NWA-TNA 2003 aka a passive-agressive way to deal with depression

[Icopro]

Insanely, Kid Kash and Erik Watts are two of the only reasons to watch later in the year and in the first half of 2004.

 

Agreed. Though I preferred heel Watts as Jarrett's wannabe friend to face Watts. But, yeah, 2003 Erik Watts ruled. Especially on promos.

 

And Kash vs. Trinity just might be my favorite intergender feud ever. Kash was a glorious dickhead.

 

 

The build to Jarrett/Raven was some of TNA's best stuff. The actual match is glorious.

 

Loved the build. My friend and I even contemplated driving from Baltimore to Nashville just to see Raven/Jarrett live. We didn't, but just the fact that we considered it has to count for something.

 

Didn't like the actual match though. Raven not winning was such a bummer and that's coming from one of the bigger Jarrett fans on the internets.

[evidence]

I remember the JJ Dillion & Russo "shoot" promo. Russo talks about how Dillon tried to get him fired from WCW back in 2000 and somewhere during their "shoot" Dillion compares how he left WWF (says when he left WWF, he spoke to Vince face to face and ironed out whatever differences the 2 may or may not of had) to how Russo left WWF. And then you have the countless Russo promos ,on the TNA Weekly PPV, about how he made (throw in any big name star in the WWF in the late 90s) wrestlers who are not even working for the company he's working in.

[El-P]

PPV 37

 

Not a good show, but enough interesting stuff to hold my interest at least.

It has to be said that Glen Gilberti does a rather decent job as the new serious leader of SEX. Sure, the stable sucks, but he’s really a decent promo.

 

Jerry Lynn doesn’t get his X-division title shot week 6. Yeah, I know it’s probably been forgotten, but I’m gonna be consistent about it. Someone has to. So he finally gets Konnan and has a watchable Nitro match with him, which is an accomplishment in itself.

 

Meanwhile, AJ Styles (who called Disco a « faggot », which makes him de facto a babfyface in TNA I guess. BTW, BJ James has disappeared and he’s not missed at all) gets the best Mike Sanders match possible too. Interesting how the two X-div aces get to show their talent this week.

 

Another surprisingly good match, but this time actually good, D-Lo Brown vs Chris Harris. Sprint, but nicely done, I never thought Harris had this in him, while D-Lo looks even better than I remembered, although I’m not that familiar with his post 99 work. Overbooked finish because Disco is protecting D-Lo as he wants him to beat Jarrett and join SEX, as told in a three way promo segment in which Jarrett sounded the worst of the three. And really, they should stop reminding everyone that D-Lo was basically a jabronie in WWE by talking about him being European champ, it makes the TNA championship look like crap if he gets a title match. Oh, and they teased a AMW slip coming up already with Harris wanting to go solo a little bit. Yawn.

 

The whole Second Generation stuff isn’t working at all and isn’t going anywhere. Even Jarrett buries Eric Watts as irrelevant in his promos. What a babyface. Plus, David Flair vs Dusty in a two minutes bunkhouse brawl. No, really, Dusty was cool for a one week appearance with the Road Warriors. But let this die, please.

 

In the cool debut segment of the show, Alexis Laree teams up with Amazing Red vs Kid Kash & Trinity. Mostly fun because I like Mickie James and she was already showing a lot of personnality, slapping Kash like a bitch he is. Match itself was a bit clusterfucky as soon as the women got involved, as James was still green and Trinity can’t do much more than a moonsault, which she did here BTW. Kash is pissed. Are we really going toward Kash vs Trinity ? Because that would not be too good.

 

Some violence against women, Athena again, because Russo is still writing the show.

 

And an overbook cluster of a main event with an interesting yet stupid gimmick in which you can only pin a guy who’s bleeding. Made things confusing for Elix Skipper. So, it was XXX (Skipper & Daniels) & Harris vs Brian Lee & Slash & Sandman (who opened himself before the match with a beer so he can get pinned right away) & Perry Saturn ! Hey ! Saturn ! He was the workhorse of the match too, having good exchange with Daniels. Complete cluster with guys confused about the rule, although the fact it was supposed to be a Church gimmick kinda made sense since the Church guys went for the blood as soon as they got on top. So it turned out ok,especially for a DOA dream match of sorts. Plus we got Ron Killings turning back babyface (WHAT ?) and bringing fucking He-was-called-Mabel-then-Viscera to the ring ! Ah, we were not yet in the days of « we know who this is » because of copyrights, but the feeling for there. Post match was completely ridiculous with everybody involved and Jarrett actually hitting D-Lo with a chair for no good reason. Jarrett is such a shitty babyface.

 

2003/03/26 D-Lo Brown vs Chris Harris

[Alucard]

I always really enjoyed Chris Harris in singles, a shame his career ended up going nowhere in the end.

 

the Viscera debut is a classic in those times of literally anyone can show up in TNA

[WingedEagle]

Just wanted to add I'm very much enjoying this. Started cherry picking TNA matches a few months back based on WON star ratings but it'll be good to have a second reference to fill in some gaps on things that may have fallen under the radar or are getting a second look. I'm also watching matches, not shows, and fully recognize that means I'm likely enjoying matches a bit more than may have been possible in the moment. Almost through 2006, and its clear already at this point that I never gave AJ Styles nearly enough credit, even if he did rank highly for me on GWE. Just consistently excellent.

[gordi]

I'm sorry to hear that depression has driven you to suck extreme depths... but on the other hand, reading TNA reviews in that inimitable Jerome style is just too much fun.

[El-P]

Gordi ! So cool to hear from you ! Life in Japan still good ?

[mprice]

This is like the written version of talking someone off of a ledge.

[gordi]

Gordi ! So cool to hear from you ! Life in Japan still good ?

 

Every day is a good day for me in Japan! I have two kids now, so I'm not online quite as much. Sorry I missed out on the GWE discussion. Still go drinking with my pro wrestling friends from time to time, but don't watch too much wrestling these days other than the occasional live show in Osaka. Managed to watch WrestleMania, and I was pleasantly surprised to see AJ Styles in WWE and over with the crowd, so it's cool to read about his TNA days here.

[fakeplastictrees]

Depression is never fun. Trust me I know. I hope it gets better for you man. Stay focused and count your blessings, that usually helps me. Your side has been very entertaining thus far.

[El-P]

Two kids ! Amazing. Glad things are going well for you !

 

Thanks AsukaFan. I agree counting your blessings gets you on the right track and helps relativize a lot.

 

Don't worry people, I'm overplaying the "depression" element a bit here to justify me diving into Russo land again, although there's a reason why I'm getting back into a project right at this moment. But the true hard times were actually last year at the same period and for the following months.

 

PPV 38

 

Jerry Lynn finally gets his X-division title match !!! After seemingly making his peace with Konnan, he faces Kid Kash in probably Kash’s best TNA match. Not a great by any mean though, but Kash taking the time to sell his injured knee and acting kinda heelish is a vast improvement over his usual stuff. Lynn gets screwed by another odd looking « luchador », so I guess Konnan was just swerving him.

 

D-Lo Brown vs Jeff Jarrett. Oh man. First, Tenay insists on saying D-Lo was IC champ, which is why he’s familiar the big match pressure. Yeah, keep on making the NWA title look third rate. Jarrett is an awful babyface, physically threatening Goldilocks, acting like an asshole to the point you’d sympathise with Gilberti’s points in the opening promo. Plus, although D-Lo is really solid, they have a bad Double J Special : boring brawling outside, totally rushed sprint with often poor execution from Jarrett (fancying himself as a tough guy is a complete miscast), kicking out of each other finishers (is this a John Cena match ?), bad ref-bumps and run-ins galore. D-Lo had a better match with Chris Harris. Plus, post match sees Jarrett hitting Alexis Laree, now aligned with Raven (which is cool), with a straight chair shot to the head, with awful execution to boot (I guess he thought it was « someone else » ?).

 

Russo’s handprints are all over this show still, with useless feuds like Siaki vs David Young which only leads to more man on woman violence and terrible midcard acts like the Second Generation stooges (I didn’t even watch that Eric Watts video, sorry).

 

More super efficient booking by piling up « surprise debuts » in the same segment. So New Jacks debuts to team with Sandman & Saturn. Ok, he does the exact same crap he was doing in later ECW. But anyway, he gets a reaction. Then, at the end of their match vs Harris Boys & Chris Daniels (poor guy), we get the surprise debut of « This is the man who used to be Bart Gunn in the WWE ! ». Please. He gets crickets, as he’s been in All Japan for years now and no one has cared about him in the US since the split of the Smoking Gunns. Both surprise debuts in about ten minutes, way to get the most out of them. Exactly the same problem with the booking on top, as Jarrett seems to be feuding with four people at the same time.

 

I won’t say it again, but man, Don West is so bad. Enthousiastic but terrible. Wait, not as awful as Mark Madden or the current WWE robots, but still annoying as all hell. Why did Russo recruit him to begin with ? Oh, I guess it's because he had zero experience in pro-wrestling. Mainstream cred ?

 

2003/04/02 Jerry Lynn vs Kid Kash

[goc]

A lot of the TNA "surprise" debuts were just one off appearances. Like I'm pretty sure that Mabel/Viscera "debut" was the only time he was ever there. I think it was an idea to get people to buy the PPVs because you never knew who might show up but when the "surprises" are guys like Bart Gunn, Viscera and a random ass Nikita Koloff appearance 10 years after he's relevant, it's not much of a selling point.

 

I've never heard anything about Don West being "recruited" by Russo, I think that was a hire by one of the Jarretts. He was a host of some shows on Home Shopping Channel that did a lot better than their average. Bascially he was a guy who had experience getting people to buy stuff.

[Laz]

Don West becomes very listenable just before he stopped doing commentary. He's tremendous at the sell job, though, and he used to shill the TNA Brown Bag Special (I think that's what it was called), which usually consisted of a pair of DVDs and a shirt. It was TNA and he was able to sell these like crazy, even when their popularity was waning bad post-Hogan.

 

The Bart Gunn/Saturn match is a very good and stiff brawl. At least you'll have that to enjoy for PPV 39.

[goc]

Yea Don West got really good when they turned him heel but that didn't last long because they had the "bright" idea of replacing him with Tazz.

 

And yea the story about Don West at house shows was that he would help them sell a ton of merchandise.

[Bierschwale]

Don West was also great at saying lines that were given to him by Dusty or Dutch, too, better than Tenay. Him talking about the Six Sides of Steel and its lack of "play" in the fencing during the second AMW-XXX cage match is exactly what Dusty would say, and West somehow makes that Dusty impression work.

[Jingus]

Don's also one of those guys who is so friendly and cheerful that everyone just loved to be around him. He has a niceness and an upbeat sensibility which is downright infectious.

 

When Bart Gunn showed up, the main reaction in the audience was "...who?". Half the crowd were Attitude-era marks who wouldn't remember Bart from anything besides getting destroyed by Butterbean. And Bart is a very generic-looking guy in a forgettable way, so most people didn't even recognize him.

[GOTNW]

Nice to see Gordi's still going strong, hope all's good man

 

Don West is the one guy, more than anyone, I wanted WWE to steal. His enthusiasm is just something else.

[gordi]

Hey! GOTNW!

 

In late 2002, one of my tape-trading friends gave me a set of tapes of NWATNA's weekly PPVs. I was working as the director of a children's summer camp, living at the camp year-round. There was really not too much to do there over the winter, other than organize the Christmas party and winter-proof the cabins. Even with so much free time, though... those tapes were pretty hard to watch. I don't think I got even a third of the way through them.

 

The thing that struck me at the time: I kept feeling like Jeff Jarrett must have convinced himself that he could have been just as over as Stone Cold if only he had been the one to get that push. It just seemed so much like that was what those early TNA PPVs were all about: Jeff (and his dad) trying desperately to convince everyone that he was a badass, force-of-nature, redneck, ass-whooping machine... but somehow totally missing the whole point of why Austin got over and actually making Double J look like a misogynistic, narcissistic, delusional, clueless egomaniac. It was truly painful to watch. Was it still that bad in 2003? Kind of sounds like it, from your descriptions.

[mprice]

These shows just sound awful. I am glad you can see the cracks of light through the seemingly endless piles of garbage that kept showing up. It seems like it just kept going and going...yet somehow it can get even worse. I actually used to enjoy watching the Fox Sports show when it was on because I could watch it at 4PM while I was at work. That is where I got my first exposure to AJ, Abyss, AMW, and even people or teams that don't start with "A."

[El-P]

Jeff (and his dad) trying desperately to convince everyone that he was a badass, force-of-nature, redneck, ass-whooping machine... but somehow totally missing the whole point of why Austin got over and actually making Double J look like a misogynistic, narcissistic, delusional, clueless egomaniac.

 

Pretty much a perfect description of how Jarrett was booked and how he came off. To me, it was all Russo's (and Jeff) doing, as they never got over the fact Austin refused to work with Jarrett in 99 so they had to proove that they were right and that Jarrett could be an ass-kicker main-eventer. That was already the case in WCW, but in TNA they could do exactly what they wanted, so they did. And failed miserably again.

 

As far as Don West goes, he was first recruited by Russo to join WCW : http://slam.canoe.com/Slam/Wrestling/2006/01/31/1420308.html

 

PPV 39

 

Let’s forget the first 35 minutes of this show, and you have a pretty solid card with a strong main-event. So yeah, let’s forget a terrible brawl straight out of the worse part of 1996 ECW and an awful ladder match involving Dusty Rhodes. Although him dropping the elbow from a three steps mini-ladder was funny.

 

Then, Glen Gilberti vs AJ Styles was one of those good Disco match from 97/98, in the vein of the Juvy match at Havoc (I think). Aj Styles really is someone you can look forward too against anyone, and serious Gilberti is always pretty decent. So that was mighty fine.

 

Later on, Mike Sanders vs D-Lo Brown was also quite solid action, the best Sanders has looked so far. D-Lo’s outfit is so low rent, pun intended, he doesn’t look like a star at all. People bitch about Kevin Owens, but this is worse. And the black tights with tribal tatoo/symbol is so generic 00's. Things are pretty confusing as who is a heel or not, but SEX beating up D-Lo afterward puts things back in straight order.

 

Also, Perry Saturn vs Mike Barton was a very solid, stiff match which actually told a story, Barton’s left being punishing enough to make Saturn bleed (see, that's a punch that means something…), and Saturn having to fight through it to get the victory. Barton is jobbed in his first match. Maybe he's just not coming back. He also wears hideous pants with random japanese flags over electric blue. Was he wearing those in All Japan too ? Barton’s work is solid although unspectacular and Perry gives a good showing with impressive offense and nice selling too. Honestly one of the best Saturn single matches I've seen. And a great close up of him hiding his blade in his glove too. Well done TNA director.

 

Barton is a member of SEX BTW, because, well, every heel has to be. So we get a stupid swerve in which David Young is turning against Athena, beats her up (yeah, violence against women… I should have brought back that Russo Tally) and joigns SEX. This is like nWo C-team at this point.

 

Raven vs Kid Kash was only decent thanks to Raven, as Kash sucked here. Blown spots, misplacements, bad timing. Well, his knee was legit hurt, but still. Raven’s got a new Nest/Flock apparently, with Alexis Laree slutting it up a notch and going for the Beulah look, and Julio Dinero looking like a giant Hardy Boy. Trinity hits a moonsauly and leaves, letting Kash getting his ass beat after he interfered in her interview with Tenay earlier.

 

Raven also cut a good promo building up his title match with Jarrett, who’s paranoid now. Ok. This week he hits Dusty with a chair. Jarrett’s so not a main eventer, and Raven is totally carrying the load on the mic to make this look big time.

 

And so, the main event was quite an excellent X-division spotfest between XXX (Skipper & Daniels), Jerry Lynn & Amazing Red, Chris Sabin & Jonny Storm, Shark Boy & Jason Cross. Elimination tag match. Sabin looked very good in his debut, as did Shark Boy. Daniels & Red were the standouts. Total spotfest but in a good way, not too clusterfucky, fun dive sequence and turned into a very good tag team final between XXX & Lynn/Red. Easily the best match in eons. This is what the X-division should be about. Almost clean booking although we get the mysterious luchador again, with his shitty black spider costume. Wonder who he will end up being. My guess is Low-Ki since he hasn't been around.

 

So yeah, best show in a long long while. Actually *good*. How surprising. And what’s coming up in the X-div (XXX vs Lynn/Red + Lynn vs Red for the N°1 contender spot) is very promising. Raven is totally carrying the main event scene, who need AJ Styles back tomorrow so it’s not all about Jarrett.

 

2003/04/09 Glen Gilberti vs AJ Styles

2003/04/09 Perry Saturn vs Mike Barton

2003/04/09 XXX (Daniels & Skipper) vs Shark Boy & Jason Cross vs Jonny Storm & Chris Sabin vs Jerry Lynn & Amazing Red

[goc]

As far as the "Jeff, the ultimate ass kicker" thing he had going in early TNA, it felt way more to me like Russo booking Jeff in a way that he could live through him vicariously. Especially in the early days when they a bunch of different NWA authority figures and Jeff Jarrett would talk trash about them and beat them up. That totally felt like Russo booking Jeff to do the things that Russo wanted to do in reality.

[El-P]

PPV 40

 

Wait. Is this PPV actually GOOD ?!? With a ratio of good/bad stuff clearly in favor of the good, and nothing that makes you want to throw a brick on the TV (well, computer screen) ?

 

Of course not everything works. David Young vs James Storm was very indierrific and actually I though that Harris looked better doing less complicated stuff in his solo outings. They are still teasing some sort of AMW split BTW. Young is Siaki and Desire’s pet at this point it seems. Brian Lee & Slash vs Sandman & New Jack was more watchable than anything involving the Harris Twins, but still pretty bad. Hey, Justin Credible shows up ! This is really turning into an ECW reunion show at this point. I guess it beats the WCW version. Glad they finally give James Mitchell some promo time though.

 

On the "not bad" front, Kid Kash has a decent match with Mike Sanders, although the fact he’s selling so much really shows he’s not 100%, as he’s got a legit knee injury. But he wasn’t terrible like the previous week, and Sanders worked hard. Kash did a fake apology to Trinity, who did a moonsault. Kash then leaves her behind while she gets ganged up by a bunch of SEX. Kash is a very good sleazeball.

 

Second surprise of the week is Mike Awesome showing up, out of shape and sucking wind. Saturn had to carry the load while Awesome pretty much did his usual spots, only slower and with less intensity. Well, it was ok for a Nitro match I guess, but Awesome really didn’t look like his old self from even his WCW years.

 

Glen Gilberti is keeping on being good on the mic and in the ring, this time having a really solid brawl against AJ Styles. Interesting how he worked well in that style and was actually convincing if you forget he’s the freaking Disco Inferno. Well, AJ rules no matter what, so I guess that helps too. The finish was insane though. Putting Disco over AJ clean ? It's good to be a friend of Russo.

 

D-Lo Brown had his best match yet against Raven, short all action sprint that was extremely well worked. I said it before, Raven really strikes me as better than ever, the bumping, the feeding, the execution. And D-Lo, stupid outfit apart, looks excellent. Dinero & Larree work well as the new stooges, so well that they actually have a fun Clockwork Orange match against Jeff Jarrett at the end of the show. Laree really impresses me by her intensity and bumping, showing absolutely no fear taking bumps into gimmicks. Jeff Jarrett beating unmercifully on a woman, on the other hand, comes off sleazy and cheap. You can say whatever you want about Dreamer, but at least he understood that the shot on Francine or Beulah was efficient if it was one big spot. Here Jarrett just doesn’t care and comes off rather shitty to me. Not exactly a good match, but fun stuff that builds well to the Raven match coming up.

 

And the match of the night, XXX (Skipper & Daniels) vs Jerry Lynn & Amazing Red. Ok, now we’re talking. Excellent match, going all action before they settle down a bit by beating on Red. Daniels is easily the best of the four, as Red sometimes does stuff that are too funky for perfect execution and Lynn kinda rushes through spots at times. Overall, super strong match. Oh, and the masked luchador is clearly Low-ki, it only makes sense that way. Lynn & Red win the titles and have to fight against each other now. Well, at least it’s another very good match on paper.

 

So yeah, some good undercard matches, a super main event and a good angle/brawl setting up the main feud. Solid stuff. Let’s just pretend Eric Watts doesn’t exist. You know Russo is booking this though when he puts Gilberti over Styles and when the main babyface doesn't give a shit about hitting a woman.

 

2003/04/16 AJ Styles vs Glen Gilberti

2003/04/16 D-Lo Brown vs Raven
2003/04/16 XXX (Skipper & Daniels) vs Jerry Lynn & Amazing Red

[El-P]

PPV 41

 

Lead-in PPV before the big Jarrett / Raven match, and the final angle was disapointing. First off, Jarrett comes off like a complete scumbag beating on Alexis like she’s just another warm body. Twice in the same show, with garbage weapons. Especially on a show where the hottest new heel is all about mistreating his former girlfirend because he’s a jealous prick. Plus we get Eric Watts thrown in. At least the whole second generation stable seems to be done, Watts is just a goof now, and it’s not clear what is his purpose. Anyway, the whole ECW team joigns Raven at the end, wraps Jarrett in a straightjacket and barbwire and… well, ok they are ECW guys, but what about the Raven vs Sandman feud ? I wonder how Raven will explain that…

 

Talking ECW, New Jack, Sandman & Saturn vs Brian Lee, Slash & Mike Awesome was quite the garbage match, with barbwire on the ropes a la PR and New Jack busting sickles and staple gun and shit. He and Slah exchange bloodcells. Awesome remembers he debuted in FMW by talking the painfull bumps. Guys going through tables. Well if you go that route, might as well go all the way. Looked like an old school japanese sleaze garbage match, so I actually enjoyed the insanity.

 

Justin Credible shows up again and has an impromptu match against Slash, who really earns his money. Justin looked pretty good, although his outfit is even worse than during his ECW days. What’s with the giant… stuff hanging on out of one back pocket ?

 

So yeah, the big undercard match was Kash vs Trinity, preceded with a promo segment that turned into a slapfest. Huge reaction for that. Yeah, less is more. As far as the match went, it was as good as it could be, with some sloppiness obviously and awkward moments, but they made it work. Trinity took one hell of a beating. Too bad the ending involved SEX again, it kinda ruined the feeling, but Kid Kash is made as a scumbag heel.

 

AJ Styles is still paired against Gilberti, this time teaming up with D-Lo against Sanders too in a fine opener, but he really should be used better than this. D-Lo, well, D-Lo ain’t a star, no other way to twist it.

 

And then two really good matches, XXX (Daniels & Skipper) vs AMW, although it was only Storm for a good part of the match. I guess they were teasing a Harris turn with the old « fake beating in the back » angle, but nope. This pairing gets better everytime. They still tease disension in AMW, with Storm acting bitchy that time. Can’t they just get along ?

 

Main event was really good too, Amazing Red vs Jerry Lynn in a pure babyface match. Red looked a bit banged up and wasn’t as quick or precise as usual, but it didn’t keep the match from building to a hot finish. I like how Lynn’s opponents do counter his stupid guillotine move from time to time, nice attention to detail here. Also, Lynn really doesn’t approach this kind of match the way he would against straight heels, he’s not using much punches for instance. Since Konnan was talking about minorities and shit on color, we get a screwjob finish with Ron Killings attacking Lynn. Isn’t this the third time Killings turns in like four weeks ? I guess we get a heel minority faction soon, which is kinda ironic when you think about it.

 

Some good stuff with the tag team and X divisions, a nice payoff to the Kid Kash heel turn (although SEX involvement sucks). As an old ECW fan, I don’t mind to see this Team Extreme having bloodletting, it gives a different flavor to the show. Basically, the stuff that really doesn’t fly at this point is SEX (what are they trying to accomplish ?), although Gilberti has been pretty good on the mic, and sadly Jarrett who’s an awful babyface champion. Raven has totally carried the feud and made it seem like a big deal. Overall, the product is much better than just a month before, there seems to have much more focus despite the surprise appearances every week, lot of them not even showing up again (Viscera, Mike Barton). I actually look forward to PPV 42. Maybe I shouldn’t.

 

2003/04/23 New Jack, Sandman & Saturn vs Brian Lee, Slash & Mike Awesome

2003/04/23 XXX (Daniels & Skipper) vs AMW

2003/04/23 Amazing Red vs Jerry Lynn

[El-P]

PPV 42 delivered. For a Vince Russo booked product, it was quite decent, although it had way too much stupid booking, obviously.

 

Raven vs Jeff Jarrett could have been an excellent match, although Jarrett’s execution is somewhat off at times. But he works hard, and Raven rules at this point. Took it slow at first, then went into blood, teased a table shot that came only later. Then, well, they kicked out of their finishers. I dunno when that stuff really became prevalent, if that came from the indy mentality or if WWE was doing it already in big matches, but it’s annoying, especially with stuff like the evenflow DDT which was instant death in ECW and WCW. But anyway. The stupid stuff began when team ECW showed up, handcuffed Jarrett and used chair on him. Yeah. Russo is recycling that damn Douglas vs Foley match *again*. Then, lights go off and I was more annoyed, but when it was Sabu ! Well, I thought it was pretty cool since that was his gimmick entrance in ECW and it’s unexpected that he would go against Raven. Then again, the timing of the whole thing was off. I never get tired of Sabu though, so that’s good. I must also point out how terrible Rudy Charles is as a referee. It took hims so long to try to get the handcuffs off Jarrett that freakin’ Raven had to help him and made it look like a defiant gesture toward his opponent. Anyway, Jarrett kicked out of another Evenflow before winning. So yeah, much more a Double J Special than a Raven Dog & Pony show, which Raven doesn’t need anyway now. I’d call it quite good still, all things considered and all stupidity aside. The fans totally shit on the finish BTW, speaks how highly they think of Jarrett as their ace babyface.

 

Funny fact, Raven quoted Fleetwood Mac in his promo tonight, after quoting David Bowie a few weeks before. That’s really Scott Levy talking, he was never really a gen-Xer listening to grunge, ya know.

 

Match of the night goes to Jerry Lynn vs Christopher Daniels, who’s a terrific heel and worker. I don’t get the criticism of « too smooth » at all, sounds like complete bullshit to me. He’s just super crisp but everything he does looks on point and he shows tons of character too. Lynn works differently than against Red, with more intensity. That’s one thing I really like about Lynn, he’s not just a mindless spot monkey, he puts intent in what he does.

 

The X-division match between Amazing Red & Kid Kash was pretty good too, although a bit sloppy, which is always a risk with these two, especially Kash who’s still way better as a dick heel. He gets tons of heat too. Too bad the ending has to do with that stupid mystery luchador. It’s been going on forever and nowhere and has not link with Konnan anymore. It’s like Russo has no idea what to do with this stupid stuff now. The screwjob ending + shitty referee work kinda killed Red’s big moment of winning the belt too.

 

Then, some clusterfucky X-division action with a four way between Jimmy Rave, Chris Sabin, Shark Boy & Jason Cross. Rave & Cross are everything I dislike about 00’s indies, work and look. Got better with Shark Boy & Sabin at the end. Sabin almost killed himself by trying to jump on the top rope and sliding outside, all that for a stupid 4-way cluster.

 

Another 4-way in the opener, between four teams, always a good idea. Harris vs Lee & Slash vs Saturn & Credible vs AMW. Decent action, too many decent guys not to be, but too many bad guys to amount to anything, plus making it non-elimination always makes it worse. Perry & Credible won, which is kinda baffling. On the funny side of things, they cut back just after the match, and the Harris boys are in the locker room, all fresh and shit. Great production, guys.

 

A pretty good tag match with AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown against No-Charisma-So-We-Need-Desire’s tits and ass team of Siaki & Young, who never looked better. Wonder why.

 

And the promo/angle front, Eric Watts is supposed to be funny, Konnan & Ron Killings are heels for talking about racism (although Konnan’s promo is excellent, as always since he arrived, too bad he can’t work worth a damn) and a jealous stripper attacks Lollipop so we have a stupid catfight. Yes, that is the debut of Tracy Brooks. And Lollipop should never cut a promo, ever again.

 

Pretty decent show with its share of good stuff, but the booking screws up most of the good in-ring work. Raven has failed in his quest to win the title despite having four guys handcuffing Jarrett and hitting him with chairs square in the head, after what Jarrett still kicked out of the Evenflow DDT. Kinda makes Raven looks like a bitch. Jarrett was really the HHH of TNA, except he didn’t marry the boss daughter, he just had his daddy made up a promotion for him and had his friend book it. No idea where this is going. Not anywhere in the long run, I know…

 

2003/04/30 AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown vs Sonny Siaki & David Young

2003/04/30 Amazing Red vs Kid Kash

2003/04/30 Jerry Lynn vs Christopher Daniels

2003/04/30 Raven vs Jeff Jarrett

[JaymeFuture]

What a complete injustice that outcome was. My feeling at the time, and I'm glad you echoed it on the rewatch, is that Raven was working so hard to build that match up, and everything Jarrett did was just rank average and unexciting. One of those matches where it becomes blindingly obvious what the real priority is in a company and just kills interest as a result - a red hot challenger with momentum, on a roll with his promos and efforts between the ropes with fresh matches on top if he wins, and a struggling babyface who, if setting the world on fire is what you hope for, was doing the equivalent of bringing the portable heater in from the garage, the one that feels like an asthmatic blowing at you through a straw and smells like death.

 

Could have done without the ECW alliance, especially since they would fail to achieve their goal anyway on the big night - why bother. But that's vintage Vinny.