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TNA News
8/10 TNA Hard Justice PPV HOLT report: What happened at the arena that PPV viewers didn't see Aug 11, 2008 - 3:25:37 AM
TNA Hard Justice PPV
August 10, 2008
Trenton, N.J.
Report by Jack Hale, PWTorch.com correspondent
The arena in Trenton is said to hold 8,100 for hockey. With the setup that TNA used, I would say that 6,000 would have been the best case possible, but they didn't come close to that. The floor was just about sold out with just a couple chairs here and there empty. They only used half of the lower bowl, and about one-third of the upper deck. So maybe about 2,000 in attendance. For only that few people, the crowd had more energy than any WWE event that I've been to the past few years (that includes the '07 draft).
A little after 7:30, Dave Penser came out and introduced Willie Urbina to a small reaction and Hector Guerrero to a big face reaction. Don West and Mike Tenay then were given an 80-20 negative reaction from the crowd with Jeremy Borash getting about a 50/50 split. Borash did some hyping and then Eric Young came out unexpectedly with no music. He did a bit where he said his mother just called him to tell him about Brett Favre joining the Jets. They then tried to use some New Jersey sports team references to get a reaction but the crowd booed them all. (Not from Trenton... don't know why).
What did get a reaction... possibly the biggest of the night, was when Borash announced that TNA would be watching the entire crowd and would be taking the loudest fans backstage. He then produced some backstage passes and the crowd went bananas trying to impress Borash for a pass. As gimmicky as it seemed, it got the crowd extremely jacked up for the show.
The Filthee performance and the "X Factors" almost took the crowd out of it... but strangely the crowd loved Petey Williams and was craving the Canadian Destroyer. So the energy level came back up.
The Knockouts match was a mixed bag. Some in the crowd didn't care for it all, while others were into it. Others only wanted to see up Velvet Sky's skirt.
The crowd was split for the TNA Tag Title match, the first split chant for the evening.
The Sonjay Dutt vs. Jay Lethal match was the one the crowd hated. When they did moves, everything was great and people cared. When they just punched each other and tore at the tuxedos, the crowd didn't care. To the point of getting a sadly decent boring chant and a very loud "Fire Russo" chant, but when they went back to wrestling after Val left, the crowd turned on a dime and cared. Maybe they should have had a straight wrestling match?
Team 3D couldn't get any heel heat from this crowd tonight, so both teams were over tonight. 3D much more than Rhino/Christian. The crowd may have peaked in energy with this match; the non-breaking table was the only thing the crowd hated in this match.
The Angle-Styles match had alternating periods of either man having the crowds support. The end with Sting was unexpected, as they had started to bring the cage out from the back and people had figured that a long break was coming. Kudos to the surprise on that one. Also, kudos to the TNA staff for putting up the cage with weapons in 5-6 minutes.
The main event suffered from both wrestlers having more than half the crowd against them - though Joe was the favored man. It may have also suffered from burnout and the crowd seemed to be waiting for the Sting moment. After winning, Joe quickly left the cage to get his title and celebrated briefly on the stage before leaving. Booker got up, did his King Booker pinky pose, stared at the broken guitar, and left with Sharmel to his music.
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