The Furious Flashbacks – TNA Genesis 2009

The Furious Flashbacks – TNA Genesis 2009

A PPV that is both brilliant and terrible. Sometimes during the same match

This is the final show in the three PPV box-set released as “Cross The Line” for a bargain price. Well it’s a bargain price if you don’t mind TNA’s antics. Its available on Play for less than £11. And that’s three shows.

We’re in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Bojangles Coliseum. I couldn’t make up a worse name for an arena. Or possibly better. I don’t know if I love or hate the name, which would be a reoccurring theme all evening. Hosts are Mike Tenay & Don West.

With the Main Event Mafia storyline in full flow they’ve been “eliminating” TNA Frontline guys in order to gain complete control of the company. The Frontline has been reduced to Rhino, AJ Styles, Devon Dudley and Mick Foley. It’s a sad state of affairs. Tenay gets on the injuries news right from the off telling Christy Hemme needs neck surgery and won’t be on the show tonight. She was going to get a title shot. He doesn’t feel the urge to mention Kevin Nash being out too before people start calling up their PPV providers for a refund.

Elimination match – Sonjay Dutt/Jimmy Rave/Kiyoshi v Eric Young/LAX

Rave looks pretty stupid playing air guitar to Sonjay’s music. Just saying. This is TNA putting three guys they have every intention of pushing against three guys they have no intention of pushing. In fact both Dutt and Rave would be gone from the company soon and this is both of their final PPV appearances. TNA really dropped the ball with Sonjay; an exciting in-ring talent who’s capable of playing an absolute asshole out of the ring and he had a hot feud with Jay Lethal that had life in it still. Rave on the other hand looked pretty useless in TNA so his release comes as no shock. So its left to Kiyoshi to carry his side and he gets some fun stuff out of Hernandez. Homicide however is a different story. Everything he does in the opening segments is horrible. I suspect he got knocked silly in a blown spot in the corner but he sure blows a few more spots for good measure afterwards. Dutt really doesn’t help matters by trying to set stuff up and then changing his mind. The faces pop the shit out of the crowd during this match though. Homicide with the tope con hilo, Young with his goofy but over offence and Hernandez with his freakish gravity defying flying. Dutt runs two more awful spots and I actually cringe when I see him about to square off with Homicide. These guys are not on tonight. A bunch of spots follow and I think TNA may have forgotten this is elimination rules. Sonjay then pins Young with his feet on the ropes, which was another badly executed spot. The referee to blame this time for poor positioning while Sonjay blatantly used the ropes in front of him. That kind of thing needs better collaboration.

Dutt walks into the Gringo Cutter but escapes the Cop Killer. Rave gets a tag in and rolls Homicide up with the tights. 3 on 1 now and I can see where they’re going with this because they want Hernandez to feel like a title contender. Plus I’m not unhappy to see the back of Homicide who’d had an off night. Like many Indy talents Homicide just doesn’t seem as good in TNA. Unlike AJ or Joe who brought it in TNA as hard as they did on the Indies.

This is TNA’s attempt at pushing Hernandez much harder than they’ve ever done before because they feel he’s ready for it and the crowd certainly buy into him. Shame he got injured. Border Toss for Kiyoshi. 2 on 1.

Sit out powerbomb for Sonjay. Evens.

Superfly Splash for Rave. Game over. Hernandez takes the impressive win. **. While the match was at times dire I have to applaud TNA for doing the right thing here. None of those heels are going anywhere. Hernandez is due a title shot. Build him up. The crowd are already into him because of how great LAX have been for the past couple of years. You feel like he’s earned this respect. Again, his neck injury was his curse at this point as TNA were never going to put the title on an injured man (and yet Foley got the belt, logic has never been TNA’s strong point) but imagine how big he could have gotten by taking the title off Sting. TNA could have had their home grown superstar. I can’t guarantee you a title run could have paid off though because if TNA dropped the ball with Samoa Joe you know they would have done with Hernandez too.

BACKSTAGE Scott Steiner bitches at Jim Cornette for knocking on his door but Jim points out that Rhino hasn’t turned up yet. Steiner calls Rhino a drunk and says he’s “probably in a gutter pissing on himself”. Lovely.

X division tournament final – Alex Shelley v Chris Sabin

MCMG have basically helped each other to get to the finals and now one of them has to win it. Again I have to give TNA some love for putting this match on and just letting them do what they want to. They start with some nice countering but that comes out all square. Shelley wants to make it into a chess match where he goes after the leg. That leads into more mat countering and they’re still even. Shelley couldn’t do any significant damage. Then they both have each other’s shit scouted with reversals and Sabin comes out marginally on top. Much like Shelley had a slight edge on the mat. They get more counters and reversals and Sabin switches it up with a tope. The familiarity selling has been neat here. Shelley is the first to look for a finish when he attempts the shiranui but Sabin counters looking for Cradleshock. Neither connects but that’s just more familiarity. It was subtle before that sequence but this just flat out sells it to everyone; these guys know each other’s shit. Having been largely tidy they go to striking and Shelley is more convincing until Sabin catches him with a high boot in the corner. Shelley has been working on the neck when he gets minor openings and Sabin makes the mistake of flying using his patented offence, which gets him caught in the Border City Stretch. Sabin isn’t weakened enough though and not only gets out but realises he needs to up his game. His perfect tiger suplex almost gets him the win. Shelley landed so hard it wouldn’t have been a shock for him to lose.

Shelley then takes over and hammers Sabin with the WA4…for 2. Again, that could easily have been the finish and I’m a touch disappointed that neither guy saw those moves coming what with all the awesome countering before it. Shelley blocks the super rana right after that for example and then Shelley takes too long on a frogsplash allowing Sabin to get knees up. So I’m glad they got back on track. Shelley then sidesteps a missile dropkick and with Sabin still face down hits the frogsplash to the back. That’s enough to stun Sabin into taking another frogsplash…for 2. That whole sequence made great sense. Sabin then takes it up again with a LARIATOOOOOOOOO. CRADLESHOCK…for 2. That lariat was so hard that it left Shelley totally discombobulated and unable to block the finish. They head up top and Shelley has to elbow out of a super Cradleshock before hitting the shiranui…for 2. After the Cradleshock kick-out you KNEW that was coming (something that happens again during Angle-Jarrett: trading finishers). But these guys are good enough to do the ‘kick out of each other’s finishers’ bit. Shelley blows out his ankle, which Sabin should realise is bullshit, and Shelley rolls him up for the 3 count. ****. Great match with good characters, storytelling, counters, energy and all it was lacking was emotion. The finish shows that Shelley is willing to do that much more to win the title. He’s willing to fuck over his friend and tag partner for that belt. Something Sabin wasn’t willing to do. Besides Sabin has had that belt 4 times already. Shelley had to win.

POST MATCH there’s a nice moment where Shelley gives Sabin that look, which comes off as “I fooled you, and I’m sorry, but I just had to win”. Sabin nods in agreement and they hug it out. Aww.

BACKSTAGE Cornette still hasn’t found Rhino. Also Kevin Nash has a staph infection and is in hospital. Foley’s response “yeaaaah, right”. He’s the boy who cried wolf. Like that time in WCW where he thought he had a heart attack to dodge a job to the Giant. Foley says MEM have until the main event to find a suitable replacement. Shame no one got fired from WWE that week.

Sheik Abdul Bashir v Shane Sewell

Oh Jesus, they’re actually doing this match on PPV? I dig the angle but Bashir isn’t the man to do this match. Its not bad or anything but beyond the angle there’s nothing doing. Bashir is personality rather than ability and Sewell is the same. Sewell is capable of telling the most basic of matches and I heard good things about him as a trainer. But then there are loads of guys who can’t work decent matches but are fine with training the basics. If you can’t do; teach. Russo must have liked the idea of a referee turned wrestler and kept trying to get the concept to work until May when they gave up and released him. Sewell comes off as an Indy worker and not the flashy, going places Indy guy. He’s the Indy lifer whose high spots are crossbodies and figure fours. Bashir replies with viciousness and gets into the standard referee argument with Earl Hebner who CUFFS him around the ear. Earl Hebner; there’s a guy who knows about refereeing impartiality. His interference leads to Bashir chasing him around into an eventual sunset flip loss. During which Hebner counts unreasonably quickly. *. I wrote a whole paragraph explaining what this match achieved but my wife was speaking to me at the time and it ended up making no sense. I think just figured out how Russo’s booking goes wrong.

POST MATCH the zebra’s celebrate. Which is not something I think people want to cheer. People hate referee’s. Regardless of sport.

BACKSTAGE Booker gets pissed off with Cornette ordering Sharmell around. Sewell gets in his grill thus setting up a Legend’s title match as Sewell’s next big challenge. Which is pushing Sewell too far in advance of what he’s capable of.

Tag titles – Lethal Consequences (c) v Beer Money Inc v Abyss/Matt Morgan

Creed & Lethal won the titles a few days ago cashing in Lethal’s feast or fired briefcase. To give you an idea of how over Beer Money are with me; as soon as their music kicks in I can’t look away. I don’t even want to miss their entrance by typing over it. Roode was injured, which is what lead to Beer Money losing the titles but he’s passed a fitness test on his knee. Crowd don’t seem into Creed. Perhaps suggesting they feel he doesn’t belong in there. Beer Money execute the best sold accidental spit-roast spot I’ve ever seen with Miss Jacqui getting tied up at both ends. Roode makes the moment by CELEBRATING landing balls deep in chocolate. They go to the dives spot, which I hated in WCW and I’m not keen on here. Especially as the camera captures four guys standing there looking at Matt Morgan like a much of morons. As the match goes on Morgan gets more and more frustrated with Abyss, which is a running theme. But Abyss isn’t experienced in tag wrestling. Especially multiple person tags. He’s used to seeing one guy in front of him to aim his anger at. Creed is constantly trying to get himself over as the plucky underdog but what he should be doing is working on his team with Lethal as he gets taken apart by the superior teaming of Beer Money. It must be frustrating for Lethal. I don’t mind Beer Money running formula on Creed because a) it makes sense as Creed is the weakest of the other four and b) their team offence has gotten progressively better since they debuted. Also when Lethal gets the hot tag it shows how great he is as a singles guy and he could beat either of Beer Money in singles. It furthers the storyline of how Creed is just a weak partner. Abyss & Morgan then take over and I’m especially happy to see Creed’s stupid rolling clothesline get countered into a boot to the face from Morgan. Flippy bullshit, Creed, flippy bullshit. The belt comes into play but Abyss, being slow and dumb, nails Morgan with it by mistake. Lethal steals the pin but Rudy Charles, bastard fucking zebra, is outside the ring fucking about with Jacqui thus allowing Beer Money to get the pin. **1/2. I enjoyed the formula, for once, but the match fell apart more than once when a team other than Beer Money had to do the leg-work. Which explains why the titles are on their waists…again. Meanwhile I’m not real happy with Abyss being turned into a bungling goofball considering he used to be a monster and all to try and get Matt Morgan over.

POST MATCH Matt Morgan & Abyss get into a spot of verbal, which I was hoping would end with a Black Hole Slam but it stands to reason that Morgan jobs in their pay-off match instead.

BACKSTAGE Kurt Angle is all pissed off and, like everyone else in MEM, dodges questions on Rhino. Angle eventually tells Jim Cornette that they beat Rhino up and left him in the middle of nowhere (with cab fair) so he won’t be here tonight.

Taylor Wilde/ODB/Roxxi v Rhaka Khan/Raisha Saeed/Sojourner Bolt

With Plan A doomed by Hemme’s injury they go to Plan B, which was Plan A the previous month. Get the Knockout Babyface Collective to go after KONGtourage. Seeing as Hemme isn’t going to be back anytime soon the winner of the fall gets a title shot. Which makes you wonder how these two teams will be able to coexist. Even the KONGtourage, who may harbour secret urges to take the belt. Although TNA obviously didn’t think about that as it doesn’t feature in the match. Taylor’s spunky offence is better suited to big opponents so logically Khan should face her but they do anything but that. All the faces get to showcase their stuff and ODB is the most over. Taylor then gets to go after Khan and discovers that while she looks tough; she isn’t. So the heels triple team Taylor into the heat segment. But that shows how weak the KONGtourage is and the female heels in general. Kong aside there isn’t one that is capable of carrying the belt (Angelina Love ended up with the belt but for different reasons). I think its telling that on the next PPV there was no Knockouts match at all. When the match breaks down the crowd DON’T GIVE A FUCK. ODB gets a small package on Saeed and ends a disappointing affair. ¼*. Seeing as it was a late replacement my guess is they had nothing planned but the heel side could have benefitted hugely from Kong’s presence while the faces seemed to lack the tension over a title shot. Both issues would have simple to resolve and yet they opted instead for a dull match where ODB wins a title shot because she’s due one. She didn’t really earn anything or further the relationship between the faces or the heels.

POST MATCH Kong comes out to remind ODB that she owns her via the medium of chokeslam.

BACKSTAGE Sting tells Cornette he didn’t condone MEM’s actions and he’s in Charlotte (for the first time in 15 years) to defend his world title.

No DQ – Kurt Angle v Jeff Jarrett

Their first match was good with a shitty finish. They start with a brawl and Jarrett wins that as Angle’s never been great at ‘stand up’. Angle gets a sleeper but Jarrett remembers the rules, or lack of, and kicks him in the balls to break it. Jarrett really exploits those rules and tosses a beer in Angle’s face. Angle then takes charge using his God-given mat wrestling talents. Which does rather make you wonder why Angle agreed to no DQ. I guess he’d have agreed to anything to get his hands on Jarrett but that’s rather a reversal. Jarrett is the face and yet he’s exploiting the rules and goading the heel into a style of match that doesn’t suit him. Jarrett isn’t totally out of his league with the wrestling stuff though and comes up with a great armdrag counter out of the Angleslam. We get a nasty spot on the floor where Jarrett wings the rope on a dive and he lands head-first on the floor. Just about blocked it enough to not break his neck but hell of nasty fall. Angle has no compunctions about using weapons and nails Jarrett with the ring bell busting him open. See, Angle doesn’t even really care about winning the match. He just wants to hurt Jarrett, which explains why he’s gone about the match the way he has. Kurt gets cocky though and walks into a DDT on the ramp. He blades too and they battle onto the stage. ANGLESLAM OFF THE STAGE THROUGH A TABLE!!

He sacrificed himself to fuck Jarrett up! Jarrett is busted bad. Angle goes back into the ring to re-assess the situation and probably realises when he does that Jarrett is in worse shape than him. But he’s got Jarrett mad and we segue into another slugfest, which is one of those awesome ‘every punch leaves the other guy rocking’ kind of fight that you see in Rocky movies. Jarrett breaks out a FUCKING PEDIGREE…for 2. Jarrett wants the Stroke but its countered into the ANKLELOCK. Jarrett rolls out of it but the effort has left him lying. Angle is all hopped up on adrenaline but Jarrett dropkicks a chair into his face, which was telegraphed but hey it sets up the STROKE…for 2. Angleslam as we’re totally into the ‘Angle match’ now but Jeff kicks out. I dig they went right to the other finisher so we’re not just waiting around for the inevitable hitting and kicking out. Jarrett goes for the guitar but Angle owes him a receipt and kicks him in the nuts. Angle does a ‘crowd chooses the weapon’ spot before deciding on a chair…for 2. That could have finished. It was a good shot. Jarrett looks to have nothing left and misses with an enzuigiri before being slapped in the Anklelock. Again, this could easily finish. It’d give Kurt the dominant victory he’s earned. Jarrett had outs with his blood loss and the big spot on the stage. Jarrett counters out and escapes another Angleslam with a DDT. Jarrett wants the Acoustic Equaliser but ITS BROKEN so he opts for a chair shot instead. Its not as good as Angle’s. There’s no follow through. Jarrett was doing a fantastic job of selling the ankle the whole time and he can’t get a pin because of it and Angle slips out of the fall into his own pin for the duke. ****1/2. This match had almost everything. The intensity, the blood, the emotions, crazy spots that meant something and great character work from both guys. Again they don’t have a great finish with Angle reversing a pin after a chair shot. Its like they don’t want to have a decisive finish so they can do another match down the line.

POST MATCH Angle, despite winning, destroys the ankle with a chair thus doing what he set out to: hurt Jeff Jarrett.

BACKSTAGE a bloody and battered Rhino refuses to duck out of the title match tonight. He wants REVENGE!

TNA title – Sting (c) v Rhino

This is just a bad idea on all levels. Rhino has a convincing finisher but that’s about it and the crowd like him as the guy who motivates others to achieve. That’s a good role for him and he’s good at squashing people. But here he’s against Sting, which is a whole different ball game. Sting used to be a massive babyface in this territory and is still popular. Which throws the dynamic they have. Especially as Sting cut a tweener interview backstage. You know he’d much rather get the pop here. But the crowd reaction isn’t everything. The styles don’t mesh well and Rhino is a better heel while Sting is a better face. With Rhino being kayfabe injured and Sting being kinda screwed they opt to make this an Attitude era style brawl. Which is a sensible call. It plays to their strengths. But you can’t do that match all the way through because the crowd is still worn out after Jarrett-Angle. They want something interesting to happen beyond a brawl. So Sting goes to the bearhug. This makes sense because Rhino apparently got his back injured earlier but it sure is boring. Rhino gets out and hits a semi-Gore, which sends Sting outside rather than down for the count. Tenay talks about the back problem, which is soon worsened by the Scorpion Deathlock. He’s still able to power out thus making the entire match ineffective. Rhino misses with another Gore and the Scorpion Deathdrop finishes *. Both guys looked off. I think Sting wasn’t really into having to carry the match as it didn’t suit him. Oh well. At least its over.

BACKSTAGE AJ Styles, Devon & Foley get interview time. AJ says the Frontline are the underdogs and everyone is writing them off (mainly because they keep losing). Foley’s promo hints at him unleashing the Mick Foley of his HHH feud circa 2000.

Here’s a quick editorial. I love Mick Foley. I do. He’s a great guy and I dug everything he did going back to the first time I saw him in WCW. But his time has passed. He had a great going away party when he feuded with Triple H for the title in 2000. He then got lucky and was able to have a few comeback matches that rocked. Against Edge & Randy Orton & the tag with Edge against Funk/Dreamer. But coming to TNA as a wrestler? That’s a mistake on a par with WCW signing any WWF has-been that was available in 1994. He’s fine as an on-air talent and even with the odd confrontation but having him work matches is a mistake unless he’s only there for a momentary pop. And that’s not the case here. He’s an integral part of the main event.

Main Event Mafia v TNA Frontline

Booker T announces their mystery partner as Cute Kip. They said “suitable”, which suggests a main eventer. I bet Kevin Nash owed him money or something. So the heels are Booker, Steiner & Billy Gunn, which is like the NWO B-Team stuff considering how far all three have fallen since being legitimate stars somewhere. Kip opts for cheap heat by saying the Carolina Panthers suck. Wow. Good work. He might as well have walked out and said “I dislike this city and your ways seem strange and stupid to me. And I slept with all your mothers yesterday”. Frontline is AJ, Foley & Brother Devon. The match is mainly about Foley because they’ve got nothing else going for them. AJ is the lesser story, thanks to Foley being out there, but the more interesting one. He’s desperate to prove himself and yet everyone on the heel team isn’t in the league of the main event guys, which is weird because they’re all in the MEM. Maybe it should be re-titled. AJ is too fast and too talented for Kip. Then Devon is too angry for Booker to contain. It kinda shows you where this going. The faces have something to prove while the MEM figure they’ll win with no effort against a loser, a tag team guy and a has-been. Its disappointing, truly, to see how immobile Foley is. The strikes have nothing at all behind them and the way he turns around in the ring reminds me of Al Gore in South Park. Then everyone gets counted out and not even TNA can finish a PPV with that bullshit. Cornette comes out to re-start the match, which apparently he can’t do but Mick can? Gotta love that TNA logic. Foley decides to turn it into a hardcore match, which at least gives these guys the crutch of using garbage. Foley is game for taking something and gets backdropped onto the announce table. Like most spots in this match it was ok but on the ugly side. Booker denies us a Foley elbow drop so AJ has to pop the crowd instead with an INSANE dive from inside the ring putting Kip through a table. I like how Booker is stupid enough to do the Spinneroonie and Foley has tonnes of time to set up the Socko Claw. Foley has a little trouble with a chair before hitting Steiner with a DDT onto it for the win. *. AJ Styles was the only guy who brought the excitement but the crowd didn’t hate Foley’s broken down performance so its hard to say the match totally sucked. But what did suck was that the main event effectively only featured one guy of relevance; AJ Styles. None of the MEM were the top guys. There was no Sting and no Angle and no Nash. Not to mention no Joe on the Frontline side. It devalues the battle for the company when this is on last. Its like Sting is more into his title run and Angle is more interested in Jarrett.

The 411: I’ve heard this been described as the best and worst of TNA. And it sure feels that way. While there are two excellent matches on the undercard the main event matches are so disappointing it’s reminiscent of WCW. And no one wants another WCW.
Final Score:  6.5   [ Average ]