TNA house show
January 12, 2008
Oklahoma City, Okla.
Report by Ryan J. Schwimmer, PWTorch correspondent

TNA made their debut in Oklahoma City Saturday night, and it was an incredible show. Some guy started off saying that this is TNA's first time in OK-LA-HOMA! And that the wrestlers were excited to be in OK-LA-HOMA. And that when they were in Texas everyone told them to blow off OK-LA-HOMA. But there's no way they would skip coming to OK-LA-HOMA. I kid you not, it was totally ridiculous. Jeremy Borash then got his own introduction. I guess he feels like he deserves it or something. They brought the TV camera around to tape the crowd and said they were going to show it on a future edition of Impact. Totally hot crowd all night long.

JB sold all night that they were picking out loud fans to go backstage. At intermission, he came around and talked to fans. Being in the front row, I asked him when they were coming for iMPACT and he said "Oh, I don't know man. We might do a pay-per-view here, though. It's a great city, lot of fans here." He mentioned that to the whole crowd a little later. Also, when he mentioned that "the most famous referee in professional wrestling" was officiating the first match, Earl Hebner came out to a handful of fans chanting "You Screwed Bret" of course. It got old after the third or fourth time, but Hebner played it like a champ. He acted like he was conducting them at times, and did the crotch chop to them. He also made fun of one of the guys all night long for being fat. Telling him to "get on some slim fast, fatass" and "shut up and sit in your two chairs." He even pointed out to Johnny Devine how fat the guy was. Funny stuff.

(1) Primetime Elix Skipper & Kaz vs. Motor City Machineguns. Perfect way to start the show, lots of action. Machineguns win after one of their totally awesome double-team moves.

(2) Jackie Moore vs. Ms. Brooks vs. Awesome Kong for the TNA Knockouts Championship. Good, short match, Kong wins with a powerbomb over Brooks.

Not too sure about the order of the next two:

(3) Robert Roode vs. Booker T. Before the match, Roode came out to a bunch of heat and talked about breaking Sharmell's jaw. He said he wanted to apologize to Booker T. Booker came out to huge Booker T champs and beat the snot out of Roode. Actually a decent match. Surprising considering Roode was in it. Booker T hit the Scissors Kick for the win. The crowd was ridiculous for Booker. Roode smirked at my "PRICK NAMED BOB" sign.

(4) Johnny Devine vs. "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal for the X Division Championship. Excellent match, they played up Devine being from Canada for what I can only assume is cheap heat. They got it, tons and tons of USA chants. Lethal wins after a Frankensteiner and Flying Elbow, then Devine steals the belt and runs to the back. Machismo was over HUGE.

At intermission, MCMG & Lethal were at the merch stand. Very long line, didn't feel like dealing with it.

(5) James Storm vs. Eric Young with Hebner officiating. OR, James Storm vs. Earl Hebner with Eric Young officiating. OR, James Storm vs. a fan. Pick your poison. Good match, great comedy. Crowd was very divided, good back and forth "Let's go Cowboy/Let's go Eric" chants. EY wins with a quick roll up. Highlight came when Eric Young came out of the ring right in front of us and someone said "GET YOUR -SS BACK IN THE RING!" and EY looked right at him and said, "OKAY" and did.

(6) LAX vs. Rock & Rave Infection (minus the Infection). Hoyt & Rave came out first, and came over by us while I held up my "TRAMP STAMP" sign. Rave told me not to make fun of his tattoo, and Hoyt grabbed the sign and thought for a second and said, "I stamped YOUR tramp." Good stuff. LAX was over huge except for the racist guy behind me who kept trying to start a USA chant and yelled out "I want the white guy to win!" LAX wins with a double-team move (I think). Late in the match a "You got a Tramp Stamp" chant erupted. Hernandez was cracking up when he saw my sign (more later).

(7) Christian Cage vs. Samoa Joe for the #1 Contender to the TNA World Championship. Excellent match, again crowd was very divided, but I would say leaned more towards Christian. Typical Joe/Cage match with teases of each finishers. Christian wins with a rollup and leaves. Joe stays in the ring and asked if we wanted him back in OKC before leaving.

After the show was over, JB announced Cage would be back to take pictures in the six-sided ring for $20 and also that a lot of stars would be out to sign autographs and take pictures. Ms. Brooks signed my "Prick named Bob" sign and loved it. Hernandez signed my Tramp Stamp sign and said "That's f---in' awesome, damn right, NO GROWN MAN wears a Tramp Stamp! Thank you for pointing that s--- out!" (When he first came down for autographs, we saw him holding a little kid way up over his head, funny stuff.) Hoyt was a good sport and signed my Tramp Stamp sign. He came over and was signing people and stopped and said "who had the tramp stamp sign?" And of course he signed it "I stamped your tramp... Lance Hoyt." Also got an autograph from Prime Time and talked with him. I told him "I heard you lost BOTH your partners man." He said "Yeah I did, I'm gonna have to find some new ones. Wait, that's on the internet already?" Told him I heard about Daniels to ROH from a friend but I hadn't seen it on the net yet. Also got autographs from Lethal, Storm, and Christian. Brooks, Lethal, Hernandez, and maybe some others also hopped the guardrail to take a picture of a handicapped man in a wheelchair who couldn't make it to the guardrail. In the a-hole moment of the night, when his friends tried to get Christian to come over there, He looked and said "oh hey man, what's up?" and asked the friend just to bring some paper over and he'd sign it, then walked away. I was a little disappointed about that, although Christian did look like he was in quite a lot of pain, moving very slowly.

NOTES: Overall a great night. There wasn't a single bad match on the card. They also filmed TNA today inside the ring at one point. But it was a very good show, well worth the money. The crowd was incredible the entire night. Hopefully they'll come back soon as they hinted.

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