TNA "Maximum Impact" house show report
January 22, 2009
Glasgow, Scotland
Report by Nikki McIntosh, PWTorch VIP member

Went to the TNA tour show at the Braehead Arena in Glasgow Thursday night. Crowd was pretty good - anywhere between 2,000 and 3,000 - and was pretty hot throughout. This was TNA's first trip to Scotland and the overall product was very popular with the crowd. Almost everyone got a reaction of some description for their entrance and there were lots of "TNA" chants throughout. I've read it before, but Jeremy Borash does an exceptional job of rallying the crowd before the show and between matches. Matches were as follows:

(1) X Division champion Alex Shelly beat Eric Young, "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal, and Consequences Creed in a four-way match to retain the X Division Championship. Standard multi-man X Division match, with lots of random spots thrown together in quick succession. Lot's of fun though and the crowd ate it up. Creed seemed to be odd one out when it came to the crowd as he was the only one to not receive a "let's go [insert name]" chant. Shelly pinned Young after a Celtic Cross.

(2) Abyss beat Sheik Abdul Bashir. Basically a glorified squash. Bashir spent the early part of the match stalling and running into the crowd before Abyss got a hold of him. Bashir got a small amount of offense after a low blow but fell pretty quickly to a Black Hole Slam.

(3) ODB & Taylor Wilde beat the Beautiful People (Velvet Sky & Angelina Love). Fairly loud "ODB" chants throughout this one, as well as a dueling "Let's go Taylor/Let's go Velvet." A small boy behind me seemed to love the BP. Not sure if it's for the same reason most guys do. ODB picks up the win after a powerslam on Angelina.

Post-match: Velvet goes on a rant about how they had never been so disrespectful (I think she meant "disrepected") in their entire lives and would never step foot in Glasgow again. That's fine; I live in Edinburgh. They can come here instead.

(4) Brutus Magnus beat Matt Morgan in a "Gladiator Grudge Match." Magnus appeared as "Oblivion" on the British Gladiators show. Least match heat of the night. Magnus gets the win with a roll up after Morgan is distracted by Abyss at ringside. This was before the official break up of Abyss and Morgan and they were still doing the "partners falling out" bit. Abyss comes down to cheer Morgan on, but refuses to hand him a chair when Morgan asks leading to the pin. Post-match, they get into a shoving match until Morgan backs off.

(5) Team 3D (Brother Ray & Brother Devon) beat TNA tag team champions Beer Money (Robert Roode & James Storm) in a non-title "Glasgow Street Fight." This was initially introduced as a title match, but Beer Money announced that as they had defended the title at the previous show they would not be doing it again. Ray took the mic and said that although there was nothing they could do about the titles, Jim Cornette told them the match would now be a Street Fight. People can say what they like about Team 3D's act being stale but as a touring act they are over HUGE! Probably the most over act of the night with huge "we want tables" chants throughout. Ray gets the pin after a 3D through a signed table.

Post-match: Ray invited a young kid called Jay into the ring to get a piece of the table. Unfortunately Ray doesn't seem to speak Scottish as he first thought his name was "Jean" before settling on "Ian." Having the crowd chant "Ian" at him will be a funny story for the kid to tell when he's older.

[Intermission]

After Intermission, JB got a cameraman into the ring to shoot footage that will apparently be shown on an upcoming episode of Impact. (Side note: I think I must be one of the greatest fans in the world. At every event/gig I've ever been to, I've been told I'm part of the loudest and best crowd of that particular tour. Coincidence? I think not.) JB then introduced Dixie Carter who removed her jacket to reveal a Scotland National football strip with "Dixie 1" on the back. She told us how amazing we all were before introducing Mick Foley to a big pop. Interesting she described Foley as having "held every major wrestling title in the world." Good way to talk up your company's titles, Dixie. Foley also told us how amazing we all were before paying tribute to all the great Scots in wrestling history, including "Gator" Scott Hall, Scott Levy (quite a big pop for Raven's name actually), Scotty 2 Hotty, and Scott D'Amore. Not entirely sure what Foley thought that would achieve but he lost the crowd a bit by the end.

(6) Samoa Joe beat Doug Williams. I was particularly looking forward to seeing Joe, but the match didn't really click for me. Couple of pretty bad blown spots in this one too, including a bodyslam that was close to getting into Phoenix/Knoxville territory, and a moment where Williams charged Joe in the corner and just sort of stopped a yard in front of him. Small "You F'D up" chant for that one. Joe gets the win after a muscle buster.

(7) AJ Styles & Jeff Jarrett beat Kurt Angle & Scott Steiner. Angle was over big as a face here, certainly more so than Jarrett. Big pop for A.J. as well. Match was the best of the night from a work-rate standpoint, as you would expect with A.J. and Angle involved, and Jeff was solid too. A.J. pinned Steiner after hitting the Pele kick. Biggest shock of the night for me was that Jarrett's guitar wasn't involved at any point.

Jeff took the mic afterwards and also told us how amazing we all were. (I'm telling you, it's all down to me.) He said they hope to be back soon.

All in all, a very enjoyable show and I would definitely recommend any British fans to check out a show if they get the chance. Nothing surprising or earth-shattering, but a very enjoyable three hours. The company may have well-documented problems, but they should be able to sustain a fairly healthy live fan base on this showing.

Keep up with the great work on the Torch. Cheers, Nikki McIntosh - Edinburgh, Scotland

RELATED STORIES at PWTorch.com
-- 1/16 TNA in Dublin results
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-- 1/20 TNA in Manchester results
-- 1/21 TNA in Birmingham results

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