do fear the actual segment). 2002.07.24 Low-Ki vs Amazing Red 2002.07.24 Jerry Lynn & AJ Styles vs Flying Elvis' (Estrada & Yang)

Episode 6 is just as bad, if not worse than the previous one. Zero good match again. The best one consisting of a competitive squash of Stevie Richards by Sabu. Poor Stevie, after a 6 years career in the WWE, he's lower than Sabu on the totem pole than he was in ECW in 96. The rest of the show, well, a stupid angle with Tommy Dreamer and Paul E. leading to a Test feud. Test looks like Warrior without the paint and the tassles actually. A dull kick-punch exchange main event between Big Show & Taker, which isn't worked like an ECW match at all. So I guess Flair really whored himself for nothing the previous week since Taker apparently doesn't have to do nothing but his usual MMATaker routine, which clearly isn't his best work. And Show, again, shows me nothing more than bad punches, his stock is clearly dropping (not that I ever was a big Paul Wight fan, but still, this was supposed to be him being *good*) watching that kind of stuff. Well, and the ending is awful, with who else but the Great Kali showing up, and with the help of Show putting Taker through the announcers' table. I guess all that "compelling" work on Show's knee by Taker was for naught. And like this wasn't enough, we get Kelly getting caned by Sandman. The set-up was extremely poor, and the poor girl looked terrified to take the hit, yet she still took it like a trooper. Mike Knox just flew away after winning a bad match. So not only he doesn't like the fact Kelly is a striper (I refuse to call her exhibitionnist), but he's also a complete asshole on every level since he pushed Kelly in front of him. Kelly gets carried out on a stretcher (hey, just like that TNA show with Francine I just watched !) Not a single actual good match since episode three, and zero good angle since the beginning. That show is a winner thus far.

PPV 5 got even better, with a bunch of matches that I really enjoyed, and a few good promos. First off, Sabu showed up from nowhere and faced Malice in a ladder match. And that was one damn good ladder match based on inflicting punishment istead of trying to do stunts. The best Wall match I've seen, by a large margin, and the proff Sabu could still deliver. He actually bust his nose pretty bad here, and gets killed post match too. Malice takes one hell of a bump leading to the finish that makes sense, imagine that. Then, The Flying Elvis' vs Chris Daniels & Elix Skipper was a fine little match too, with Siaki being a funny egomaniac taking his place at the announcing both and refering to himself at the third person. And finally, AJ Styles vs Low-Ki was quite good too. A little bit your-turn my-turn of course, but the fact they actually sold the damage didn't turn this into a video game cluster. Low-Ki is actually better than Styles at this point, his selling and bumping his excellent. Styles kinda waste a brutal brainbuster in a very indieriffic way of working. But all in all, really good. However, the whole AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn feud goes way too far into trying to maim your rival after just two weeks. And really, after Lynn cuts a decent promo on Styles, you get Styles attacking him from behind, so at the end of the day we really have no idea who's suppose dto be the face. I guess no one. K-Krush cuts a pretty good frustrated promo too and we get a match against Norman Smiley, which is always nice to see although Smiley is in full WCW gimmick mode. To end the show, Scott Hall and Brian Lawler have a perfectly decent TV match, Hall even busting out his second rope back suplex. Brian is not much on offense, but his old-school comedy heel selling is quite effective to me. Then of course we get Jarrett busting everyone with chairs, because he's a bad ass, you see. So, if you ff through the shit (midgets and catfights), it was not a bad effort of a TV show, despite the ridiculous booking at times. And one thing that is disturbing is the treatment of women. Goldylocks sole purpose seems to be insulted and physically threatened, and we get to see the Blue Meanie DDTing Francine, who ends up on a gurney after a catfight with Jasmine St Clair aka "What the fuck is she doing in the wrestling business anyway ?". This extremely trashy aspect of the product really hurt the perception of a company that is called TNA to begin with. 2002.07.17 Sabu vs Malice 2002.07.17 Flying Elvis' (Estrada & Siaki) vs Chris Daniels & Elix Skipper 2002.07.17 AJ Styles vs Low-Ki

Yeah but you see that's the thing. Flair didn't work "death match style" either. There Flair worked like a shitty garbage guy from IWA Japan in the mid 90's. And I have to say that I've seen Nakamaki look better than this actually (not much, but still). Really, Flair emulating Gypsie Joe is not exactly a compliment any way you slice it.

Episode 5 WWE-like promo by Heyman, who's now a corporate heel owner of ECW I guess. How creative. So, we get Test and Dreamer in a bad match. Test looks like he's gonna explode. Yeah, looking roided up and fucking divas surely was a great way to live. But I already outlived him by 6 years, so who looks stupid now ? Nothing match between Sabu and Justin Cedible, which ends up by DQ because although we're in ECW, it's not an extreme rules match. Ok, this show is stupid. Poor Justin looked bad BTW. CM Punk is coming. Cool. That vampire guy is coming, and he's got Ariel with him. Cool. Shannon Moore is coming, and he looks like a minion of Dump Matsumoto. Hum… not sure. And now we get to the infamous Flair vs Big Show match. Ok, I've heard enough time that Flair reinvented himself as a garbage worker and was awesome. I always took it with a grain of salt, to say the least. Now I see this match. Ok people, Flair looks like shit. He bumps awkward, he looks old as dirt, he bleeds like a pig and can't do anything but chops. And no, he works nothing like Onita. I mean not at all. Using a bunch of props, bleeding profusely, using a barb wire baseball bat and taking a sloppy bump on thumbtacks doesn't make him an Onita-like worker. It makes him look like the shittiest Shoji Nakamaki ever. And the Big Show just isn't very good either BTW. This match is trash, I've probably seen the same stuff in IWA Japan circa 95 between Leatherface and Hiroshi Oono, and it didn't look that much worse. It's actually pretty pathetic to watch Flair do that shit (poorly I might add) at his age when twenty years before he was an all time great. So, this TV show is pretty much garbage. Oh, yes, there was one good segment : Kelly Kelly and Candice Michelle (whoever she was) doing some erotic dance before Mike Knox came spoiling the fun. Then the Sandman shows up and canes Knox down the stage. That was nice. Candice was a better dancer than Kelly, too.

Wait, what ? You can't say that. "Le plus ça change" but it doesn't sound so good. "Plus ça change" would work the best. (sorry about that...) I'd make a lousy Québécois. Correction noted (with thanks). Québécois speaks lousy French anyway. (well, let's say a different kind of French, but I love quebecers)

Wait, what ? You can't say that. "Le plus ça change…" but it doesn't sound so good. "Plus ça change…" would work the best. (sorry about that...)

The mere thought of Miz & Morrison being the signal of things getting "good" just makes me cringe, to be honest.

PPV 4 was the best of the four, with two good matches on the card. First was Jerry Lynn & AJ Styles vs Slash & Tempest (who's Devon Storm) for the tag titles, nice little match again showcasing AJ Styles as the white meat babyface with über cool (but sometimes sloppy) offense. Slash and Tempest are solid there, and so is Lynn, who isn't pleased with the attitude of his partner. Yes, one week into them winning the tag title, they have to put them against each other already, as Lynn actually brutally attacks Styles backstage. Yeah, this is ridiculous. The six-men elimination match to determine the X-division challenger rankings was much less a clusterfuck than I thought it would be, and apart from Lynn's weak elimination on a count out (to protect him I guess), this was actually quite good, with late WCW guys like Elix Skipper and Kid Romeo, former ECW's Tony Mamaluke and two indy darlings in Low-Ki and Chris Daniels. In a good booking move, these two end up the match together, and it's nice that they featured the less known guys instead of the former big2/3 workers. It seems like they were really building a brand with the X-division around AJ, Low-Ki, Daniels and Lynn as the veteran anchor. The main title scene still sucks though, as Shamrock works a dull match against Takao Omori, whose appearance here is just as random as showing up at the Rumble in 96. Plus the match never gets to end since Jarrett bust the two of them with chairshots on the head, then does the same thing to Harley Race and a bunch of security guys. Jarrett trying to act as a bad ass actually begins to crak up up, as he's involontarily funny, especially when he swears. We get a bizarre "shoot" interview from Brian Christopher who is sick of being in his daddy's shadow. Yes, in a classic Russo move, a guy cuts a promo on another one who's not working in the company. But hey, Christopher as a heel is an improvment. We also get to see 18 years old Mark & Jay Briscoe. And a bunch of bullshit that I didn't watch. And after four shows, Don West is already without a doubt one of the worst and most annoying color guy ever. Nice job. And Tenay is already overworking himself, he really needed a solid pbp man as an anchor. So yeah, not a good show by any mean, but the two good matches are worth watching. 2002.07.10 Jerry Lynn & AJ Styles vs Slash & Tempest 2002.07.10 Jerry Lynn vs Kid Romeo vs Elix Skipper vs Low-Ki vs Chris Daniels vs Tony Mamaluke

That's glorious. So I guess we owe Dixie Carter the TV character to Russo too. And we know why she loves him so much. Terrific.

Ok, the fourth episode would be enough for me to not even keep on at this point. Same crap with Kelly Kelly. Test looking roided as heel squashing Al Snow in twenty seconds, I guess to piss old ECW fans off. Then a lumbering Big Show overpowering RVD, whose spots just don't make the match interesting at all either (I expected something much better to be honest, on the strentghs of old matches with Bam Bam and Taz) with a stupid swerve at the end with Paul E. turning on RVD and the ECW fans. Best match was Mike Knox vs Guido, who sadly seems to be a JTTS. Not feeling the show at all. I'll probably still watch a bunch more, but the perspective of having to go Big Show vs Taker, Kane and Batista just renders the whole thing totally uninteresting to me. I'll watch the Flair match though, because I've never seen "garbage Flair".

That's a point that is really interesting to me, and it's actually why I'm watching early TA stuff these days, because I wanted to see where did that style come from. You know, the gazillion highspots and über convoluted/"cool" sequences that we can see basically everywhere now. The Young Bucks, and that kind of stuff. I really wonder when things too that (bad) turn. (ok boomer) And I do also think the RVD vs Lynn feud in ECW, as much as I do enjoy it, is probably one of the main influence for this stuff. To me Lynn, by catering to RVD's worse tendencies (because RVD wanted to work matches like that all the time) to get a "great" match out of him, kinda helped created a prototype of a match that had a terrible influence on the indie workers that came up later. (ok boomer) It's interesting to compare it with Tracey Smothers who by 2000 also got a really good match out of RVD, but by applying his own old-school wrestling science (a thing RVD absolutely didn't understand as showed by what he said in his ECW Timeline). Anyway. Although I really like Lynn and think he was one of the best workers in ECW in 98/00, his shortcomings keep him from being a really great worker. I want to say that the whole "cool sequences clap-clap-clap" bullshit actually began in the 90's with the Eddie vs Dean serie in ECW, which I always thought was overrated as hell, and RVD vs Lynn clearly followed that template, only adding the insane convoluted spots in the mix. (ok boomer)

Well, Corny said before and after the story that Shane was green and didn't know how things worked. Good stuff. And Corny looks in the best shape of his life too.

Since TNA is pretty much dead soon (right ? RIGHT ?), I figured I'd go through a bunch of the old weekly PPV's to see how this mess began. I fast-forward a lot, I'm not watching the Johnsons, the midgets, the "celebrities", the catfight and other shit of the same ilk. Was Russo already booking at the beginning ? An awful lot of terrible gimmicks, the Rainbow Express being the most offensive. Lane & Bruce are the worst Adrian Street ever. Jeff Jarrett works exacty like he did in WCW in 2000, by that I mean solid at very best, and totally unimpressive. He still cuts boring promos where he fumbles a bit and try his best to act like a tough guy. Which still doesn't suit him one bit. And I can't understand how a veteran like him just doesn't see how his finisher looks like complete shit, and it's not like it's over either. Well, at least he doesn't use the guitar gimmick…. That's good… Anyway, him and Scott Hall work a bunch of single and tag matches (with K-Krush & Brian Christopher), which could be decent Thunder 2000 main events. Christopher is still doing the Grand Master Sexay routine, which means he's unbearable and a shit worker. Monty Brown debuted on the third show. I had no idea he was there so early. The stand out is very clearly AJ Styles, and that from the very beginning. ALthough he's still pretty indieriffic in the way he uses his incredible offense (but has he really progressed a whole lot ?), he's quite impressive to watch and shows a good white meat acrobatic babyface charisma. He gets both the X division title and the tag division titles in a matter of two weeks, which seems a bit much, but he was clearly the future star of the company. Jerry Lynn would be close second, despite the few usual annoying things about his work (Malenkoesque jerkoff sequence worker + shitty punches, mostly). The X division appears to be the main appeal of the promotion, with all the best matches coming from there thus far. Ken Shamrock is totally dull and has some terrible facial hairs. As far as managers go, Joel Gertner is complete crap (he's been useless since 99 or so anyway), Bobcat, well, I don't even know what the point is… Her guy David Young seems pretty decent though, if nondescript (oh, now I know why they gave him a girl). At least we get James Mitchell who's managing Malice (aka The Wall with a much better look and some actual progress in the ring) and Slash (who I believe is Wolfie D). What was the point of the cage dancers BTW ? I guess the name of the promotion directly derives from them. Only really good match so far : 2002.06.26 Jerry Lynn vs AJ Styles vs Psicosis vs Low-Ki

DNA Wrestling.

I probably wouldn't, but he's a much better candidate than tons of guys already nominated to me.

As showed by the Batista push last year. And the Roman Reigns push this year.