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TNA held a house show at the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro, MD, on Saturday night. WWE has run some house shows here before as well, but it was still a good attendance (a few hundred people) and a noisy crowd. The biggest pops were for the Motor City Machine Guns vs. Generation Me match, as well as the backstage pass giveaways done by Jeremy Borash. The Pope and Jeff Jarrett got the biggest heat. One issue TNA still has is that many fans don't always want to follow their face/heel progression...Jeff Hardy mentions still get a lot of cheers, for example. Another is WWE identity...during the main event, a lot of people were yelling "Kennedy!" to Mr. Anderson.
As a fan experience, of course, TNA definitely works overtime. Unlike WWE, their merch stand was on the floor of the arena. Before the show, Samoa Joe was signing autographs, and during intermission it was Madison Rayne (who personalized hers). After the show Jeff Jarrett and Mickie James signed autographs, while Mr. Anderson took pictures in the ring with fans and let some (me included) hold the World title (even if it was the crappy Jeff Hardy version). Also, the Hebners signed a "Damn Right I Did" shirt. Good deal prices too...$50 got you the intermission backstage visit and Anderson photo, $10 got you the Hebner shirt and Earl/Brian autographs. For fans who didn't get the backstage bit, some of the wrestlers came out after the show to sign at ringside, and you could buy the Anderson photo experience for $20. And everyone stayed as long as they could (early) and until the last fan was done (after the show). It does benefit having a lighter touring schedule and smaller crowds. As the matches were about to start, the ringside meet-and-greet group came out from backstage, and a lot of them had signed guitars...I found out later it was $175 but it looked like most everyone on the card had signed them.
After Don West did his wheeling and dealing (I got there just as he was announcing the backstage pass sale, so I was in perfect position to zip over for it), Jeremy Borash opened the show. He noted it was the first-ever show for TNA in Maryland (they have another in Hagerstown tonight at a theater). Later he posited the idea of the DC area getting a PPV. The Show Place arena is small, but in terms of the size buildings TNA runs and could fill, I think they could easily fill this one for a PPV, and they'd have a good central spot for Florida/Carolina regulars and northeast fans to come down. They had some guy protesting the idea of giving out backstage passes, but of course they went ahead with it (in fact, he was the guy checking passes later).
First match was Kazarian vs. Robbie E vs. Kendrick for the X-Division title. Robbie came out without Cookie but doing his fist pump. Kendrick came out in his white robe, went around the ring slapping hands, got in the ring and then sat down in lotus position with his hood up, rocking like he was listening to his iPod or something. Kazarian came out, and all during this and the ref showing the belt and all, Kendrick just sat there. Eventually Robbie and Kazarian started wrestling...around Kendrick. They locked up over him, leap-frogged over him, and even did the criss-cross rope spot constantly going over him. They finally pulled him up by the robe...except he let the robe slip off and just sat there, then finally got into the match. For me, the best spot was Kazarian stomping on Robbie's hand to discourage fist pumping. Kazarian retained by hoisting Kendrick up into an Alabama Slam position, then dropping to his knees and letting Kendrick take a behind-the-back piledriver (I don't know all their move names, sorry).
Earl Hebner was introduced, not too much of a "You Screwed Bret" chant, but I guess enough at ringside that he pulled off his ref shirt to reveal his "Damn Right I Did!" shirt that they sold at the merch stand later. Then we had Madison Rayne vs. Mickie James for the Knockouts title. A long match, longer than the X-Division match, and pretty good. Madison eventually won after Mickie knocked her into Earl's arms dipped down, he planted a kiss on her, and a minute later she hit Mickie with a power of the punch right for the win. After Mickie recovered, she kissed Earl too, who plopped down in the corner overwhelmed.
Next was Abyss vs. Douglas Williams for the TV title. Williams interacted nicely with the crowd as the face, and still seems cured of his fear of heights. Abyss got the most heat when he did Hogan-esque moves. At one point, Abyss fished Janice out from under the ring and took a swing, but missed and got it kicked from his hand. There was a bit of a scary spot right after where Williams dropped back and right near Janice, which finally prompted the ref to move it out of the ring...I was concerned Williams would accidentally land on it, and I don't know if it's gimmicked since it wasn't designed to hit. Abyss hit the Black Hole Slam to retain.
Next was easily match of the night, Motor City Machine Guns vs. Generation Me. The MCMG got a lot of offense early, including chops hard enough that Max still was marked up after, finally GenMe got their turn. It was a better selling job than I've seen of MCMG on TV, but still a tendency to recover quickly. We had one ref-is-blind tag before finally getting to the house clearing. At one point, one of GenMe (Jeremy I found out later) hit a nasty springboard X-Factor on one of MCMG, where the guy took it with his head spiking almost vertical down and his feet up in the air. The Guns finally won with their top rope finisher (they or someone needs to steal the old Powerplex for a finish).
This brought us to intermission and the backstage visit (Don West did some more dealing in the ring). After going through the line, they let us behind the curtain into the small area there and everyone mulling around. It was pretty much the guys that had already wrestled, except for Kazarian, Kendrick, and Abyss (though Abyss poked his head in once or twice). Most folks were around the Guns and Kurt Angle, who did a good job managing the people wanting autographs and pictures. I just took pictures of them since I didn't have anyone with me to take them and didn't want to risk my iPhone. The Guns were nice guys, told them I loved their match. Angle was basically in the middle and spinning around to get everyone, told him the last time I met him in person he had hair (during the book signing for his WWE autobiography). These big crowds actually kept the spots for Williams, Robbie E, and Generation Me pretty open. Shook Willaims' hand, just looked at Robbie E for a second (the TNA book their sold that folks would sign was the 2009-2010 book, so he wasn't in it), and got GenMe's autograph. Flashback moment...when I got to them they were getting a picture of a kid in an old Hardys shirt, and given GenMe wearing purple tights and one with black hair, one with blonde hair, it was a little surreal. I asked which had hit that X-Factor and told them it was a sick looking move. Their chests were quite red still. Everyone was real cool, especially the two teams since they had gotten out of the ring not 10 minutes before. I got out and around to Madison Rayne at the merch stand just before the matches started up again. I also grabbed one of the shirts and got Earl's autograph, reminding him Bret had gotten over it.
Next match was the Pope vs. Samoa Joe. It was an alright match, and people were definitely booing Pope. Only one or two people remember Elijah Burke, which to me is a good sign. The finish was Pope hitting a sunset flip on Joe, who flipped Pope out of the sitting position and into the Kokina Clutch for the tapout. After the match Pope got a lot of "you tapped out" chants, and as he left he snatched a pair of Pope sunglasses from a fan. The ref (Brian Hebner) snatched them back to return to the fan of course.
Borash noted that the Spike TV cameras were there as he counted them down and introduced the main event, Mr. Anderson vs. Jeff Jarrett for the World title with Kurt Angle as the ref. Anderson did his "ask for the mike" bit, of course one didn't come down, so he made Borash get on a chair and hand him the house mike from above. Jarrett got a lot of "you sold out" chants and told Borash to let us know if it kept up he'd leave Maryland and never return...you can guess what that did. Jarrett did a few duck under the ropes for breaks, so Anderson mocked him by doing the same. These two did the best in bringing the crowd in, especially Jarrett taunting the crowd. The finish saw Abyss come out to take Angle out, while Jarrett hit a low blow and belt shot on Anderson. Angle got back in and reluctantly counted very slow to a two count. Jarrett got in Angle's face, and turned around into a Mic Check for three.
Post-match, Abyss got back in and got Angle Slammed, then Angle got hit with the Stroke. Jarrett mentioned how Karen would spill his secrets on Impact this week. Anderson got back in for the save and they punch ping-ponged Jarrett til he bailed. Angle left Anderson in the ring. Anderson cut off Borash announcing him as the winner, saying he could do it better, then decided to let a fan do it. They got a little boy in, Anderson put the belt on his shoulder, and the kid did the Anderson part for him.
Afterwards, Borash directed the fans that wanted the Anderson picture to line up, as well as a line for Mickie and Jarrett and one for the Hebners. This had to be at least another hour of pictures and signing, and no one was turned away...they just announced last call on the Anderson bit when the line got real short. I did that first, and I and a few others let him know the Packers were up by 3 TDs at that point (shortly thereafter Borash kept announcing the score over the house mike). It was a nice setup that you got a professional photo with Anderson and received a print immediately, with copies being available on their site in the next day or so. I will say the ring felt more padded and bouncy than I expected, especially hearing what WWE rings are like, and it felt like they used cables for ropes (I heard WWE uses thick rope wrapped in tape). Atlas Security was there all night and were insistent in the Jarrett/Mickie line on the "of them not with them" picture bit, which a guy in front of me was being a pain about. Jarrett asked me if I liked the show, which I told him I did, and mentioned that I'd tweeted him before the main event about slipping him a buck at the table if he'd El Kabonged Anderson, which he chuckled at. I kind of outed him to Mickie that he'd been tweeting during the show and mentioned I'd been tweeting the results back to you guys as well. Mickie joked that Jeff tweeted more than she did, which I told her I could tell since I see hers as well, and that she liked the quotes Jeff tweets.
All in all, a fun night of wrestling. Definitely better than Impact, and perhaps TNA should take some lessons from that. From a fan experience perspective, easily a great night. I kind of wish WWE would do something similar, but I understand with the longer touring schedules and more machine-polished production that they can't as easily.
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