TNA "Maximum Impact" house show report
January 16, 2009
Dublin, Ireland
Report by Steve Cooney, PWTorch reader

This was a sold-out show however the venue only holds 2,000 people. Still not bad for a company that is shown on a channel that a lot of Irish people do not have access to. I think Angle and Foley were a big draw for this one. I was sitting three rows from ringside, so had a good view of what was going on. Jeremy Borash began the night with the usual rabble rousing speech about offering backstage passes to the loudest fans throughout the night. On to the first match.

(1) X Division champion Alex Shelley beat Eric Young and Doug Williams in a three-way match. Big heel heat for Doug Williams here. A U.K. wrestler will always get the heel heat in Dublin though. No one cared too much for Eric Young either. The entire crowd was firmly behind Alex Shelley. Standard three-way match, not much to say about it really. Shelley won with The Sliced Bread to retain the title.

(2) The Beautiful People (Angelina Love & Velvet Sky) beat ODB & Taylor Wilde. Sloppy enough match, kind of what you'd expect from these four. Crowd didn't care too much about anyone except for Velvet Sky. Good god she's even hotter in person. The Beautiful People won this when Velvet sprayed her perfume in ODB's eyes and Angelina scoerd the roll-up.

Sheik Abdul Bashir came out and did his typical rant in Iranian for the easy heel heat. In English, he challeneged anyone in the back to come face him. This prompted Samoa Joe to make his entrance. Very surprised to see him so early.

(3) Samoa Joe beat Sheik Abdul Bashir. Basically a squash match for Joe. Joe was SO over with the crowd. Ton's of "Joe's gonna kill you" chants here. Fairly short match with Joe getting the win with the muscle buster. Joe looked a bit worse for wear though. He wasn't moving around the ring as much as usual and seemed to get blown up a few times during the match.

Borash announced that the winners of the next match would receive a tag title match tomorrow night.

(4) Team 3D (Brother Ray & Brother Devon) beat Matt Morgan & Abyss. Abyss and Morgan came out to a fairly positive response but the crowd got completely behind Team 3D for this match. Morgan & Abyss ended up playing the heel role in this one. Bubba got on the mic and announced that this match was now going to be a Dublin Street Fight and that falls counted anywhere. Immediately he and Morgan went into the crowd on one side of the arena, and Abyss and Devon did the same on the other side. It was hard to see what was going on during this time but Team 3D got the upper hand of both fights. In a funny moment, during this brawling, a beach ball was thown from the crowd and Bubba repeatedly smashed the beach off Morgan's face to a massive pop. Abyss eventually did the heel thing of trying to burst the ball but couldn't get it done. The crowd chewed him up for that one! The teams made their way back to the ring and countinued the match there. Team 3D got the victory here with a 3D on Morgan to become Number one contenders for tomorrow night.

[Intermission]

After the intermission, JB and a camera man filmed some shots for Impact then Borash ran though an introduction for Jeff Jarrett. A strange point that was noticed by a lot of the crowd was that during the introduction JB was talking about Jeff's wife passing away. He followed by saying "since her death, the one thing Jarrett missed most in the world was all of you fans." Most people would think that the thing he missed most was his wife, but anyway that line got a confused reaction from the crowd.

Jarrett came out to a moderate but positive reaction. He talked through the history of TNA, thanked the fans for following him and also thanked Universal Studios, Spike TV, and Bravo (UK chanel which shows TNA). At this point he introduced Mick Foley to a massive pop and "Foley, Foley Foley" chants all round. Foley tried his cheap heat tricks of talking about visiting Ireland during his book signing. He mentioned last time he was here he took a trip to County Cork, which drew alot of boos from the Dublin crowd. Foley look confused, but he didn't realize that expecting a cheer for the mention of Cork with a Dublin crowd is like going to new York and saying that you're favorite place is Boston...it's not going to have the desired effect. Ireland isn't that small after all. He then faired better when talking about Barack Obama and also the near-miss plane crash in New York earlier that day. Good crowd-pleasing segment and Foley and Jarrett both seemed to really enjoy it. Would have liked to have seen Dixie though!

(5) TNA tag team champions Beer Money, Inc. (Robert Roode & James Storm) beat Jay Lethal & Consequences Creed. Beer Money got a lot of cheers when they entered until James Storm took the mic and said how great it was to be in England. Roode corrected him and he acted pissed that he was in Ireland not England, then easily turned the crowd by saying "who cares, Ireland or England it's all the same palce anyway." This was a good energetic back and forth match with everyone hitting their signature offense, and James Storm playing the cowardly heel alot. Earl Hebner was the ref here and ended up getting involved in the match when Storm kept ignoring his calls. He went all Shane Sewell on Storm. He ripped off his ref's shirt (thankfully he was wearing a t-shirt underneath) and got storm in a headlock. Him and Lethal then double teamed Storm for a minute or so. He calmed back down and went back to refereeing after that. The finish came when Roode had the ref distracted. Storm hit Lethal with the tag belt and Roode scored the cheap victory.

(6) Kurt Angle beat A.J. Styles. This was the match that the vast majority of the crowd (including myself) were waiting for. Both men were SO over. The energyfrom the audience for this match was off the charts. Dueling "Let's go A.J., let's go Kurt" chants throughout. Kurt tried to get some heel heat during the match but the crowd just kept cheering both guys strongly. This was a great but short match. Started out with some good exchanges of mat wrestling holds. The pace quickened soon after, with A.J. going for a Styles Clash early but Kurt reversed it into following up with an Ankle Lock. A.J. broke free and they repeated the Ankle Lock spot a few times to build up the tension. The finish came when A.J. was on the ropes setting up for a Sprial Tap when Kurt shoved the referee causing A.J. to crotch himself and fall off. Kurt hit the Angle Slam and got the three count. Great match, but the only negative was how soon it ended. It only lasted about 10-12 minutes I would say.

Post-match: Kurt attacked A.J. and put him in the Ankle Lock again. He then went outside for chair only to be jumped by Foley. Angle got the upperhand and brought Foley into the ring, which prompted Jarrett to make the save. Kurt cleared the ring and was headed to back, very pleased with himself, when Foley got on the mic and announced that Kurt wouldn't get away with what he did and that tomorrow night he would be put in a match against Jeff Jarrett.

JB thanked us all for coming and the show ended. It was a very enjoyable night and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's show. Of all the advertised people the only one who did not appear was U.K. Gladiator star Brutus Magnus. No explanation was given so he may take Doug Williams place tomorrow.

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