TNA "Maximum Impact" house show report
January 24, 2009
London, England at Wembley Arena
Report by Martin Bentley, PWTorch.com reader

Tonight's TNA show at Wembley Arena was the biggest attendance for a TNA show in their history, as stated a few times throughout the show. That being said, part of the arena was cordoned off, but every seat available was being used. I guess about 8,000 fans were there. It was also one of the loudest house shows I've ever been to, and certainly puts WWE's house shows and some TV tapings to shame. Amazing for a company that puts on a TV show like Impact.

(1) Alex Shelley beat Doug Williams, Eric Young, and Jay Lethal to retain the TNA X Division Title. Big pops for Jeremy Borash coming out, and "You Screwed Bret" chants for Earl Hebner. Williams was naturally the fan favorite in this match, which went shorter than I'd have expected. Williams hit the Chaos Theory on Young (I think), but Shelley came in and hit the Sliced Bread #2 to retain the title. Fans seemed to like the match, but I felt if it was in a promotion like Ring of Honor, they'd have given it at least 20 minutes. Here, it felt like just four guys doing a rushed match.

(2) Scott Steiner beat Consequences Creed. Creed got a good reaction, but the crowd was really into Steiner. He really enjoyed playing it up as a heel tonight, shouting at fans, and even doing press-ups after a pin attempt. Creed made a good comeback, but Steiner eventually caught him and made him tap with the Steiner Recliner. A better match than anything with Steiner in it has a right to be these days, and they should put it on Impact and give Creed as much offense as he got tonight.

(3) ODB & Taylor Wilde beat the Beautiful People (Angelina Love & Velvet Sky). Angelina and Velvet appeared on the Sky Sports show Soccer AM this morning and were amazing on it, and they were amazing here as well. Most of the spots included ODB de-pantsing Sky and touching Love's breasts, and Wilde was flying round the place like a mad woman as well. ODB pinned Angelina for the pin, and after the match, Love claimed that they would never wrestle in London again. Sky then claimed that "soccer" sucked, probably put off by having appeared on the very surreal Soccer AM this morning. Oh, and I envied the front row completely who got to sit right in front of Sky on the apron, only Mickie James rivals her for the best arse in wrestling.

(4) Brutus Magnus beat Sheik Abdul Bashir. The fans seemed to be into Magnus initially, and they bought into Bashir as a good heel, but I'm not really convinced that Magnus will last the course beyond being a promotional tool for this tour. He has his fundamentals down, and he can work a good match, but I'd like to see him in something more substantial than what I saw tonight. The finish came when Bashir rolled Magnus up and had his feet on the ropes for the pin, but Hebner came out and overruled the finish, and Magnus rolled through a Bashir dive from the top rope for the pin.

(5) Team 3D (Brother Ray & Brother Devon) beat TNA tag team champions Beer Money, Inc. in a non-title London Street Fight. Team 3D was hugely over tonight, with fans chanting "3D," "ECW," and "Get the Tables" at them. They paired off and went into the crowd, with Bubba throwing Roode through one of the arena doors. Bubba then drank a pint to the fans enjoyment - he better have paid for the fan's next pint.

Beer Money got their heat back and worked over Bubba for most of the match, but Devon made the comeback, they got a table, and put Storm through it with a 3D for the win. After the match, Bubba said how this was the largest show in TNA's history, and how much it fired them up to perform in front of that many fans. They got a young boy called Harry into the ring (an Arsenal fan, good boy), and gave him a piece of the broken table to take home.

After the intermission, Borash brought out Dixie Carter, who talked more about how this was TNA's biggest ever show, and name-checked some Bravo executives at ringside. She then did a Cryme Tyme and thanked the fans for spending their hard earned "dollars" on TNA, and got booed for it. Carter then brought out Mick Foley to a monster pop, and Foley told a story about how he met a girl with a tattoo that said "Live for Something or Die for Nothing," and decided to get his own tattoo, which turned out to be the lyrics from the song Randy "The Ram" Robinson sang to Cassidy in The Wrestler. Foley then said TNA's goal was to get a PPV or a Bravo live special to Wembley Arena, and thanked the fans for spending the first full day of the British Recession going to TNA.

(6) A.J. Styles & Samoa Joe beat Abyss & Matt Morgan. Even though most of the pops were for the ex-WWE guys, both A.J. and Joe were massively over with the fans as well. We even did the "Joe is Gonna Kill You" chant, which I heard hadn't been done by fans on some of the shows on this tour. Styles was worked over for much of the match, but started the comeback with the Pele Kick, tagged Joe in, and Joe destroyed both guys, leading to knocking Morgan down, tagging Styles in, and Styles hit the Spiral Tap for the win. After the match, Morgan shoved and slapped Abyss, and Abyss fought back, but Morgan ran away before Abyss could do more damage, which disappointed those who were chanting for the Black Hole Slam.

(7) Jeff Jarrett beat Kurt Angle. There were dueling "Let's go Angle" and "Let's go Jarrett" chants in this match, as both men put on a good, fun main event match. Angle was more over than Jarrett, but I guess that was down to Jarrett's prolonged sabbatical and Angle being slightly more familiar with the casual fans. Jarrett locked on the Figure Four leglock halfway through the match, with the inevitable Flair "woooo" from the fans, but Angle came back with the Angle Slam. Jarrett then attempted the Stroke, but Angle locked in the Anklelock. Jarrett got out, hit the Stroke, but only got a two count. Jarrett whipped Angle into Hebner, leading to Scott Steiner coming out with a steel chair, but Jarrett blocked the attack. Mick Foley then came out, gave Angle the Socko Mandible Claw, and broke off for Jarrett to hit Angle with the guitar for the pin.

After the match, Foley brought out all the faces, and Bubba Dudley then proceeded to kiss Taylor Wilde. Mick Foley in response kissed ODB, saying he wouldn't let Bubba one-up him. Jarrett then thanked all the fans for making TNA the most pleasurable experience he's ever had in wrestling. Samoa Joe was playing Jarrett's broken guitar during all this as well.

BIGGEST POPS
1. Mick Foley
2. Team 3D
3. AJ Styles
4. Samoa Joe
5. Jeff Jarrett

BIGGEST HEAT
1. Kurt Angle
2. Scott Steiner
3. The Beautiful People
4. Beer Money Inc
5. Earl Hebner

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