NWA-TNA Slammiversary 2005 6/19/2005

Written By: Jim

Slammiversary
June 19, 2005

Delirious vs Elix Skipper vs Shark Boy vs Amazing Red vs Jerrelle Clark vs Zack Gowen
Delirious in TNA! Now this is a way to start off a TNA PPV. Delirious is his usual great self only he’s only given a couple minutes to show his craziness. I believe this is one of the many short lived returns of Red. Like all of the others, it’s exciting to see him again, but it’s just not the Red you remember. All of these guys are basically faces although Gowen and Delirious comes off with more of a heel feel about them. Due to that, there’s no story here and it’s just one car wreck spot after another. Best spot is Clark hitting a sick driver that caused Red to land on his head. Shark Boy picks up the win on Delirious following the Deep Sea Drop. In case Elix Skipper had any doubt that TNA only cared about Daniels following the Triple X split, he just lost a match against five jobbers/JTTS without even making an impression. And to think this is the guy everyone talked about stealing the show in the main event seven months ago. Perfect sort of way to open up a show though. 2 Stars.

Alex Shelley vs Shocker
Alex Shelley’s back in TNA. YES! Shelley left in late 2004 due to some unhappiness. Shocker’s sadly still around. Simple story going into the match, Shelley wants to prove he’s the better wrestler. Not much chemistry between these two. Personally, I’d blame it more on Shocker though. There isn’t anything about him that entertains me. Mike Tenay does a great job at putting Shelley over as a student of the game and knowing so many different styles. For a return, it’s well done with Shelley being more of a serious wrestler than his lame Baby Bear days. Shocker gets the slight surprise pin thanks to a hammerlock style roll up. Shocker may have won, but he’s still considered “That guy who was in the McDonald’s commercial” more than anything else. Nothing special, but not bad either. 2 1/4 Stars.

The Outlaw vs Ron Killings
This feud never ends. There’s still another five or so months left of it. Pretty dull match thanks to The Outlaw controlling most of it. I’d never claim that Killings is a good worker or anything, but this is even below his potential. Finish comes with Killings winning with a surprise roll up out of nowhere with Outlaw taking little offense. To add the perfect shit finish to a shit match, Outlaw’s shoulders were up the entire time during the three count. The whole match is just an excuse to showcase the post-match events where Outlaw attacks Killings until BG James comes out. James doesn’t touch Outlaw, so Outlaw turns his back and allows BG the chance to hit him with a chair. BG doesn’t do anything and Konnan runs out and attacks Outlaw. Same tension and BS that this angle would do every PPV for nearly a year. 1 Star.

The Naturals (c) vs Eric Young and Petey Williams w/Scott D’Amore and A1 – NWA Tag Titles
I honestly don’t remember Young/Williams teaming up this much. No real story other than Team Canada being named the top challengers so they kept attacking the Naturals. If you want a quality Naturals match, put them in the ring with a good tag team and just have the Naturals be on defense for most of the match. Williams and Young are amazing in this by carrying the Natural’s to their best PPV match thus far. Chase Stevens plays the face-in-peril well enough that after all of the abuse, multiple tags and attacks from D’Amore and A1, when he does finally tag Douglas, the fans actually pop. The hot tag, tag wrestling 101. I’m not as into it once the Naturals take over since it’s just all four guys in the ring and a series of moves including attempting to pin Eric Young when he wasn’t the legal man. I hate when refs don’t even bother to follow the rules and counts when they know the guy isn’t the legal one. Jimmy Hart makes his surprise TNA debut by throwing in his megaphone behind the ref’s back for the Naturals to win via Nasty Boys finish. Meh, seeing Hart was awesome, but all it meant was another month of the Naturals as champion. Pretty good simple tag match though. You really can’t screw things up much when you keep it this by the numbers. Sadly, Petey and Young would be done being a normal tag team after this. 3 1/4 Stars.

Samoa Joe vs Sonjay Dutt
The savior has arrived. Mike Tenay puts Joe over big time by talking about his near 2 year reign as ROH Champion, being the current Pure champion, losing only once in the last three years in America (BS, but I’m not complaining), so many of the guys in TNA wanting to see him and how he himself had wanted to see him for years. Joe just dominates Dutt and gets in most of his moves. The crowd is pretty into Joe and seems to have a basic idea of who he is. I’ve read some complaints about Dutt getting in too much offense, but I don’t have a problem with it. All of Dutt’s moves came from having the speed advantage over Joe, but Dutt never had the control for long. In addition to that, I never felt as if Joe was in danger of losing. Joe’s going to end up being dominant against many guys in TNA, so allowing Dutt a little offense wasn’t going to hurt him any. Joe puts Dutt away following the Muscle Buster and Coquina Clutch. Forget about Angle, Christian, Sting, Hogan, Kennedy, RVD, Hardy or anyone else. This was the most meaningful debut in the 3 hour PPV era of TNA. 3 Stars.

Bobby Roode w/Scott D’Amore vs Lance Hoyt
All stemming from last month at Hard Justice. Surprisingly, a pretty solid match with both guys putting in a lot of effort. Team Canada is so over as heels and Hoyt was at the peak of Hoytamania, so the crowd can’t get enough of the match. After a lot of distractions from D’Amore, Roode gets the pin following the Northern Lariat. However, the real fun happens after the match. Roode and D’Amore double team Hoyt with D’Amore taking off his shirt and attempting a moonsault. Hoyt moves out of the way and takes out Roode. Hoyt finally gets his hands on D’Amore and chokeslams him and follows it up with a moonsault of his own. The crowd is going insane and Hoyt looks like a fucking megastar. Once Team Canada arrives, Hoyt bolts and the medical staff comes out to take D’Amore away on a stretcher to the chorus of the goodbye song by the TNA crowd. Fun match and an even better angle. Is this really TNA? 3 Stars.

America’s Most Wanted vs Konnan and BG James
The match TNA had been building up for a few months. However, instead of having it for the tag titles and it meaning something, it’s just a pointless match between two face teams that has been having a lot of dysfunctional problems. The past month on iMPACT, AMW continued their losing ways and began blaming each other. Thanks to the Outlaw, there’s still plenty of tension in the 3 Live Kru camp. Lame match with AMW being in control for the most part, but their dissension is what’s the main focus of the match. Late in the match, The Outlaw comes out and fights Konnan, giving AMW a chance to hit a weak looking Hart Attack to finally get a win. After the match, BG and Konnan has problems in the ring before James leaves on his own. The fans were begging for a New Age Outlaws reunion, but for some reason, TNA made them wait for such a long time. Easily AMW’s worst 3 hour PPV match thus far. 1 3/4 Stars.

Christopher Daniels (c) vs Michael Shane w/Traci vs Chris Sabin w/Trinity – X-Division Title
I hate these sort of triple threats. The real issue is with the challengers, so the champion feels like the odd man out. The champion should never take a backseat in one of his matches. Trinity, making her last TNA PPV appearance, and Sabin aren’t on good terms, but they both hate Shane and Traci. This is made clear at the end of the first fall when Sabin has Shane up for a Cradle Shock, but Daniels grabs Trinity for an Angel’s Wings. Sabin has a choice, hit the move on Shane and eliminate him or save Trinity. Sabin decides to just pin his enemy. Daniels nails Angel’s Wings on Trinity to send her out of the company. The match really lived up to what the X-Division was meant to be, just total nonstop action with plenty of spots and fun. It did suffer from being highly predictable. Since it was elimination rules, Sabin was clearly going to make it to the final two. However, Daniels was in a completely different league of push than Sabin and Shane, so I never felt as if Daniels not winning was a possible outcome. Still, Daniels winning somewhat cleanly (He did crotch Sabin on the top rope) with Angel’s Wings for the third straight PPV creates some great booking in establishing Daniels as a major TNA name. 3 1/2 Stars.

AJ Styles (c) vs Monty Brown vs Abyss vs Sean Waltman vs Jeff Jarrett Raven – NWA World Title – King of the Mountain 2
Jeff Jarrett was originally scheduled to be in the match, but he was arrested on the pre-show for attacking a Jeff Hardy fan. With TNA needing to find a quick replacement, Larry Zbyszko makes the tough call to lift the suspension of Raven and add him into the match. Raven comes out in his classic look of the leather jacket, sleeveless t-shirt and jeans. King of the Mountain is hardly a great gimmick match, but it does keep your attention and I find it mildly entertaining. All of the quick pinfalls doesn’t make anyone look good though. They did manage to create a few meaningful moments for the future. Thanks to Sean Waltman turning his back on Styles and screwing him, it setup for their No Surrender match that would bring back Jerry Lynn. Likewise, with Abyss being Raven’s last challenge before winning the match, it setup their No Surrender title match. As Jarrett was kept out of the match and the man who replaced him won the match, it also setup a future Jarrett/Raven bout. The only one who didn’t get anything out of this was Monty Brown, but his TNA career was killed off the moment they had him turn at Destination X. Raven’s title win happens to be my favorite TNA win of all time. Hands down, they couldn’t have picked a more enjoyable conclusion to the PPV than FINALLY having Raven reach his two and a half years goal to possess the NWA title. It’s King of the Mountain, it’s not great, but it’s a guilty pleasure for me. 3 Stars.

Overall
For TNA’s biggest PPV to date, they at least managed to produce a fun show with plenty of memorable moments. The show was really lacking that one great match, but it manages to have less crap than most TNA PPV’s from before this. The X-Division title match ranks as the match of the night and AJ Styles has yet another quality PPV bout. The big thing that makes this show special is that it’s the beginning for a lot of changes. Raven as NWA champion would begin the most fun TNA period of the Internet era. The ROH guys are slowly coming in to freshen up the X-Division. TNA is beginning to have more logic in their matches with the amount of Wrestlecrap dropping big time. Finally, Samoa fuckin’ Joe has debuted to steal AJ Styles’ spot as Mr. TNA. Overall, an enjoyable show that promises to be an even better summer.