TNA House Show Report 4.07.11: Erie, PA

Credit: John Kutz and WrestlingObserver.com

Excellent house show in Erie last night.

We got there about a half an hour early and was very pleased to find the lovely and fetching Mickie James posing for pictures in the hallway – arm in a sling and all. I raced past the 4 people in line for Matt Morgans autograph to hop into lien with the other hundred people waiting to swoon at Mickie’s side.

Jeremy Borash and Don West deserve to be made tag team champions as they worked the crowd into more of a frenzy to open the show then any TNA tag champion has been able to in years.

Kaz beat Matt Hardy clean with his funky, hanging from the back pile driver. I have given up watching the product on Spike so I couldn’t tell you the name of the finisher. Hardy looks to have dropped a few pounds and despite being the heel, he was still the crowd favorite.

Madison Rayne doing the beauty queen gimmick beat Traci Brooks (who looks like Nancy Benoit live.) Earl Hebner was the ref and did the usual “I screwed Brett” interview to sell his T Shirt. He also did the Kiss on Madison Rayne spot which was entertaining as all hell. She got booed out of the building by all the women in the audience but cheered wildly by all the men so she’s clearly on to something in this new role.

Madison would go on to sign autographs at the intermission. She too had more people at the table them Matt Morgan did earlier on.

Hernandez came out and cut a half heated promo on the crowd and then went on to loose to Matt Morgan via the Carbon footprint. Super Mex came out to the old LAX music and you just couldn’t help but think that you were only seeing half the act.

Beer Money beat Gunner and Murphy with the DWI or whatever they call it in an entertaining match that was somewhat crowd interactive. At one point James Storm told Gunner “If you suck, he must swallow.” which had the crowd chanting that throughout the match. They had the crowd in the palms of their hand when they did the suplex and made us all wait for them to do the Beer….Money!” chant.

Bully Ray came out and cut a scathing promo on Erie, trashing all their hometown boxing tough guys and American Gladiator founder Danny Carr. That popped the crowd when Samoa Joe came out and beat him from pillar to post before submitting him with the rear naked choke. Match of the night.

Kurt Angle beat Jeff Jarrett with the angle suplex after special enforcer Mick Foley shoved that dirty, smelly sock down Jarrett’s gullett. The match started out with Brian Hebner getting pushed around so much that he snapped, took off his shirt and went toe to toe with Double J for a few minutes. It sounds ridiculous but trust me, if you saw it, you would have loved it. Poor Mick moved like someones grandmother. I kind of felt bad. He even had to have JB tie his shoe because he couldn’t bend down.

The night ended with Angle taking photos in the ring with the home state crowd. They teased that there woudl be two people in the photo op – presumably Foley – but they used Kurt Solo and then brought out Beer Money to fill in.

Earl and Jarrett signed autographs at the merchandise table.

These house shows are well worth the time and few bucks to attend. My highest recommendation. World Wrestling Entertainment…excuse me…the WWE can learn a lot from these set ups.