TNA house show
July 19, 2008
Monroe, La.
Report by Trae Wisecarver, PWTorch.com contributor

I just got home from the TNA house show in Monroe. It was a really good show and the crowd was insanely hot all night and EVERYONE was over. My memory isn't perfect, but I'll include all the details I can remember.

Some guy came out to welcome us to the show and told us it was Jeremy Borash's birthday, then JB came out to do the ring announcing.

(1) "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal beat "The Guru" Sonjay Dutt in 7 minutes with a diving elbow drop. Sonjay didn't want to get in the ring at first, so Lethal hit him with a tope suicida to the outside. They brawled around ringside, then eventually made it in the ring. Sonjay got a near fall off of a standing moonsault, but Lethal hit the Lethal Combination followed by the diving elbow to win it.

(2) "Cowboy" James Storm (w/ Jackie Moore) beat Eric Young in 10 minutes with a superkick. Storm cut a good heel promo before the match to make sure everyone hated him. Storm challenged a little girl at ringside to fight him, then Young held Storm for the kid to hit him. Jackie interfered throughout the match until Young gave them a double Death Valley Driver that Storm kicked out of, then Young kicked out of the Eye of the Storm. Storm spit beer in Young's face while the referee was trying to get Jackie out of the ring, then blasted him with a superkick for the pin. Afterwards, Storm tried to whip Young with a belt, but Young managed to disappear under the ring. Storm took the stick again and said that no one in the arena could beat him, prompting an appearance by Super Eric, who whipped Storm with the belt and chased him off.

(3) ODB & Roxxi beat The Beautiful People in six minutes when ODB pinned Angelina Love with a running powerslam. Not bad for a short-ish women's match. Roxxi played face-in-peril for a while, then made the hot tag to ODB, who eventually pinned Love to win the match after Roxxi dove onto Velvet Sky at ringside. After the match, Angelina Love said that since we were so disrespectful of the Beautiful People, they were never coming to Monroe again, which was met with cheers.

(4) TNA X Division Champion "Maple Leaf Muscle" Petey Williams beat Kaz in 7:52 with the Canadian Destroyer. I think Petey was getting more cheers than Kaz. They had a good match. Petey kept teasing the Canadian Destroyer, but Kaz kept countering it. Kaz went for the Flux Capacitor, but Petey blocked it and tried to hit the Destroyer from the second rope, but Kaz countered and hit a sick belly-to-back piledriver (think Genki Horiguchi's Beach Break) into a near fall. Lil' Petey Pump eventually did hit the Canadian Destroyer for the pin to retain the title.

(5) TNA World Tag Team Champions LAX beat The Motor City Machine Guns in 8 minutes when Hernandez pinned Chris Sabin. This was a wild match with suicide dives all over the place from everyone. Hernandez pinned Sabin to win the match after he held Sabin on his shoulders and Homicide came off the top rope with the Gringo Cutter (a tandem move Wikipedia tells me they call the 5150). The teams shook hands after the match. LAX seemed to be significantly more over.

After intermission, they brought out the Mayor of Monroe and teased that they may bring a PPV to Monroe in the future. I'm not sure how the arena would look for TV, but WCW did Nitro there sometime in the mid-90's, which was before my time as a fan.

(6) "The Instant Classic" Christian Cage beat Tomko in 12 minutes with the Unprettier. Christian was way over and got the crowd into chanting "Tomko sucks." I didn't get to see a whole lot here because the people in front of me were standing up forcing me to stand up to be able to see and making the people behind me whine that THEY couldn't see. At one point Christian hit a tornado DDT, then missed a frog splash. Tomko hit a Hercules Cutter (torture rack into a neckbreaker) for a near fall, but Christian won in the end with the Unprettier. After the match, Christian got the crowd to sing "Happy Birthday" to Borash.

(7) A.J. Styles beat Kurt Angle in 14 minutes with the Styles Clash. This was easily the best match I've ever seen live (not surprisingly since I've only been to a few lame WWE house shows and one no-name indy show, but it really was a very good match). They did some nice mat wrestling in the opening minutes, then had a lot of great near fall spots including an Angle belly-to-belly suplex, a diving clothesline from AJ, and an arm drag off the top rope from Angle. AJ escaped the ankle lock at hit the Pele kick, then eventually won with the Styles Clash. After the match, Angle cut a babyface promo thanking us for coming.

NOTES: As if we hadn't already gotten our money's worth, Borash then announced that since they couldn't let everyone backstage, they were bringing backstage to us, so we had an impromptu autograph signing. You could also get in the ring and get an autographed picture with Kurt Angle for $20. Lethal, ODB, Roxxi, LAX, the Motor City Machine Guns, Young, Storm, Borash, and Kaz all walked around ringside signing autographs. I got Young, Hernandez, Borash, and ODB myself.

After such a great time tonight, I'll support TNA forever no matter how bad their TV is.

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