NotJayTabb Posted July 15, 2015 Report Share Posted July 15, 2015 It's probably just my memory doing some selective filtering, but there's plenty of good stuff in 2003 that's worth checking out: the Jarrett/Raven feud, AMW vs XXX in the cage, the rise of Chris Sabin and Frankie Kazarian, D-Lo Brown turning up as a key player and the X-Cup with Juvi, Teddy Hart and Jonny Storm making appearances. Feels odd to say it, but TNA was getting a fair bit of buzz in those days. Probably not worth watching everything, but I'd certainly cherry pick those highlights. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted July 15, 2015 Report Share Posted July 15, 2015 Can you cut that down to 10? No. To 15 I can : 2002.06.26 Jerry Lynn vs AJ Styles vs Psicosis vs Low-Ki 2002.07.17 Sabu vs Malice 2002.07.31 Elix Skipper vs AJ Styles 2002.07.31 Low-Ki vs Jerry Lynn 2002.08.21 AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn 2002.08.28 Low-Ki vs Jerry Lynn vs AJ Styles 2002.10.02 AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn 2002.10.16 Syxx-Pac vs AJ Styles 2002.10.23 AJ Styles vs Syxx-Pac 2002.10.23 AMW vs Hot Shots 2002.10.23 Jerry Lynn vs Sonny Siaki 2002.10.30 AJ Styles vs Amazing Red 2002.11.06 AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn 2002.11.20 Jerry Lynn vs Amazing Red 2002.11.27 AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laz Posted July 15, 2015 Report Share Posted July 15, 2015 You're actually giving up before the product gets better. I think you only have 6 shows until Raven shows up. You should give up when you get to the X Cup Tournament in September 2003.Seconded. After that? The show becomes boring and stupid as opposed to just stupid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Redman Posted July 15, 2015 Report Share Posted July 15, 2015 The AMW vs XXX feud is really good, not just for the famous cage matches but their regular matches too. It mostly takes place in 2003 as I recall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted July 15, 2015 Report Share Posted July 15, 2015 It goes from February till June if I remember correctly. There's a brief intermission for Jerry Lynn and Amazing Red winning the belts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Redman Posted July 15, 2015 Report Share Posted July 15, 2015 That is another fun match too where they won them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alucard Posted July 17, 2015 Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 You know the finish. Mr. Wrestling III, swerve, guitar shot (of fuck, the guitar is back), Jarrett wins the title "not knowing what happened", and the KKK looking like guy reveals himself as, yes, *that* complete idiot. "OH SHIT!" Sad to see this come to a halt as I was looking forward to more with like others mentioned the great stuff in 2003 and beyond. Also was just coming up on a Styles/Red match that I loved on PPV 24 from 12/11/02. Hope to see this continue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laz Posted July 17, 2015 Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 It's absolutely worth continuing. If nothing else, making it one more year and seeing Erik Watts over for the first time in his career is a worthy point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted July 17, 2015 Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 Jeff Jarrett vs Ron Killings was worse than the previous week, with one of the less smooth Eddielenko sequence ever. That's a problem with Jarrett, a lot of his stuff looks uncrisp, flat and harmless. He's probably very safe, but it shows in a bad Lance Storm way, and his tough guy image never worked with me because it doesn't suit his physical skills. Anyway, they do a bunch of cool counters that look way planned ahead, and a not so cool table spot that looked way awkward. Count out, restart, Russo, guitar, swerve, three Stroke (although Killings makes them look better than anyone I have seen) and that's it. A promotion built around Vince Russo as the main heel just won't do it for me.I actually liked the finishing sequence of this one. Russo tries to give Jarrett the guitar, but JJ angrily smashes it over the ringpost rather than smashing it over Truth's head. Killings sold the triple Strokes in almost a Japanese manner; he kicked out of the first one pretty strong at the 2-count and started getting right back up; he kicked out of the second one at 2.9 and tried to get up again, but was moving slow and looked generally woozy; and finally the third one nailed him down for good. If you're gonna do finisher kickouts (and really, the Stroke is one of the less-protected finishes this side of the Angle Slam) then that's probably the way to do them. _women geting verbally and physically abused : check (Athena's treatment goes straight into sexual assault territory, while Belladonna getting double-teamed by AMW was downright ridiculous, the "babyfaces" end up looking like dirtbags)It genuinely was sexual harassment. They kept trying to get Athena to do more sexually-risque vignettes (like April was doing at the time, and Lollipop would do later) but she repeatedly turned them down. So, as a result, she got subjected to nights like this one. A few months later, there's a show where another girl is trying to rip her pants off, and the office had actually told the other chick (I forget who) to yank them off for real while not bothering to clue Athena in about that part. The Piper thing was just Piper being his usual crazy self. No one told him to go out there and talk about Owen.Yeah. I don't know exactly what he was supposed to say; he probably just vaguely told the management that he was gonna go out there and cut an anti-Russo promo. Nobody on the show would've sanctioned him saying a word about Owen, that's lawsuit-bait. I'm not sure if Russo was even supposed to be out there for this segment, I think he was legit upset about what Piper was saying and hit the ring for real (say what you will about Vinnie Roo, but he's not a physical coward). I am pretty sure the Harrises weren't supposed to be out there, I think they came out for real to make sure things didn't get ugly between Piper and their boss. I'm actually interested in watching both Raven & Shane Douglas in TNA, since they are old favourites of mine.Raven did a hell of a lot of fun stuff during his early tenure in TNA, it was the last time he was genuinely interesting and relevant (outside of his indy feud with Punk, anyway). Douglas... sadly, not so much. Shane's body was completely falling apart at this point, worse than it ever was in ECW, and he unfortunately looked pretty washed-up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted July 20, 2015 Report Share Posted July 20, 2015 By popular demand and because : _eventually I want to go back to the Raven feuds _WWE last PPV was so boring that even late 2002 TNA looks more intriguing _I'm really fucking depressed I'm gonna end what I've begun with TNA 2002.So, PPV 24 was better than the previous one, which is the biggest false praise ever. Still, we only get two good matches. One decent Jason Cross vs Tony Mamaluke opener, and once again credit to Mamaluke for holding things together. Cross seems to be a decen indierrific guy. But the real good match of the show was AJ Styles vs Amazing Red, working a "big" vs underdog match, with some interesting brawling twists from AJ. I'm impressed by how he adapts his own spots to the situation and dynamic. And Red is really getting into a groove playing the underdog. The last bump was ridiculously over the top though, but clearly one of the best match of the company thus far. What could have been a pretty good match in Jerry Lynn vs Sonny Siaki ended up being the most boring single Lynn match of the year. Siaki really doesn't deliver here, and although his Rock impersonnation was stupid, in himself he's got no personnality at all, he's bland as hell and his work is unimpressive at best. Plus we get a fuck finish with some girl running in to help Siaki win the X-div title, so, yeah, not good. And then, lots of terrible stuff like Brian Lee & Slash losing their title to the Harris, then not losing them thanks to Percy Pringle. More tag team badness with AMW doing the job to Divine Storm, who really are shitty workers. Trinity did a moonsault. And a ridiculous gimmick match, the chain + chair match. Yep. A chair in the middle of a chain. Honestly, I ff, like I did for more bad X division action in the undercard and stupid promos by BJ James refering back to DX (yeah, because 1998 WWF is relevant in 2002) and opposing his father. Jeff Jarrett did an interview segment where he basically buried Waltman for no-showing, did some damage control with Roddy's Owen reference, and tried to stir up the pot with the Russo angle. Jarrett is a complete babyface despite being the biggest heel during the entire build-up to him winning the title. His match with Hennig was sad to watch. Russo did a worst guitar shot ever, and got it just as bad the second time around, which was legit funny. Swerve ? I dunno, I don't care. 2002.11.12 AJ Styles v Amazing Red Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted July 20, 2015 Report Share Posted July 20, 2015 And a ridiculous gimmick match, the chain + chair match. Yep. A chair in the middle of a chain. "Bro, how lame is a cowbell in the middle of a chain match? Nobody in New York even knows what a cowbell is. Bro! How hardcore would it be if we put a CHAIR there instead?!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted July 20, 2015 Report Share Posted July 20, 2015 Probably. Forgetting that they were a TENNESSEE based company anway. Even the announcers had to point out that it made it difficult to move around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Jason Cross is a sad TNA sidebar. He wrestles for a couple of months for them. The second they start pushing him he breaks his leg and never recovers from it push wise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LariatMMBOPPO Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 The only thing I remember him for is somehow making a Shooting Star Legdrop lame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 PPV 25 Ok, Vince Russo, blah blah blah, X-div gauntlet match clusterfuck, Vince Russo and Jeff Jarrett, blah blah blah WWF, WCW, shooty-shooty, what the hell is Russo supposed to be anyway, a writer, a heel manager, no fucking idea, three-way clusterfuck, Percy Pringle is morbidly obese, Athena jumping in for no reason, Road Warriors showing up, this promotion really is turning into the soon-to-be-dead promotion… three way X-division title match clusterfuck, give Sonny Siaki a hot girl as a "gift" (see, woman as object; see : the Lance Storm theory of hot valet + no personnality), Russo blah blah blah… Bad garbage match with fat BJ James… And then, the supposedly "good" SAT & Amazing Red vs Low-Ki & Chris Daniels & Elix Skipper, which actually wasn't good at all. First of all, the SAT suck. They're terrible wrestlers. Then, ok, the three stooges beating on Red was good, but the problem is that they were building toward a hot tag to two fucking awful wrestlers that I don't want to see back in the ring, so I don't give a shit about the match to begin with. Then, they did the worst hot tag ever, which showed me that Red just isn't that good yet at doing basic things, and that the Maximo really are two complete idiots, not working from ringside *at all* to make the audience care about a fucking hot tag that should have been easy as fuck. And it was quite a cold tag, in the end. ...Russo blah blah blah, Jarrett getting the nWo beating, Russo trying the nWo destroying the set angle… Pathetic. Waste of time. Bye bye TNA 2002. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Updated top 15 list : 2002.06.26 Jerry Lynn vs AJ Styles vs Psicosis vs Low-Ki 2002.07.17 Sabu vs Malice 2002.07.31 Elix Skipper vs AJ Styles 2002.07.31 Low-Ki vs Jerry Lynn 2002.08.21 AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn 2002.08.28 Low-Ki vs Jerry Lynn vs AJ Styles 2002.10.02 AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn 2002.10.16 Syxx-Pac vs AJ Styles 2002.10.23 AJ Styles vs Syxx-Pac 2002.10.23 Jerry Lynn vs Sonny Siaki 2002.10.30 AJ Styles vs Amazing Red 2002.11.06 AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn 2002.11.20 Jerry Lynn vs Amazing Red 2002.11.27 AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn 2002.11.12 AJ Styles v Amazing Red Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WingedEagle Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Thanks. Plugging some highlight matches into a youtube playlist I can run through soon enough. Zero patience to put myself through the whole thing but I'm game for the greatest hits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted July 22, 2015 Report Share Posted July 22, 2015 It's a shame to see how good Red was becoming before that knee injury as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Schneider Posted July 23, 2015 Report Share Posted July 23, 2015 Red is still pretty great, he is more like 2005 Mysterio then 1995 Mysterio, but he is a pretty great 2005 Mysterio. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alucard Posted July 24, 2015 Report Share Posted July 24, 2015 Great to see this continuing!! Glad you enjoyed the Styles/Red match from 12/11/02, one of my favorites. Love that match, so many crazy spots and reversal sequences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotJayTabb Posted July 24, 2015 Report Share Posted July 24, 2015 Red is still pretty great, he is more like 2005 Mysterio then 1995 Mysterio, but he is a pretty great 2005 Mysterio. Yeah, I saw Red wrestle last month, and was pleasantly surprised that he still looked in good shape and that he was still good in the ring. I'd say he looked no worse than he did when he returned to TNA in 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted July 25, 2015 Report Share Posted July 25, 2015 And then, the supposedly "good" SAT & Amazing Red vs Low-Ki & Chris Daniels & Elix Skipper, which actually wasn't good at all. First of all, the SAT suck. They're terrible wrestlers. Then, ok, the three stooges beating on Red was good, but the problem is that they were building toward a hot tag to two fucking awful wrestlers that I don't want to see back in the ring, so I don't give a shit about the match to begin with. Then, they did the worst hot tag ever, which showed me that Red just isn't that good yet at doing basic things, and that the Maximo really are two complete idiots, not working from ringside *at all* to make the audience care about a fucking hot tag that should have been easy as fuck. And it was quite a cold tag, in the end.It was good live, everyone in the crowd LOVED that match. But the dirty secret is that it was awkward because the show got mis-timed. Someone pulled a Kidman backstage and the main event ended up going into the ring a full ten minutes before they were scheduled to. But they still had to fill all that time, so these script-it-in-the-back indy spotsmen suddenly had to improvise an extra ten minutes of wrestling. That's why they ended up putting the super-long heat on Red, they just had no idea what else to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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