TNA house show report
June 5, 2009
Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada
Report by Martin Hoh, Torch reader

The building holds about 6,000-7,000 I believe. They cut off one side of the building. It was a loud, intimate, small crowd. It was not close to a sell-out but if I had to guess, I'd say there were about 1,500 people there. (I may be off, but there were a lot of empty seats.)

Kurt Angle was originally scheduled to be on the show as local newspapers and the website (www.abbotsfordcentre.ca) were promoting Kurt Angle's appearance. For whatever reason, he was not present.

Seats were sold at $20, $35, and $50. Five dollar seats were given out if you were a student or part of the military. Many paid the $50 to have ringside seats.

The crowd was loud throughout the night. Jeremy Borash was introduced and he did a tremendous job hyping the crowd, getting the fans loud and hyping the free backstage passes that would be given to five or so super-TNA-fans.

(1) X Division champion Suicide and Daniels went to a time limit draw, Suicide retained the X-Division Title. Suicide came out from the crowd to his TNA theme while Daniels came out to the actual Marilyn Manson song "Disposable Teens." The match had (I believe) a 20 minute time limit and they reached the time limit. Jeremy Borash announced that it was a draw and stated that A.J. Styles will have to pick one of the two wrestlers tonight to face for his Legends Title. Rudy Charles was the referee.

(2) Knockouts champion Angelina Love beat Taylor Wilde to retain the TNA Knockouts Title. Earl Hebner was announced as the referee and he started posing on the ropes the way Stone Cold Steve Austin would. As Jeremy Borash noted on his Twitter page, there were many "You Screwed Bret" chants. I think I was one of the first to yell that. During the match, Angelina Love got on the microphone and said she did not screw Bret. Angelina Love came out to her TNA theme while Taylor Wilde came out to the Blur song "Song 2."

During the match, Angelina Love was going to walk out of the match. JB announced that the referee said that if Angelina didn't go back into the ring by the count of ten, the Knockouts Title will be forfeited and Taylor Wilde would win. At the count of seven, Angelina was going to walk out and then Taylor went out and dragged her back into the ring. Angelina Love eventually won the match by putting her feet on the ropes. Earl Hebner raised Angelina Love's arms on the outside. Taylor Wilde was not happy and chased Earl and Angelina to the back.

-- Jeremy Borash got on the microphone and said AJ Styles was behind the curtain listening and is not sure who to face later tonight so he said he wants the fans to help him decide. JB asked if the fans wanted to see A.J. vs. Suicide - there were more boos. JB then asked if the fans wanted to see A.J. vs. Daniels to which the crowd cheered very loud.

(3) "Showtime" Eric Young beat "The Blueprint" Matt Morgan. Matt Morgan came out to Disturbed - "Down With The Sickness" while Eric Young came out to his TNA theme. Eric Young played the babyface with "Canada" on his pants. Matt Morgan was really playing the heel throughout the match. The match went back and forth with Morgan dominating a large portion of the match. Eric Young eventually put his Death Valley Driver on Matt Morgan and won the match clean.

-- Jeremy Borash then said that A.J. Styles will be facing neither Suicide nor Daniels. He will be facing both Suicide and Daniels in a three-way later tonight for the Legends Title. He then told the fans to text "Backstage" to a five digit number as one lucky individual will get the opportunity to get backstage passes for the night. He also said that there will be a huge surprise at the end of the night. He said they will be taking a 15 minute intermission and after that there will be Spike TV cameras there to take video footage of the crowd.

-- 15 minute intermission. After the intermission, he brought the Spike TV cameras out and they filmed the crowd.

(4) Legends champion "The Phenomenal" A.J. Styles beat Daniels and Suicide in a three-way match to retain the Legends Title. During the match, Daniels got the mic and said "do you want me to punch A.J.?" The crowd cheered. He then punched A.J. and said he has one for Suicide too, to which he then hit Suicide. This was a match where all the wrestlers had the chance to put all their main moves in and out of the ring. Eventually, A.J. Styles ended up hitting the Styles Clash on Daniels for the win.

After the match, Styles grabbed the mic and talked about how the people in the arena were TNA fans! He said he feels like a legend because in the ring there were three of the greatest wrestlers. He shook Suicide's hand and asked the fans if he should punch Daniels in the face to which the crowd cheered for. Daniels was interacting with the crowd saying "No, Don't!" A.J. then said "I'm going to do something better than punch you in the face, I'm going to offer you a handshake." He then shook Daniels's hand.

(5) Main Event - TNA tag team champions Team 3D (Brother Ray & Brother Devon) & Jeff Jarrett beat Beer Money (Robert Roode & James Storm) & Sheik Abdul Bashir. Bashir came out followed by Beer Money. Sheik grabbed the microphone and spoke in his language to Beer Money. James Storm then told a story: he said he had trouble coming to Canada and was stuck at customs. The people asked him questions and his alcohol level was 0.18. They asked how often he drinks and he said he drank as much as stupid as the guy looked. He then said Canada is one of the filthiest places he has ever been in.

Robert Roode grabbed the microphone and then told James to back up because he was actually from Canada. He said the best part of coming to Abbotsford, B.C. was eventually leaving it. He took a few more shots at the fans and really generated some heel heat to the point of fans throwing popcorn and plastic cups into the ring. Sheik threw the popcorn back at the fans.

Team 3D and Jeff Jarrett then came out. Many "We want tables" chants erupted throughout the night. They fought and Sheik put on James Storm's Beer Money shirt, sunglasses, and cowboy hat during the match. Brother Ray pulled James Storm's trunks down to the point his ass was revealed for a while. Jeff Jarrett then hit the stroke on one of the Beer Money wrestlers.

The babyfaces shoved each other about the tables. "1 2 3 - Get the tables!" Jeff Jarrett and Brother Devon grab a table out from under the ring. Most of the fans on the outside of the ringside seats swarmed to the ringside seats to see this. They put Sheik (I recall) through the table "3D" style and got the pin for the win.

Brother Ray got on the mic afterwards and asked the fans if they had a great time. He then called Earl Hebner back into the ring. Brother Ray said the fans don't like him very much. He said he doesn't like Earl, Devon doesn't like Earl, and the founder Jeff Jarrett couldn't stand him. Jeff Jarrett then punched Earl down to a pop. Earl was helped to the back.

Jeff Jarrett said he thinks Canadian fans were always passionate and that his best friend ever in the business was Canadian - Owen Hart. Fans started chanting "Owen" afterwards.

-- Jeremy Borash then said that the surprise was that since not everyone could go backstage to meet all the wrestlers, they were going to bring backstage out. Team 3D stuck around in the ring to take pictures with fans who paid $20. Daniels, Taylor Wilde, and Eric Young came out to sign autographs to those ringside. I didn't stick around too long afterwards but it was fun due to the crowd being rowdy and TNA did a very good job of keeping fans excited throughout the night and gave it an interactive feel. I was a little disappointed that Kurt Angle was not at the show but I had a good time.

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