Last week a bearded man won two matches in one night to overcome the odds and become new World Heavyweight champion. Daniel who? I'm talking about Eric Young!
Whether of not TNA are blatantly saying "fuck this, lets just copy our favorite TV Show" (which isn't GoT), giving the title to someone who has been working hard for the company since his first appearance in 2004 is always a good strategy to keep your company alive. Granted, they hot potatoing the title off to Chris Sabin last summer (another deserving TNA veteran), I doubt that the good folks behind TNA will make the mistake of making Young a transitional Champion. Especially not one that will lose it to the leader of the next "rogue team looking to take over Impact Wrestling".
Then again, We will just have to wait and see how Daniel Bryan fairs with the Authority. Until then, here's to TNA doing something right!
AJ Styles, Jerry Lynn, & Low Ki vs. The Flying Elvises (Jorge Estrada, Sonny Siaki, & Jimmy Yang) - first TNA match on the very first TNA show - NWA: TNA PPV (2002)
While technically this is everyone involved's debut match in TNA, since it was TNA's first match seen on the very first TNA show via Pay Per View, AJ Styles won the TNA world title last night and therefore gets the recognition above as part of new champ Debut Monday tradition.
Anyways, here's the genesis of the X division showing what they got to the Nashville crowd and the NWA legends in the back... and whomever heard about TNA and bought the PPV in 2002.
Over 10 years later and AJ Styles is still the future of the company. At least he's the top face again, for now.
Also, The Flying Elvises, the team of Sonny Siaki, Jorge Estrada, and Jimmy Yang (Later known as Akio or Jimmy Wayne Yang in WWE) are not to confused with the skydiving Elvis look-a-likes who jumped out of the airplane with Nic Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. Being that early TNA had a lot of leftover WCW talent that didn't get picked up by Vinnie Mac, it's no surprise that they would have a Nic Cage gimmick on their program!
The Midnight Express w/Jim Cornette vs. The "Original" Midnight Express w/Paul E. Dangerously - NWA Main Event (1989)
After Paul E. Dangerously brought in the original Midnight Express team of Dennis Condrey and Randy Rose to Jim Crockett Promotions, it was only appropriate that they would go after the newly turned babyface team of Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane, AKA the current Midnight Express at the time. The feud quickly became a heated battle of who is the best Midnight Express pairing - the original or the current.
Unfortunately, due to Dennis Condrey's departure from JCP in the midst of this feud, the battle of who's the real Midnight Express just fizzled out rather than ending with a bang. Still, there's always this match from Main Event that best portrays the feud that really could have been momentous!
Mean Mark w/ Theodore R. Long vs. Johnny Ace - NWA/WCW Capital Combat: The Return of Robocop (1990)
Who knew that all three of these men would still be around and even employed by WWE in the year 2012? Two of whom would have their own separate teams in a Survivor Series-style elimination match at WrestleMania XXVIII while the other would win his 30th WrestleMania match, the longest streak of its kind in WWE!
Who knew that Mark (pre-Undertaker) Calaway would be the last person to face Johnny Ace, AKA "Senior Vice President of Talent Operations" John Laurinaitis, in a televised match in WCW? A bout that may have also been Johnny's last televised match ever in the US as, soon after leaving WCW, he went of to wrestle and fine tune his "skills" in Japan with AJPW until his in-ring retirement in 2000.
Johnny Ace would later return to WCW after retiring, but just as a backstage figure with his real name, John Laurinaitis. Laurinaitis would eventually replace Vince Russo and be the head booker for WCW until its demise in 2001.
... And the rest is history.
This match is taken from the Capital Combat WCW PPV that revolved around Robocop saving Sting from the Four Horseman in promotion for Robocop 2 and then disappearing into wrestling folklore. Maybe Robocop will make a return in TNA this year or the next to help rescue Sting from the Aces & Eights to promote the new Robocop remake.
The match also features great use of the Slam-O-Meter, a very scientific metering system that WCW invented to calibrate and calculate the impact of a slam. Mean Mark earned himself an 8.2 on the Slam-O-Meter with his tight-rope elbow drop to end the match and send Johnny packing...
Theme Results:
Final match: Johnny Ace's final televised match in WCW and possibly in the US.
It has come to my attention today that New Jack has retired from wrestling. I guess there's one less liability to worry about.
Rather than posting his retirement match (against Necro Butcher at this years' PWS Super Card), I've decided to just post this match instead for no reason other than I didn't want to post his notorious scaffold match with Vic Grimes yet or any match where he tries to stab his opponent to death.
That's New Jack's thing. Stabbing people to death.
New Jack vs. Sandman - Finals for the Hard 10 championship - NWA:TNA (2003)
Back in '03, TNA decided to add a little hardcore to their menu. So what better way to do this then by making a tournament revolving around a few ECW alumni mixed in with some guys who wrestled a couple times for ECW (Devon Storm, Vampire Warrior, Wolfie D) along with Mike Sanders and Sonny Siaki from WCW's Power Plant. But here's the catch - because this is TNA remember: there's got to be a catch on top of a catch - there was a point system.
A hardcore point system!
Apparently the way to win a match in this tournament was to get 10 points by using the weapons that were strategically placed around the ringside area and held by fans. The weapons that the competitors brought to the ring themselves did not count, however. Also, using a table was 5 big ones alone. So basically this tournament was just an excuse to see wrestlers get hit with random objects for five minutes like WWF's hardcore division circa 2000.
But it had a hardcore point system!
New Jack and Sandman, the two people hardcore enough to make it to the finals, battled it out in a back and forth struggle for points using the weapons they could find just laying around. Towards the end of the match, everyone loses count of the points and New Jack and Sandman make their way to the nearest balcony for New Jack to fall off of.. I mean get pushed off of.
Classic New Jack.
All that's missing is "Natural Born Killaz" being played on repeat throughout the duration of the match.
Greg Valentine vs. Wahoo McDaniel - Heavyweight Championship Match NWA Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling (1977)
Happy National Pro Wrestling Day, everybody!
In this heated battle between Greg "The Hammer" Valentine and Wahoo McDaniel in the Mid-Atlantic territory, not only was the heavyweight title up for grabs, but two thousand silver dollars! Apparently silver dollars were all the rage in the 70's and meant for a good ol' slobber-knocker because that's what this match is!
Though not the most brutal or intense matches, it did feature a lot of heat for its time as the match that Greg Valentine "broke" Wahoo McDaniel's leg. As the story goes, Wahoo's legs were too big for the Finger Four Leglock, Valentine's finisher just like his friend The Nature Boy, and so Valentine instead torqued on Wahoo's leg enough for Wahoo to surrender. Instantly, on national TV, it was determined that the leg was broken. Whether or not the leg was really broken is not what matters here but rather that Valentine was now champion and would forever have the reputation of a man who could break any opponent's leg.
Greg Valentine also must have had enough silver dollars to spare himself a sweet custom T-shirt after this bout with Wahoo that read, "I Broke Wahoo's Leg" on the front and "No More Wahoo" on the back (at least that's what I've heard; I've never actually seen the back of the shirt).
"And Still Have a Bunch of Silver Dollars I Don't Know What to Do With!"
A similar situation like this one where a wrestler makes a T-shirt stating his pride of injuring his opponent would be Owen Hart and his parody of Steve Austin's Austin 3:16 shirt (which was a mockery of its own) and on it it said, "Owen 3:16" and on the back, "I Just Broke Your Neck". The thing about Owen Hart's shirt though was that he legitimately broke Austin's neck (which shortened his career) and didn't intend to.Valentine on the over hand, was out for broken Wahoo bones!
More recently, CM Punk has also made light of the "I Broke Wahoo's Leg" after breaking Big Show's hand back in 2010 which led to him donning a "I Broke Big Show's Hand" tee in the same fashion as Greg Valentine's.
The New Breed vs. The Armstrongs (Brad & Bob) - NWA: Jim Crocket Promotions (1987)
A couple of days ago I introduced this blog to the glorious gimmick of Hector Guerrero as Lazor-Tron, the masked laser-tagger from outer space. But what I failed to mention was that Lazor-Tron may have actually been not only a real robot but a decepticon. Yes, decepticon - as in the evil robots from Transformers!
The team of Sean Royal and Chris Champion AKA The New Breed were a due of young time traveling cool dudes from 2002; a 2002 from a parallel dimension where Dusty Rhodes was the president and the Rock 'n' Roll Express were being used for medical experiments. They were also probably the coolest forgotten heel tag team of the 80's.
h the recently passed-on Brad and Bob Armstrong. And while this match saw no official winners, you could certainly tell that The New Breed were way before their time - because they were - and really were the winners of this match which was stop due to the time limit.
Unfortunately, like a lot of things in life, The New Breed was short-lived, due in part by Sean Royal's car accident and Chris Champion's hand injury leading the team to lose their push and . Eventually Sean Royal would walk out of the wrestling business leaving Champion to work alone before becoming Yoshi Kwan (an Asian-themed wrestler). Champion was also one of the Ninja Turtles from USWA.
A little side note that I find kind of interesting but quite unfortunate is that Chris Champion would later have a stroke (due to drugs and what have you) which left him in real bad shape. This jut happened have taken place in 2002; the year The New Breed were from.
My theory is that this is why The New Breed time-traveled back to the mid to late 80's; to wrestle back at the prime of tag team wrestling as well as to somehow try to reverse terrible events that had transpired. They also had to go back in time in seek revenge on Lazer-Tron and "Boogie Woogie Man" Jimmy Valiant just because.
The Briscoe Brothers (Jay & Mark) vs. The Hot Shots (Cassidy & Chase) - NWA:TNA (2002)
Here's a little Briscoe Brother action starring 18 year old Jay and Mark Briscoe (no relation to Jack or Gerald Brisco). It also stars Cassidy Riley (or O'Reilly at the time) and Chase Stevens who would go on to work for the TNA full time.
In it we see the very fragile looking Briscoes, who had already been wrestling 2 years (I'm guessing in the backyard or *cough cough* CZW), looking to make a name for themselves in what is said to be their first taste of national TV spotlight, that is, if you can even count NWA:TNA's PPV-broadcast-ed set-up very national TV-like at the time. I know I never heard anything about TNA back in 2002.
No, it wasn't until 2004 when TNA made it to FSN and used a very sports-like approach with the time-clock and all that that they really hit somewhat of a national TV spotlight, but The Briscoe Brothers were neither here nor there by that time. This is really only the first of maybe two other matches The Briscoes would have in TNA, and while I'm no talent scout I can guess by the size and age of this young team that they weren't ready for the major - err, semi-major - leagues just yet.
That's okay though, as dem boys did the best they could with what they had at this time and even took some of the nastiest (and loudest) chokeslams I've ever seen (and heard) via the hands of Malice (remember The Wall from WCW?) who runs in to ruin the match. After this Jay and Mark had another match against a team called Divine Storm and maybe one more before heading back to the indies where they would fine tune their craft as well as mold themselves into a much better, but still pretty ugly-looking, hard-working tag team.
Lazor-Tron vs. Tommy Angel - NWA: Jim Crockett Promotions (mid-80's)
Lazor-Tron (also spelled Lazortron or Lazer-Tron or Lazertron or Laser Tron) was a supreme laser-tag fighting machine from another planet (preferably one where laser-tag was much more of a way of life than a recreational activity) who would just so happen to beam himself down to Jim Crockett promotions in the mid-80's.
Of course, today we know that this masked Lazor-Tron was actually Hector Guerrero, Brother of Eddie, Mando, and Chavo Classic, in disguise. Back then though people didn't have a clue who Lazor-Tron was - but they loved him. Despite being a pretty terrible-looking gimmick, Lazor-Tron was actually a huge fan-favorite and crowd pleaser for the most part. Plus, Hector Guerrero was actually one hell of a wrestler; probably the only reason he survived as well as he did.
Unfortunately for Hector and his natural gift of wrestling, it always seemed like promotions just wanted to put a terrible gimmick on him like his Guerrero name wasn't enough. Gees, look at The Gobbledy Gooker... that giant turkey could of actually been a damn good competitor in the ring if Hector and his bird suit weren't canned just after his first night in WWF at the 1990 Survivor Series for having the worst gimmick in the history of worst gimmicks.
Poor Hector. It's okay though, he works for TNA now.
Ouch.
Overall reaction to the match: Oh yeah the match... well other than the fact that everything about this match is trying to put me to sleep and that we are supposed to believe that Lazor-Trons' finisher using his special space-technology arm pads to the chest renders his opponent unconscious, I think this is a fairly decent example of Hector doing the best he could with what he had.
PS: I have no idea what "the protector of the children" business that Tony Schiavone was talking about in the match... maybe when Lazor-Tron was not wrestling, he would play laser-tag with kids from rough neighbors in space! That's the kind of shit heroes are made out of right there...
PSS: Lazor-Tron would have kicked Max Moon's ass. End of story.
Blood Gallows of Retribution Hangman's Horror Dog Collar Match
Vampiro and Raven fight out in a Hangman's Horror Dog Collar match, because there's nothing like taking a good thing i.e. Greg Valentine and Roddy Piper's classic Dog Collar match, and choking the life out of it for the amusement of no one.
The object of this match, which had three names, one being "dream blood" which Professor Mike Tenay explains to us is the words smeared on Raven's chest and that's about it, is the first person to strangle their opponent with the dog collar over the top rope wins. So yeah, dream blood.
After chaining Vampiro up with two dog collars to smack Vampiro with a trash can and then delivering him with a terrible-looking DDT onto a table, Raven would get the victory as Vampiro was unable to continue from the dog collar choke-out.
What makes the match as bad as it was though really would have to be combination of the fans on-demand chanting "let's go Raven" as if this was some kind of fun pie eating contest or was running a 200 meter dash at a high school track meet, and Mike Tenay and Don West's constant teaching of science as they continually try to explain that without oxygen going to your brain or something - you are a goner.
Another cringe-worthy part that I actually enjoy that takes place after the match is when a young CM Punk runs in to try to help Raven against James Mitchell and his sinister fireballs which causes Raven to grab a mic and explain to Punk that "this is a personal matter" and he "must take care of it himself" - except instead of Raven saying this, it sounds just like classic Johnny Polo circa 1993.
I would love to see Raven play Johnny Polo again in Chikara for King of Trios in some classic blast-from-pasters team like Team WWF. I would see that.
This classic from the first-ever Starrcade back in 1983 (that's before Wrestlemania, oh my), is probably one of the most brutal and dare I say, most hardcore matches of the 80s. Yes there was lots of bloody cage matches around this time (along with Ric Flair blading since he was old enough to handle razors), but this match, this feud if you will, backed up by the fact that this was a dog collar match - not just a strap match where the two combatants are held together by the wrist with a leather strap or rope, but a steel chain - made this match one intense confrontation.
This was no gimmick match.
This back and forth style battle ends with Roddy Piper covering Valentine up with the help of the chain, but Piper does not get the chance to celebrate his victory in this non-titled match (Valentine was the US heavyweight champ at the time) as Valentine would assault Piper from behind and beat a mud-hole in the rowdy-one with the chain until the ref gingerly tells him to stop and Valentine leaves the ring.
