TNA IN CHICAGO LIVE REPORT: AJ STYLES VS. SAMOA JOE FOR TNA TITLE AND MORE
By Gregory Davis on 2009-10-24 01:58:03
Here's my live report from the TNA Live Event from the Odeum in a suburb of
Chicago, Illinois.
Now I didn't go to ECW shows here at the Odeum in the late 90s, so I can't say
if it was always like that, but from the outside, the venue looks like a dump.
The inside was alright.
Doors opened around 6:30, and the show started around 7:30. TNA does a great job
with their pre-show music. First it's standard arena rock. Then at 7:20, a TNA
announcer (this is all prerecorded on an iTunes Playlist by the way) says the
show will start in ten minutes, which the crowd pops for. After a playing of
Enter Sandman, the announcer then says it'll start in five minutes, which is
followed by Welcome to the Jungle. At this point the music seems to be getting
louder as well. After that, it's an announcement of one minute, with rotating
spotlights flashing on the crowd, followed by a pump-up rock theme, and right at
zero, the show begins.
Seating was setup with three rows of reserved ringside seats, with the remaining
ringside seats and lower-level seating being general admission. The floor looked
full, with maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the built seating filled. No more than 1,000
there.
Earl Hebner was signing at the Merchandise table. They had a new souvenir
program, probably released in time for Bound For Glory. From what I saw, it's
much improved over the previous one. I'll probably buy it tomorrow, since
someone stole my other one tonight.
As usual, Jeremy Borash is your host. He did the usual bit of awarding backstage
passes to the loudest fans. Although I'm a little annoyed at him, as he posted
the location of the night's hidden backstage pass on the @TNAOnline twitter
account, and not the @JeremyBorash account like he normally does. Boo. Maybe
next time.
Hebner received a personal introduction coming out to Man in the Box.
Alex Shelley defeated Shark Boy with a Frog Splash. As noted recently, Shark Boy
has been on the Chris Harris diet. I thought this was a solid match. It started
off as face vs. face, but half way through, Shark Boy faked a leg injury, and
turned heel with a sneak attack on Shelley. However, Shelley won with a Frog
Splash.
Rhino defeated Kip James with a Gore. Rhino did prematch whining promo. I found
it funny when he said TNA wanted to keep James due to his six-pack. Nothing much
of a match, but the crowd did cheer and boo the two respectively. Kip, of
course, did a lot of DX stuff. In the end, Kip missed a famouser, and ate a
Gore.
Borash read a text message from Samoa Joe, saying he should "tell the morons of
Chicago that he'll win the World Title tonight."
ODB, accompanied by Sun Times writer Elliot Harris, defeated Alissa Flash. Flash
refused to take off her jacket. Boo. Harris is a Quick Hits writer who like to
post photos of hot women in his articles, and he promoted the show and match in
his Thursday article. He also accompanied Christy Hemme in the Bound for Glory
dark match last year. Not a fan of this one. Flash was crisp (I'm a SHIMMER fan,
sue me), and ODB was very slow, and the crowd didn't seem to care that much. I
think ODB won with a TKO, but I'm not sure.
Matt Morgan defeated Scott Steiner with the Carbon Footprint. Steiner ran down
pretty much every local sports team, both professional and college. Morgan got a
good reaction as well. Steiner did a lot of pre-match jaw-jacking, and at one
point, ran out of the ring to the guardrail after one particular comment. Morgan
then decided to pose up in the lower level seating. Decent match, with the crowd
into it.
Time for Intermission. They must have sent fifty folks backstage.
Lethal Consequences defeated World Elite of Sheik Abdul Bashir and Kiyoshi with
a combo suplex/cross-body. Bashir has a pre-match promo that no one could
understand. Match of the night. Lots of hard hitting action, counters, and
high-flying moves. After, Creed told the crowd that THIS was Total Nonstop
Action. He then brought in a military guy and thanked him for his service, and
the three had a quick dance off.
AJ Styles defeated Samoa Joe with the Pele to retain the World Title. Surprising
lack of a reaction for Styles. OK match, but disappointing for what it could and
should have been.
After the match, AJ said he wanted to bring the whole crowd backstage, which JB
didn't want. Then he said as the TNA Champion, he's ordering backstage to come
out instead. So we had an autograph signing with Shelley, Morgan, ODB, and
Lethal. AJ posed in the ring for photos at $20 apiece, which had a line of at
least several hundred. One of the fans had an engraved Jeff Jarrett guitar from
last year's Bound for Glory. He either brought it back this year, or bought it
from the merchandise table, so congrats Don, someone finally bit on it.
No Shows from the online advertised lineup include Beer Money and Chris Sabin,
and from the promoted flyers were The British Invasion and Hernandez.
An OK show, but I did expect better.
