TNA house show report
February 24, 2012
Upper Marlboro, Md.
Report by Keith Laing, PWTorch reader

I’ve been to a few TNA shows before (the second anniversary show in Nashville and Bound for Glory ’07 in Atlanta), but this was my first time checking out one of their house shows. Overall, it was very good show and more of the crowd seemed to be into the storylines of TNA than the show I went to in Atlanta a couple of years back. It was hard to estimate the crowd, but I’d say there were about 800-900 people there. Everyone worked hard to put on a good show and, most importantly given the recent run of injuries in wrestling lately, no one seemed to get hurt.

(1) X Division champion Austin Aries beat Alex Shelley to retain the X Division Title. Aries drew decent heel heat for his showboating during the match, and Shelley was able to get the crowd behind him as a babyface after a bit of slow start. This of course wasn’t as good as their PPV match because they were working a slower pace, but it was still a very good opener.

(2) Mickie James & Velvet Sky beat Knockouts champion Gail Kim & Angelina Love. Don’t know if it was from her WWE notoriety, but there were a few Gail Kim signs in the crowd. Also a couple of young girls in the section I was sitting in had replica Knockout Titles. One girl near the aisle had a sign that said “Future Knockout Champ.” Velvet was pretty over as a babyface and a few guys sitting near me in the General Admission section were calling for her “letting the pigeons loose,” which made me think they watch the show on Spike. Earl Hebner got his own entrance – he was announced by Jeremy Borash as “the most notorious referee in wrestling” – and he took of his referee shirt to reveal his “Damn Right I Did” t-shirt. No one sitting around me got it right away, but people booed when he put on a pair of Bret Hart’s sunglasses and did the Hitman’s hand deal.

(3) TNA tag champions Samoa Joe & Magnus beat Matt Morgan & Crimson to retain the TNA Tag Titles. The basically did the same match the did on TV Thursday, with the same finish of Crimson accidentally spearing Morgan leading to the snapmare/elbow finish. A few people trying to get the “Joe, Joe, Joe!” chant going, but it didn’t seem to catch on. Surprisingly (or maybe not given the way he was de-pushed for so long), no one chanted "Joe’s gonna kill you." Crimson looked a lot taller to me than he looks on TV. Not as tall as Morgan, of course, but a lot closer than it sometimes looks on Impact.

(4) Christopher Daniels (w/Kazarian) beat A.J. Styles. A.J. got a nice pop coming out, and there were lots of “A.J.” chants during the match. Daniels did some mic work before the match, telling the fans in “Lower Marlboro” they now had permission to worship him for a little cheap heat. They got the “Yay! Boo!” punches going, so the crowd recognized the heel-face alignment in the storyline. Daniels won with a roll-up after Kazarian distracted Styles. Styles hit them both with a double clothesline and hit Daniels with a Styles Clash to send the fans to intermission.

[Intermission - Don West came out and hawked some merchandise and Gail Kim and Angelina Love signed autographs. A lot of people lined up, so I’d bet they made some good money there. There were a few scary moments as West was throwing action figures and DVDs into the crowd. One kid got hit in the head with one of the projectiles, but West made the guy who picked up the DVD gave it to the kid.

(5) ODB & Eric Young beat TV champion Robbie E. & Rob Terry. Lots of ODB chants. They did a dance-off at the beginning of the match because Robbie E. said people came to see him fist pump, not to see ODB and Young. Robbie danced to his entrance music, and challenged ODB and Young to top it. TNA’s odd couple started dancing to Robbie’s music, then OBD told Jeremy Borash to put on Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” which drew a lot of laughs. ODB low-blowed both Robbie E. and Robbie T. and Eric Young set her up to pin Robbie E. for the finish.

(6) Jeff Hardy beat TNA World Hvt. champion Bobby Roode via disqualification; Roode retained the World Title. Roode got a little heat coming out and Hardy got the biggest pop of the night. He worked the whole crowd, slapping hands around ringside and up both sides of the aisle. They got the match, which was billed as a title match, started, but Bully Ray ran in for the DQ. Bully and Roode beat down Hardy, leading to a Storm run-in. Brian Hebner then made the match into a tag match.

(7) Jeff Hardy & James Storm beat TNA World Hvt. champion Bobby Roode & Bully Ray. Hardy played Ricky Morton, leading up to a hot tag to storm. Lots of “Hardy” chants from the kids in attendance during the extended beat down. Everyone traded finishes at the end, with Hardy hitting the Twist of Fate on Ray, Roode spearing Hardy and Storm hitting the Last Call superkick on Roode to get the pin.

After the match, Hardy and Storm celebrated with Storm spraying beer from the top rode and then they took pictures in the ring with fans for $20. The line wrapped around floor, so it seemed they’d make a good deal of money here, too.

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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