TNA house show report
October 10, 2008
Davenport, Iowa
Report by Chris Griffin of Rock Island, Ill. - PWTorch correspondent
 
Just returned from the house show, and thought I'd give you some results. TNA drives me nuts, and I can barely watch the show, but I heard that the house shows were better, and I'm not optimistic about their chances of coming back through my area. I'm a big fan of Joe, and wanted to see him wrestle live.

House was around 30-40 percent full, which worked in my favor, as I bought a general admission ticket, and moved to the front row as the event started. I'm horrible at predicting crowd numbers, so I won't try. Apparently, James Storm is also not good at guessing crowd numbers, as he claimed there were "about 900 people here." I'm not thinking that was correct.

Show started at 7:30, went to 9:30, and had six matches:

(1) Sheik Abdul Bashir (who has apparently been on some good vitamins) pinned Consequnces Creed in a X-Division Title match. Before the match he cut a promo in Arabic. The two phrases you could catch were "Barak Obama" and "John McCain." He then went to the back and walked down the aisle with a McCain/Palin sign, which drew some boos. Then recieved cheers when he threw the sign down and dropped an elbow on it.

(2) ODB & Roxxie defeated The Beautiful People in a Knockouts tag match, when Roxxie pinned Angelina Love with a roll-up. After the match, Angelina Love swore that the Beautiful People would never return to Iowa. Velvet Sky looked amazing.

(3) Eric Young pinned Petey Williams after a really cool toss-up neckbreaker. After the match Young offered to shake his hand. After a handshake, he was hit with the Canadian Destroyer.

(4) A.J. Styles pinned Booker T with a Pele Kick. It was nice to see what is usually a transition hold be used as a finish. Both companies should do that more often. Booker was an obvious pro at gaining heel heat (even without his rediculous and changing accents), as this was the first match most of the crowd got into.

(5) Matt Morgan and Abyss defeated Beer Money (w/Jackie) when Morgan hit the F-5 on Storm. Match was advertised as a title match, but after Beer Money came out, they said they weren't going to put the title on the line because they didn't like Davenport. I didn't know that was a requirement to defend a title. This match started with a very boring test of strength, and delaying on behalf of the heels. Too much homophobic heel heat. I guess it's a way to get the redneck crowd to boo you. Never more embarrassing to call yourself a wrestling fan then when you see the time warp of it being okay for a father to encourage their eight year-old son to chant "faggot."

6) Samoa Joe defeated Christian via rear naked choke after a Musclebuster. Good match. Too bad TNA is so inconsistant with their characters. Fans were unsure who to cheer of boo. No post match angle or promo.

NOTES: Kind of a disapointing show. Not that I wanted to see him wrestle, but I thought Double J would have wanted to use a house show to get some of his timing back. Jeremy Borash did "call" Mick Foley (you think he would have put him on speaker), who said he wanted to come to the show next time TNA came to Davenport (sure, that'll happen). I also think it's better for a house show to end with the babyface thanking the crowd and sending us off happy, but I guess TNA doesn't want to pick who the babyface is.

Thanks for all the work with the Torch.

TIPS FOR SENDING IN HOUSE SHOW REPORTS 

If you attend an arena event in future, either house shows or TV tapings, we encourage you to send us a report for publication. You can direct your reports to pwtorch@gmail.com.

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