wrestling / TV Reports
411’s TNA Global Impact Report 10.08.09
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to 411mania’s report on TNA’s Global Impact 2 special. I’m Ryan Byers, and, over a year and a half ago, I was here to review the first Global Impact. Now, in late 2009, we’ve got ourselves footage of a another TNA trip to visit New Japan Pro Wrestling. The show has a lot to live up to given that last year’s was one of the most critically acclaimed TNA broadcasts of all time. Let’s take a look and see whether the standard can be met . . .
We are here on EXTREME tape delay, watching footage from a New Japan Pro Wrestling show that was taped at the Tokyo Dome on January 4, 2009 and entitled Wrestle Kingdom III.
The show opens with footage from an NJPW press conference held before the event. Kurt Angle puts over Masahiro Chono and Riki Choshu, two of his tag team partners for the evening. He declares that they will be made honorary members of the Main Event Mafia for the night. (In reality, they are members of LEGEND, which is essentially NJPW’s version of the Main Event Mafia, though they mainly work low card matches instead of hogging the top spots.) We then cut to Alex Shelley of all people, who talks about his IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title match against NO LIMIT, putting over the fact that Detroit has been through some hard times and needs the type of heroes that he and Alex Shelley can become by winning the titles. Finally, Bubba Ray Dudley cuts a promo on his opponents Togi Makabe and Toru Yano, which ends in a shoving match.
Match Numero Uno: Yujiro & Tetsuya Naito (c) vs. The Murder City Machine Guns for the IWPG Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles
For whatever reason, the TNA announcer doing the voiceover the pre-match video package refers to the titles that are on the line here as the “New Japan Tag Team Titles” instead of their proper name. As with last year’s show, Jeremy Borash was brought to Japan to do ring introductions for the TNA wrestlers, and Mike Tenay and Don West (this was taped before his heel turn and before the signing of Tazz) are dubbing English-language commentary over the original footage.
Chris Sabin kicks off the match with Yujiro, and they do some mat wrestling before Shelley tags in for a bit of basic double teaming. Alex briefly applies a headlock but almost immediately tags Shelley back in. However, the two wrestlers miscommunicate, allowing NO LIMIT to take the advantage, as Yujuro hits a rolling senton and Naito follows it with a legdrop. Things go to the floor when Naito is dropkicked off of the apron, and the Guns follow that up with a neat spot in which Shelley jumps up on to the second rope as though he’s going for an Asai moonsault . . . only for Sabin to do a tope suicida through Shelley’s legs and down on to the waiting Naito. We go to a commercial break after that highspot. When we come back, Shelley takes Naito down with a drop toe hold to set up a Sabin elbow drop. Then, in a sick spot, Shelley places his opponent into a surfboard, with Sabin running the ropes and pulling Naito out of it with a bulldog. Alex’s mouth is busted open pretty badly. He tags out to make Sabin the legal man, and “The Future” (as he used to be called) drops a double sledge and applies a rolling variation on the keylock. Shelley checks back into the match and the Guns try to land corner attacks on Naito, but he tosses Sabin out of the ring and smacks Shelley with an elbow before flattening him with a cross body block off of the top rope.
Yujiro tags in and powerslams Sabin before getting Shelley in another version of the move. A diving clothesline gets a nearfall for Yujiro, but Shelley reverses his attempt at a torture rack into a cradle for a two count of his own. Shelley tries to fire off some kicks, but he is caught and dropped right on his head with a Yujiro suplex. The former Embassy member responds with a Saito suplex of his own, after which Yujiro hits a lariat. With both of those men worn down a good deal, Naito and Sabin are tagged by their respective partners. Naito gets Sabin with a powerslam, which he follows up with a back elbow. The champs perform the Hardy Boys’ old Poetry in Motion maneuver, substituting a dropkick for the hip smash. The two men go for a double team press slam, but Shelley breaks it up and hits a neckbraeker on Naito, setting up a Sabin tornado DDT on Yujiro. Naito fires back with a flying shoulderblock and climbs the ropes for a moonsault, but Shelley nails him from behind and pulls him in to the tree of woe. Yujiro tries to save but fails, and Naito eats Sabin’s hesitation dropkick. The Guns miscommunicate for the second time in the match, with Sabin taking a sick flip bump off of a Sabin clothesline.
No Limit gets their double team press slam on the second attempt, and Naito is left alone with Sabin. He misses a skytwister press, and Yujiro misses a corner attack. The Guns give their stereo superkicks to Naito, but he kicks out at TWO. As a result, the TNA wrestlers place their opponent on the second rope, giving him a Sliced Bread #2/powerbomb combo (the “Made in Detroit”) to win the match and the tag championship.
Match Thoughts: If I told most internet fans that they were going to be seeing a thirteen minute Murder City Machine Gun match for free on television, chances are good that they would start drooling on the spot. However, this really wasn’t all that great. The two teams busted out a couple of impressive double team sequences, but that’s all there was to the bout. There was a flashy move here and a flashy move there, but there was no real structure to the match and no drama whatsoever. I have a feeling that a lot of that had to do with the relative inexperience of Yujiro and Naito, as they’re still at the point where they wrestle like New Japan’s “Young Lions” as opposed to those wrestlers on the roster who are taken more seriously. Hopefully, the traveling that they’ve done recently will put a bit more polish on them. **
After the match, Shelley cuts a promo and dares anybody to come to the United States and win the belts back from them. Well, that didn’t happen. Instead, the Machine Guns had to go back to Japan to lose the titles, as they were defeated by Rysuke Taguchi and Prince Fergal Devitt on July 9, 2009. Yujiro and Naito did come to TNA for a several month run as a part of a “learning excursion” sponsored by New Japan, and they have since moved on to Mexican promotion CMLL, where they will remain until returning to New Japan at some point in 2010.
MID-COLUMN PLUG
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Match Numero Dos: Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, Riki Choshu, & Masahiro Chono vs. Giant Bernard, Takashi Iizuka, Tomohiro Ishii, & Karl Anderson
Don West, surprisingly enough, brings up the fact that Masa “My Hero” Chono was part of the nWo with Kevin Nash back in the 1990’s. Not surprisingly, none of the non-TNA guys get an entrance . . . not even the wrestlers that they’re teaming with.
Bernard, who was formerly known as Albert and A-Train in WWE, begins the match with Nash. Bernard tries to take his man down with shoulderblocks but fails, and before long, Big Sexy is hitting his trademark knees and elbows in the corner. The Nash choke is applied, and some interference by the heels sets up Albert hitting an avalanche and tagging out to Iizuka. He boots Nash in the gut, but Chono is quickly tagged in for a low dropkick. The former IWPG Champion goes up top for his flying shoulderblock, which gets two. Chono then runs into an Ishii kick from the apron, and the heels isolate My Hero in the corner. He escapes, setting up tags to Choshu and Ishii. Riki puts his boots to his much younger opponent, but he too is dragged in to the heel corner and roughed up. Karl Anderson makes his presence known in the match at this point, but Choshu catches him with a single leg and tags Chono back in. He and Choshu snap Anderson’s legs, after which Masa gives him an inverted atomic drop for a nearfall. Now Angle is back in the bout, and he and Chono land a double shoulderblock before Kurt fires off a vertical suplex for two. Choshu comes back in, and Anderson bulls him into the heel corner seconds later. Bernard tags in, and old man Choshu gets flattend by a Vader Bomb for two. Surprisingly, Bernard does not stay in the match, as he subs himself out for Anderson. The four heels each take a turn hitting a move on Riki in the corner, but Anderson fails on his, running into a boot. Choshu gives Karl a thunderous lariat for a two count, as Bernard makes the save. That draws Nash’s ire, and he clotheslines the former IC Champion out of the ring. The big men brawl on the floor as Angle unloads with Germans in the ring on Iizuka and Ishii. The straps come down, and Anderson is caught in the ankle lock.
Anderson taps out, and apparently TNA production was rushed to get to the commercial break, because the bumper music actually began playing BEFORE the hold was fully applied.
Match Thoughts: There was really nothing to this match. It was just an excuse to get four big names out in front of the fans on New Japan’s most important show of the year without having to put them in positions that the company would prefer to give to their younger, up and coming stars. I’m glad that TNA didn’t position this one as the “main event” of the Global Impact show as I thought that they might, because, no matter how much it was hyped up as a big deal by Tenay and West, it would be patently obvious to even the least educated wrestling fan that the wrestlers weren’t even trying to put on a match that was anywhere near main event level. *
Match Numero Tre: Togi Makabe & Toru Yano (c) vs. The Dudley Boys for the IWGP Tag Team Titles in a Hardcore Match
As you may recall, these two teams wrestled each other in a match that aired on last year’s Global Impact show, with the Dudleys picking up the victory. In an amusing bit, TNA decided to blur out the massive obscenity that appears on the back of Makabe’s ring jacket. They also have to blur several middle fingers by the champions.
D-Von and Yano are the first competitors in the ring, and the Japanese wrestler taunts the Dudley by rubbing his bald head off of a clean break in the corner. D-Von fires off a quick shoulderblock for a two count, and he blocks Yano’s attempt at a vertical suplex. Makabe has to run in to turn it into a double team for the suplex to connect, but it barely does a thing to D-Von, as he immediately gives Togi his back elbow and tags out to Bubba. The big guy slaps a headlock on Makabe and takes him off of his feet with a shoulderblock, after which the two wrestlers trade chops. Makabe tries to run the ropes but gets surprised by a Bubba German. Togi no-sells it, responding with a clothesline. When we come back from a commercial break, Bubba takes both champs down with clotheslines, after which he and D-Von hit their suplex/neckbreaker combo on Togi. The Duds whip Makabe off of the ropes, but Togi avoids any offense by giving D-Von a spear. Apparently during the break, D-Von was given a stuff piledriver by the Japanese wrestlers on the floor on to two chairs. He’s bleeding, but he’s wrestling like absolutely nothing happened to him. Bizarre. We go back to the live action, and the Dudleys give Makabe the Wazzup Drop as Don West delivers the unintentionally hilarious line of the evening when he says that D-Von’s headbutt to the crotch places his head “exactly where it needs to be.” Kinky. When I get done typing that juvenile joke, a table has made its way in to the ring, and Makabe and Yano give Bubba Ray a flapjack through the wood. The champs bring in a second table as well, which Makabe places D-Von on. It looks like Makabe is going to give him a moonsault through it, but the Dudleys block that and turn it in to a second rope powerbomb through the furniture by Bubba. Togi comes back at the drop of a hat and slams Bubba before wrapping a chain around his arm and going for a lariat. He misses and blasts Yano. He does eventually hit D-Von, but it doesn’t end the match, and Makabe walks in to a 3D literally seconds later. That gives the Dudleys the IWGP Tag Team Titles, which they would hold until July 21, 2009, when they lost them to the British Invasion of Doug Williams and Brutus Magnus on TNA show in a title change that was not originally authorized or recognized by New Japan.
Match Thoughts: Despite the fact that it was for a major championship, there was barely anything more to this match than there was to the last match. Even though they were winning in the end, the Dudleys took the vast majority of the match and really made Makabe and Yano look like a second rate team. Several people who follow New Japan closely have not been fans at all of the Duds’ appearances there over the past several years, and, if this is their typical Japanese bout, I can’t say that I blame them. It was a match that just about any semi-competent group of four wrestlers could have in their sleep, and it was a match that made the “home team” look inexcusably weak, especially when you consider the fact that they gave one of their opponents a PILEDRIVER on the FLOOR on to CHAIRS and still got beaten clean with virtually no effort. *3/4
Overall
Nothing on this show matched up to what was on last year’s Global Impact special. A lot of that is related to how New Japan decided to position the TNA wrestlers on this year’s Wrestle Kingdom card as opposed to how they were positioned on last year’s Wrestle Kingdom card. The 2008 version of WK translated to a great television special for TNA because Kurt Angle was featured in a main event level match that some viewers considered to be a legitimate match of the year candidate. (In fact, it finished second in the 411mania staff’s polling for Free TV Match of the Year.) Taking that one match and building several video packages and highlight reels around it made for a damned entertaining show because it focused on TNA’s international exposure to help promote the company and simultaneously let the fans go home happy with a big league in-ring contest. This year, NJPW did not heavily feature TNA wrestlers on Wrestle Kingdom, instead using them as special attractions on their midcard as opposed to key players. As a result, TNA couldn’t rely on any one match to be the show’s hook, so they felt like they had to show several matches. That ultimately worked to TNA’s detriment, as the awesome video packages that were shown last year were cut down on significantly, while the non-package portions dragged due to subpar in ring action. This was better than most editions of the regular Impact show that I’ve seen, but it was also not a show that I need to see again at any point in my life.
