TNA house show results
April 24, 2009
Cleveland, Ohio
Report by Paul Greer, PWTorch.com VIP member

TNA made their Cleveland area debut at the unlikely venue of The Phantasy Theater in Lakewood, Ohio. At max the place holds around 500 for seating. I'd estimate the attendance to be in the 400 range. There were empty seats in the main seating, but there were quite a few people in the SRO area.

The show started off with Jeremy Borash hyping up the crowd. They were offering backstage passes to the loudest people in attendance.

(1) X Division champion Suicide beat Brutus Magnus to retain the X Division Title. Suicide was popular with the crowd, Magnus not as much. Decent match but the finish was messed up. Either Suicide couldn't hold Magnus properly or Magnus couldn't take the move. Either way it was botched. The crowd gave a "you f'd up" chant.

(2) Sojo Bolt pinned Madison Rayne. Much better than the match they had on TNA this past week. They stuck with basic wrestling 101. Nothing fancy, but then again nothing to embarrass themselves. Rayne was the clear favorite of the two.

(3) Sheik Abdul Bashir defeated Shark Boy. Shark Boy and Bashir did some mic work before the match with Shark Boy doing the "What?" Steve Austin gimmick in between everything Bashir said. Not much to the match, but Bashir had crazy heat with the crowd. He even jumped the railing and ran up into the seats to confront some fans chanting "USA." He cheated with his feet on the ropes and was able to score the pin. A "that was b-s" chant broke out after the match.

(4) Lethal Consequences (Consequences Cree & Jay Lethal) beat Beer Money (James Storm & Robert Roode) in a #1 Contenders match. JB announced mistakenly that the match was for the World tag titles. Beer Money came out and threatened JB for making the mistake, claiming he was insulting them for losing the belts last week. This was a good match. Nice spots and Beer Money was able to switch the big pop they received into heat by doing the "gay" spots for comedy effect. By the end of the match, the crowd had turned on them and cheered when Lethal got the pinfall. I can't recall if it was on Storm or Roode.

(5) Rhino won his scheduled match with Matt Morgan by forfeit. JB announced that Morgan was involved in a car crash and couldn't make it to the show. Rhino said he didn't come to Cleveland to win by forfeit. He wanted to kick some ass. He challenged anyone in the back to come out.

(6) Rhino defeated Sheik Abdul Bashir after a gore. Bashir came out and said he wanted to get paid twice so he could make that Arab money. He accepted the challenge. This was a wild brawl. They fought outside the ring, through the crowd and hit each other with beers and water. I ended up splashed a couple of times. The crowd ate this match up. Rhino was popular throughout the whole match.

(7) Samoa Joe & Jeff Jarrett defeated Scott Steiner & Kurt Angle in the main event. Steiner came out and got great heat from the crowd. He told JB to let everyone know he attended Michigan and that Ohio State sucks. Angle came out to a hero's welcome. The most popular wrestler of the evening. Samoa Joe came out next to a decent pop. Jarrett came out to a "Thank you Jeff" chant that quickly turned into "Jarrett sucks" chants. A decent match with Jarrett and Angle working most of it. During the match the crowd seemed 50/50 on Joe and Jarrett. Joe hit the muscle buster on Angle for the pinfall.

After the match Angle took the mic and thanked everyone for supporting TNA. He talked about how the ratings were at their highest and they are moving closer to beating WWE. He said they keep stealing their biggest talent and cited Bobby Lashley as the most recent of those steals.

JB then announced that anyone who wanted to get a picture in the ring with Kurt Angle could do so for twenty bucks. They would develop them on the spot for the fans. They also sent out Creed, Lethal, Sojo, Shark Boy, Earl Hebner and Madison Rayne to sign autographs and take pictures with the fans at ringside.

Had TNA acted differently this would have come across as embarrassing that this show only brought out 400 fans. But they treated it like a big deal. The kept the crowd hyped with the "backstage pass" possibility and the wrestlers didn't phone it in. They all gave the fans decent or good matches and tried their best to entertain.

Overall this was a fun house show. It had the fan interaction that has been missing from the WWE house show experience for over ten years. I'm not talking about the photo ops or autographs. I'm talking about using the crowd to get heat and make them a real part of the show. Somewhere in the mid-'90s the WWE stopped doing that and the house shows have suffered for it.

Biggest pops:
-- Kurt Angle
-- Rhino
-- Suicide

Biggest Heat
-- Sheik Abdul Bashir
-- Scott Steiner
-- Beer Money

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