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June 3rd
On this day in history in ....
1964 - Dr. Jerry & Crazy Luke Graham defeat Vittorio Apollo & Don McClarty for the WWWF U.S. Tag Championship.
1991 - Steve Austin defeats Bobby Eaton for the WCW Television Title in Birmingham, Alabama. This would be Austin's first singles championship in WCW, and ended Eaton's only reign with the title.
1996 - The Monday Night Wars continued, with WCW's Nitro beating WWF's Raw, 3.0 to 2.3. Raw featured Jake Roberts defeating Triple H, The Godwins defeating Techno Team 2000, Mankind defeating Barry Horowitz and Steve Austin defeating Bob Holly. Nitro offered The Steiners defeating Sting & Lex Luger via DQ, Scott Norton defeating Hugh Morrus, The Giant defeating Ice Train, Ric Flair & Arn Anderson defeating The Rock N' Roll Express, Kevin Sullivan defeating Prince Iaukea, Steve Regal defeating Hacksaw Duggan, Craig Pittman defeating Disco Inferno, Faces Of Fear defeating High Voltage, and John Tenta defeating Bubba Rogers via countout.
2003 - Rey Mysterio, Jr. defeats Matt Hardy for the WWE Cruiserweight Title in Anaheim, California, beginning his sixth run with the title, but his first run with the belt since it had become a WWE Title (Rey's five previous runs with the belt were when the title was part of WCW).
2004 - After two years as a "PPV Only" company, the very first episode of TNA Impact airs on Fox Sports Net. The show, taped in Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, would later move from it's Friday afternoon slot on FSN to a late night Saturday slot on SpikeTV, before becoming a late night Thursday show for Spike, then finally becoming a primetime show on Thursdays. The show would also see the debut of the six-sided ring in TNA, which was previously a staple of the AAA promotion in Mexico. Here is the original report from that first show, as written by Rob Marco.
Show opens with a pretty impressive video package welcoming us to Stage 21 at Universal Studios in Orlando. Mike Tenay and Don West welcome us and run down the show. 6 sided ring is a neat addition as is the set.
Match 1: 6 Man Tag: Team Canada (Petey Williams, Bobby Rude, Eric Young w/ Scott D’more) Vs Team International (Red, Sonjay Dutt, and Hector Garza).
Tenay informs us of new rules: 10 minutes for non-title matches, 30 for titles and in the event of a draw judges will render a decision. Rude and Red start off the match. Williams and Rude double team Red and go for a pin but Red kicks out. Garza saves Red from a near pinfall. Red finally gets an advantage over Eric Young and tags Garza with a hot tag. Rude gets Garza from behind and Dutt hits him with a Hurricanrana. Near fall by Red on Young, with the Code Red. Garza gets the pinfall with the tornado moonsault.
Your winners are Team international.
Recap video of King of Mountain match. New voiceover guy by the way. They are hyping Jeff Jarrett’s first appearance as NWA champ on the next PPV. They are doing a good job so far of using this show to hype the PPV.
Tenay and West do a brief recap of the history of the company and show a video package of the past 2 years featuring Jarrett’s attack on Toby Keith and Keith’s revenge on Jarrett. Next week they are going to show the Johnny Fairplay-Brian Urlacher footage.
Another hype for the PPV. Fan’s Choice Tag Team Challenge, Frankie Kazarian faces the winner of today’s X match, Team Canada vs. Team Mexico vs. Team NWA.
Plug for the TNA DVDs and Website.
Match 2 Shark Boy vs. Abyss (no Goldylocks)
Goldylocks is watching from backstage. Abyss is pretty much squashing Sharky from the start. Shark Boy slips out of the torture rack but then falls in the Black Hole slam and is pinned.
Your winner Abyss
Match 3 World Tag Team Title Match America’s Most Wanted (Chris Harris and James Storm) Vs Kid Kash and Dallas
Don West informs us that the winner of this match defends their title on the PPV against who ever we the fans want by voting at NWATNA.com. Storm and Kash start out with a lot of aerial and mat maneuvers. Storm tags in Harris and they double team Kash. 2 count by Dallas. We go to a commercial break. And a plug for the PPV. Same as before but I forgot to mention there is also a 4 way "gut check match" whatever that is. No mention of who is in it. There are a lot of country music commercials, in fact, I’d say 75% of the non TNA/Fox/Universal commercials are country music. Anyways we are back to the match. We get a replay of what happened during the break and there was a near fall by AMW but Dallas broke it up. Kash went for a moonsault off of Dallas’s shoulders but missed. Wildcat with a cross body and a near fall on Dallas. Harris gets a clothesline and a nearf all on Dallas but Kash breaks it up. Kash hits a frog splash on Storm but Harris hits him with a spear but Dallas breaks up the pinfall. Then Harris rolls up Dallas for the win.
Your winners and new tag team champions, America’s Most Wanted.
X Cup video highlights. Hyping Lynn/Garza/Metal vs. Team Canada this Wednesday.
Tenay introduces the judge for the evening, the American Dream Dusty Rhodes. Dusty talks about how great Impact is and how big of an impact TNA is and how big of an impact Tradition is making and about the history of the championship belt. mentioning Thesz, Rogers, Brisco, and Terry Funk. Then he mentions Styles, Killings and himself. He goes on to talk about Jarrett and thinking he was a protector of Tradition and now he “changed his spots for the almighty dollar†Jarrett’s music hits and he comes out to confront good old Dusty. Jarrett tells Dusty he doesn’t belong here and that he admired Dusty when he was 15, 16 years old and was grateful to Dusty with what he taught him but that was 20 years ago and Dusty was in the twilight of his career and Jarrett is trying to help him from embarrassing himself. He asking Dusty if he needs money and offers him 50 bucks. He tells Dusty there is a place for people like him and it’s not in the ring and to get out or Jarrett’s going to run him out. Dusty clubbers Jarrett. Jarrett gets his offense and Ron Killings comes in for the save. Jarrett gets his guitar and smashes Killings with it. BG James and Konnan chase JJ out of the ring and BG cuts a promo saying “Jarrett you remind me of Eddie Van Halen, without your guitar you’re a mere mortal†and promises he will hear from the 3 Live Kru on Wednesday.
Another video on the X division
Shane Douglas interviews Vince Russo. Shane hypes the X Division and asks Russo who is the 4th man in the X Division match. Russo won’t say but says we will be shocked.
Match 5 Elix Skipper vs. Chris Sabin vs. Michael Shane vs. ????
Sabin, Skipper and Shane are in the ring and the surprise man is AJ STYLES. All 4 man go at it at once. Styles gets the 3 on one treatment. Shane and Styles are in the ring alone. Styles gets a nice dropkick to the face on Shane. Sabin hits a nice springboard dropkick on Styles. It is pointed out that Shane is the longest reigning champ in X division history. Styles breaks up a near fall that Shane had on Skipper. Lots of Sabin and AJ chants. Sabin did a reverse DDT off the ropes on Styles. Near pin fall. Shane gets crotched off the top rope, then gets sent off the top rope with a hurricanrana by Skipper. AJ throws Sabin out and does a flip dive into Skipper on the floor. TNA chant breaks out. Shane throw AJ into the post shoulder first. Styles Clash on Shane and Styles gets the pinfall and the title shot on Wednesday as Frankie comes down the ramp and exchanges glances with AJ.
Your winner: AJ Styles
Tenay was cutoff saying his goodbye, which I found weird. Overall a pretty good debut show. Only bad thing I have to really say about it is Don West. The crowd was really hot. Much better than the WCW TV taping crowds.
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