• Wrestling News & Wrestling Rumors – WWE & TNA

- After a sellout tour last Summer TNA wrestling came back to the UK with the daunting task of filling arenas only previously ran by WWE. Although there were no legitimate sellouts apart from Dublin, TNA drew its biggest ever crowd at London’s Wembley Arena, and I’m pleased to say I was there to cover this small milestone along with Suplah co-hosts Liam Dunne and Andy Quann.

On the train (Left me)(Right Liam Dunne)

Kings Cross Station (Harry Potter?)

- After a hectic journey full of delayed trains and circle walking, we made it to the Hotel where the only thing left to do was drink and tell Jeremy Borash jokes. It took us a good hour to figure out that the arena was actually the big white building opposite our hotel window. I guess the fact that there was a construction site in between and not 1 of the 8,000 people in sight, kind of threw us off.

Me in hotel, Wembley stadium lit up to the right

- For the amount of people there, the queuing was very organized and we couldn’t have been waiting longer than 20 minutes to get inside. The set up was pretty good. There was a solid lighting rig above the ring, a lit entrance ramp, smoke, and a not so big big screen, which often looped random videos, and for ages there was a constant faint band of writing reading Doug Williams behind the clips. The warm up music also seemed slightly off color, with Britney Spears, some rave, the last few WWE PPV themes and then Sandman’s theme! We wanted the Sandman! It didn’t hurt the show, but it’s these little things that keep TNA looking minor league. On top of this, 8,000 people actually doesn’t look that big live. For this to be TNA’s biggest ever show, it really puts the WWE vs TNA thing in to perspective. It would have looked much better if they tapered off the top seats, instead of having clusters of people dotted around. I often wonder how the veterans truly feel wrestling in front of the smaller crowds. That being said, 8,000 brits chanting at the top of their lungs is an exhilarating experience, although I still think last year’s Coventry show had the better all-round atmosphere.

Ringside

Big Screen

Crowd Shot

- To start the show Jeremy Borash (the ring announcer) had to have another announcer, announce him. This small gray haired fellow was greeted with “who are you” chants. My thoughts exactly. Borash then proceeded to do his usual hype and convoluted over the top suck-up fest. He is quite annoying, and popped up to get himself over after every match. Give me Michael “…ready to rumble” Buffer (without the adamle’s) any day. Still, the crowd were in to him and that’s what counts.

- The action started with a fast paced 4 way X-Division title match (Alex Shelly, Doug Williams, Black Machismo, Eric Young) to get the fans buzzing. Although it seemed a little short, it was packed with several exciting spots and did a great job of preparing the fans for the matches to come. Shelly retained after the “Sliced Bread 2″. Doug Williams got a great home-country reaction, which is always nice to see, considering he is still unknown to a lot of the audience. Are TNA actually going to put him on TV yet?

- The second bout was a bit of a mismatch of styles as Scott Steiner took on Consequences Creed. Despite working as a heel Steiner being a well known star got as many cheers as he did boos, and Creed got one of the least reactions of the night, although it was generally positive. It was a solid match, with Steiner getting in most of his spots, including a top rope Belly to Belly and a Steiner Recliner for the win. Creed is athletic, but still quite green, so having Steiner there definitely helped. There were smatterings of steroid chants shamefully started by my buddies (you can’t blame them), as well as “you can’t wrestle” and other negative variations, but these were generally minority chants.

Steiner Recliner

- Next came the women’s match of ODB & Taylor Wilde against The Beautiful People. Understandably the men were in to this throughout, starting a whole host of chants from the simple “ODB” to “Velvet Swallows.” Although they don’t think of themselves as Divas, this bout was full of Boob grabbing, skirt tearing and at times verged on referee molestation. Earl Hebner is a lucky man! However he still can’t escape the “you screwed Bret” chants. There was strong support for ODB, but the majority of fans were behind Velvet Sky and her amazing behind. Even after their promo where they called British people ugly and toothless and proclaimed that soccer sucked, we still couldn’t get enough of Velvet.

Beautiful People

Getting in to the ring

Best behinds in the business!

- The 4th match saw the debut of Nick Aldis, aka Oblivion from the UK Gladiators. After standing out on the UK Indy scene Aldis definitely has all the tools and a great physique to boot, but his horrendous name “Brutus Magnus” is going to hold him back. Tonight he faced Sheik Bashir, who was obviously booed unanimously. The match was solid and Magnus was smooth and athletic, but he is too new to get a strong reaction. At certain points fans chanted “we want Wolf” in homage to the popular Gladiator original, as well as “we want Shadow,” who I believe is a current UK Gladiator. The match appeared to have ended when Bashir used his feet on the ropes, but the match was restarted and Magnus got the roll up. Several variations of “You screwed Bashir” chants developed after Earl restarted the math which was quit humorous.

- Next came one of the loudest pops of the night for Team 3D as they took on Beer Money in a London street fight, with plenty of plunder and a 3D table spot at the end to the fans delight. They brawled through a section of the crowd, used a ladder, wet floor sign, trash can and broom among other weapons and generally tore the house down. There were Dudley’ chants, Team 3D chants, ECW chants and tables chants. Plus TNA have cottoned on to the whole “Brokeback Mountain” chant and purposely set one up as Beer Money accidentally got in to a questionable position on the mat. After the match Team 3D cut a great promo acknowledging all of the chants whilst ultimately putting over TNA and the fact that it was their largest crowd to date. One of the most touching moments of the night came when a young lad called Harry was brought in to the ring and given a piece of the table. He must have been either petrified or overjoyed as the fans chanted “Harry, Harry” at the lucky kid. Team 3D really came off strong and helped convey the “specialness” of the night to the fans.

Team 3D with plunder

Testify

Get the ladder

- A short intermission followed and JB told fans to get ready as the TV cameras were going on after the break. After about 20 minutes, he brought out Dixie Carter (who gets better with age) and she warmly thanked the fans to a nice reception until pulling a Cryme Tyme and forgetting our currency. Gone were the thank you Dixie chants. She then introduced Mick Foley who completely lost everyone with his strange promo about a tattoo, that resulted in him singing a song that supposedly appears in The Wrestler movie. As you can imagine, he was majorly over with the fans despite the weak promo.

- Big news followed as the ever annoying Borash informed us that they were about to film a crowd shot for an upcoming TV commercial and that we should fix our hair and ties, (ties?). He listed all the countries and their TV stations to massive boos (especially France and Germany), before putting over the UK’s Bravo channel. After huge hype they got two clips of the fans chanting TNA and Bravo. I just hope foreign fans don’t think our fans randomly chant the name of TV networks during shows. In all seriousness though, it definitely got the fans pumped and behind the company’s UK efforts.

- At some point throughout this it was teased again that TNA are trying to set up either an Impact taping or a PPV from England. The fans chanted “PPV,” which makes sense because we get them for free. I have heard that this will take place in September.

- The penultimate match saw AJ Styles and Samoa Joe defeat Matt Morgan and Abyss. This initially came off as an oddball match because everyone was a face, until Morgan went heel and people got over the fact that he is a legitimately humongous human being. What followed was a lot of negative heat, accompanying “you can’t wrestle,” “you still suck,” and “you’re on steroids” chants. On the flip side AJ and Joe were massively over, with Joe getting “Joe is gonna kill you,” “fuck him up Joe” and “Ole chants.” Even AJ got a “fuck him up AJ” chant. Despite the mash of sizes, there were some great spots, including AJ reversing a choke slam by back flipping on to his feet, Joe’s Ole kick to the rail and an Esai Moonsault from AJ. Although some say they saw a Spiral Tap, I swear I saw the match end with a springboard 450 splash. Following the bout Matt Morgan pushed Abyss until he snapped. He went for a chair, but Morgan high tailed it.

Esai Moonsault

Abyss gets a chair

- The main event saw Jeff Jarrett take on Kurt Angle. Both men were majorly over with the audience and despite being heel, Angle generally got a positive reaction. They had a great back and forth contest and weren’t phoning it in by any stretch. We got a top rope Belly to Back Suplex, several ankle lock attempts and a Figure Four. There were dueling chants throughout, as well as a few “you suck” chants to Kurt. I saw the ending coming when the ref and both wrestlers were knocked out. I looked to the entrance and low and behold Scott Steiner came running (well jogging) down with a chair, only to get it drop kicked in his face. The next run in (more of a waddle) came from Mick Foley who applied socko to Angle, before Jeff could use the Guitar for the win.

Ankle Lock

Steiner’s run in

- At the end of the show Foley called out several of the faces and they celebrated in the ring and up the entrance way. It was cool to see them all so happy and having fun. Brother Ray decided he would steal a kiss from Taylor, whilst Devon and ODB exchanged private part grabbing, before Devon motioned that it was “this big.” Joe took up guitar playing, but it was too broken to make a tune.

- Overall it was a feel good show, with some solid wrestling. Every fan there, bar perhaps our devout ROH friend Andy, will go home with fond memories and will be even more dedicated to the product. Yes they still have a hell of a long way to go, but drawing 8,000 people during a recession is still very good business.