TNA Slammiversary 2007

TNA Slammiversary 2007 (6/17/2007)- Nashville, TN

OPENING VIDEO PACKAGE- laughter-inducing… and that is definitely not what they were going for.
A bunch of scenes from TNA’s history. Unfortunately, they decided use a banjo as the sound track, which completely killed all of the actions scenes. Also, I noticed that WAY too many of these scenes (especially the pre-TV stuff) involved either midgets or random catfights. Once we got to the more modern stuff, the music was a bit better, but not much.

VIDEO PACKAGE: PART 2- just… strange.
Mike Tenay and Don West were apparently doing commentary for a game of golf. The golfer (who I can’t help but notice look a bit like Tiger Woods) makes a perfect putt that is about to sink into the hole, but someone puts a foot down over the whole and blocks it. We see that this person is Jeff Jarrett, who then breaks his guitar over the golfer’s head. Isn’t Jeff a babyface? Why is he being such an ass to this golfer?

SENSHI & RHINO (w/Hector Guerrero) vs. LAX (w/Konnan)- 6.5/10
They had one scary spot in the beginning where Rhino went for a powerbomb but Homicide escaped… and in doing do, wound up falling over the top rope, not looking in control of himself at all. We couldn’t see how he landed (he looked like he was going down on either his feet or his butt, though, which are much better than most of the alternatives), but he seemed to be okay for the rest of the match.
The match had a good fast pace, but I was very disappointed that we didn’t get to seem much of either Rhino vs. Hernandez or especially Senshi vs. Homicide (and if you’ve ever seen their work together, you’ll know why).

JB & EY SEGMENT- dumb
EY says stuff that doesn’t make sense. Then Traci shows up and tries to seduce him. She had already tried to screw him this way once (I mean… not �"screw” him like have sex with him, �"screw” him by cheat him out of his contract), but he is dumb enough to almost fall for it again. Gail Kim showed up and told EY not to fall for this. She then kissed him and told Traci that it was a kiss from �"a real woman.”

TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Chris Sabin(c) vs. �"Black Machismo” Jay Lethal- 7/10
They spent a lot of time talking about everything Kevin Nash had done for the X-Division guys by �"adding personality” and �"assisting in character development.” WHO THE F*CK THOUGHT THIS ANGLE WAS A GOOD IDEA? Not only does it crap on kayfabe… kind of... because we know that these �"characters” Nash has given them are kayfabe fake (or something like that), but it basically buries the X-Division guys by saying that before ash came along they were all dull and boring. Did anyone really think that?

Nash came out to do guest commentary, and Sonjay came out to throw rose petals around the ring because he is �"the guru” now. He and Nash are apparently pals because Sonjay helps him meditate. If you’ll remember back to the last PPV, Sonjay Dutt turned heel on Nash by kicking him in the back of the knee. Apparently they are just friends now.

You know how at some point (usually at the beginning) of every show, WWE will cut to the Spanish announcers and we’ll hear them talk in Spanish, and then the English announcers will let us know how to listen in Spanish? Well in WWE they do that during down time. In TNA, they did it IN THE MIDDLE OF A F*CKING MATCH, and not even during a double down! What’s worse is that they didn’t give us any of the Spanish audio or tell us how to listen in Spanish… and we already knew that they were here because Tenay pointed out that Hector Guerrero was a member of the Spanish announce team when Hector was coming to the ring… so all that this did was cause us to miss some of the action that we paid for. It absolutely astounds me that a company could possibly f*ck up something so simple to get right.
At least the match was great, although Jay’s first title win didn’t feel like it was as big a deal as it should have been because 1) they spent no time focusing on the celebration in the ring, and 2) he is doing a f*cking parody gimmick!

FRANK WYCHECK & JERRY LYNN (w/someone else from the Tennessee Titans) vs. RON �"THE TRUTH” KILLINGS & JAMES STORM (w/Jackie Moore)- 5/10
The video package for this was great (especially the James Storm parts), but I had absolutely no idea how Lynn and Truth were involved (Don later explained that Truth was angry that as a TNA original he was getting less attention than Wycheck, and Wycheck had asked Lynn to train him). We then go a James Storm promo in which he said pretty much the same things that he said in the video package. Then Jackie accused Leticia of having poorly-done fake breasts.
As far as celebrity matches go, this one was pretty good. The only real problem I had with it was I wasn’t sure how the referee didn’t see the other Titans guy punching Storm on the outside (and to be honest, I wasn’t thrilled with a babyface who isn’t in the match pulling someone out of the ring to break up a pin).

ALEX SHELLEY vs. BOB BACKLUND VIDEO PACKAGE- very, very… TNA.
The build-up for this started when Alex Shelley made fun of Bob Backlund for losing to Nash in nine seconds in Madison Square Garden. Being a dick, Shelley then boasted that he could beat Backlund in nine seconds as well. This would have been PERFECT set-up for a segment where Backlund quickly makes Shelley tap to the Crossface Chickenwing. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there.
We got a bunch of wacky stuff and outdoor attacks and Don West said something about Alex Shelley jumping out of a tree to attack Bob Backlund and steal a book from him. Yeah. Like I said, it’s TNA. If they had kept it simple, it would have been great. Instead it was totally wacky and stupid.

MR. BACKLUND vs. ALEX SHELLEY- 2/10
Shelley’s �"nine seconds” boast didn’t factor into the match at all. I mean seriously! How was the first spot in this match NOT �"kick to the gut, powerbomb, kickout?”
The match was short, and not only Shelley, but Sabin as well, got beaten and humiliated by Backlund. Nash came out to break it up. Then Jerry came out for some reason (to even things up I guess, but considering that Backlund beat up both Shelley and Sabin and Nash was trying to stop the fight, I’m not sure why he felt he was needed). Nash then booted Lynn in the face, and the heels beat up Backlund and Lynn. Then Jay Lethal came out and beat up both Shelley and Sabin while Nash decided not to fight. To recap, Shelley and Sabin got beaten up two-on-one TWICE and Jerry Lynn got taken out by one big boot.

DANIELS PROMO- the lights went out and he appeared in a spotlight and cut a wacky promo about using Sting’s advice and lessons from Sting’s life. Imagine the more old school Fallen Angel promos, but instead of preacher’s robes with red glasses, Daniels was just wearing a black sweater and had a really dumb design painted around his right eye. I have no idea what he is talking about, aside from the Bible quotes. I guess he went too long, too, because his own music interrupted him.

VOODOO KIN MAFIA vs. DAMAJA & BASHAM (w/Christy Hemme)- 2/10
For those who don’t remember, this the feud where Christy randomly decided to stand up for women everywhere by cutting a terrible, overly-dramatic promo with nothing leading up to it whatsoever in which she used horrendous examples to claim that women aren’t treated well in the wrestling business. Then, also completely out of nowhere, Kip James decided to be a misogynist. Jim Cornette also randomly decided to be a sexist, as when Christy went to him to ask for a match to prove that women can wrestle, he booked her in a tuxedo match against the Greased-Up Oily Guy.
Christy then wanted to bring in a team to put those mean sexists VKM in their place. The team she brought in was handily defeated. She tried again, this time by recruiting Serotonin, whose gimmick is that they always lose, and then Raven beats them up for losing. Shockingly, VKM beat them, too. Then she brings in a third team, who jump B.G. James backstage the night of Sacrifice 2007, and her team finally manages to get the win against the misogynist in a handicap match. Now the misogynist and his buddy are seeking revenge because her guy tried to end the buddy’s career.
To recap: Christy Hemme cut a promo that (the quality of her rhetoric aside) said that women deserve to be treated and respected equally to men. This somehow made her a heel. In order to prove that women could be wrestlers, too, she brought in a male tag team to fight her battles for her. They got their asses kicked. Then she thought that the guys who always lose might help her win, and they lost, too, making her look like an idiot. Then she brought in a third team, which could only win by having an unfair advantage. Now we are supposed to root for Kip and B.G. to get their revenge, even though Kip continues to say many horrible things about women. WHO THE F*CK THOUGHT ANY OF THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!
This is an ass-backwards company, and apparently some of its fans are ass-backwards, too, as during Christy and her team’s entrance, the camera found a woman in the front row holding up a big sign saying �"women shouldn’t wrestle because they can’t.” Why would the camera show this?
At one point in the match, Christy found this sign and ripped it up. When she did this, the two guys next to the woman who had brought the sign, who were pointing to it excitedly when their friend’s sign was on camera before, cheered for its destruction. WHAT?!
The match went about less than three minutes, but everything they did was very smooth and it was enjoyable while it lasted.
VKM win by roll-up in this grudge match where they are angry that Basham and Damaja almost ended B.G.’s career by giving him a concussion. Kip chases Christy around and she tries to run up the ramp, but VKM’s pal Lance Hoyt stops her. Lance picks her up and carries her back to the ring. He gives her to kip, who spends some time teasing giving Christy a chokeslam, but when he actually goes for it, we get a cliche RUSSO SWERVE and Hoyt attacks Kip. Then Basham and Damaja pop up again and B.G. gets beaten down, too. Christy and Hoyt make out. Good for Lance, but bad for us because this means that this feud will unfortunately continue.

RICK STEINER & JIM CORNETTE BACKSTAGE- an example that all bookers/writers and talent should follow.
Cornette is telling Rick that because of Scott Steiner’s injury, Rick will have to forfeit tonight’s scheduled TNA World Tag Team Title match against Team 3-D. Rick says that he won’t forfeit, and tells Cornette that he has found a partner. Cornette wants to know who it is, so Rick whispers it in his ear. Cornette then excitedly exclaims �"you got him?! He’s here?!” and declares that the tag title match will go on.
They established that the match will go on because Rick has a partner, put Rick’s partner over as being someone who Cornette is very excited about, and built up a mystery as to who the partner will be, making us want to stay tuned and find out who could have gotten Cornette so excited.

LAX BEATS UP HECTOR GUERRERO- They jump him from the stands. Didn’t we resolve this feud already when Hector stopped LAX from cheating in the opener, leading to them losing (which was also what happened at Lockdown in the beginning of this feud?)

FREEDOM MATCH: Eric Young vs. Robert Roode (w/Ms. Brooks)- 4.75/10
The stipulations of this match were that if EY won, his contract with Robert Roode Inc. would be null and void, but if Roode won, he could do whatever he wanted to EY. Can’t he do that already? Hasn’t that been the angle? That Roode gets EY to do what he wants by threatening to fire him? The Christy Hemme vs. VKM feud was one of the dumbest I have ever seen, but this one isn’t very far behind.
Whoever came up with the idea of Traci being referred to as Roode’s �"Chief Executive Offender” should have been flogged for even suggesting it.
Tenay has decided to call Eric Young the �"Pied Piper of TNA.” I’m sure you can make a joke about him leading the �"rats” to do what he wants, but it is still a poor nickname because those of us who remember the whole story will know that it ends with the Piper taking revenge on the town for not paying him by ABDUCTING THEIR CHILDREN (and in some versions either raping or murdering them, too). Not an image you want associated with a babyface.
They did stuff. It was good. Roode got the heat. EY made a comeback. Traci tried to cut off his comeback by tripping him up, so EY jumped down to the floor and pulled down not only her pants, but a good portion of her underwear, too. You could see at least half of her ass, completely bare, so if you like Traci, you might want to buy this DVD.
They did a big spot where EY gave both Roode and Traci a Death Valley Driver, but Roode kicked out. He then hit EY with a chair and got the win. Huh. I didn’t see that coming. Also, shouldn’t Gail have come out to take out Traci? Wasn’t that point of the earlier segment?
Roode then fired EY.
Then Jim Cornette came out and restarted the match because Roode cheated. Why does Cornette not do this with every match? I mean… he does watch them all, doesn’t he?
Anyway, the match restarts, and despite the fact that EY is still knocked out, the first thing Roode does is ask for Traci to give him a chair... WHILE BOTH THE REFEREE AND JIM CORNETTE ARE STANDING THERE LOOKING RIGHT AT THEM!
Gail comes out and takes Traci out, stopping this… except that it really didn’t matter because if Traci had managed to get Roode the chair, the referee and Cornette were both right there watching! Roode apparently decided that he no longer needed the chair, because he didn’t go outside to get it. He decided to gloat over EY’s body, and then, of course, got rolled up.
The overbooking totally killed this match. Just have EY win clean after Gail prevents Traci from helping Roode cheat, with no momentum-killing restart and no can of worms-opening interference from management.

TEAM 3-D PROMO- they claim that Scott Steiner isn’t here tonight because he is coward and he is faking his throat injury.

TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Team 3-D(c) vs. Rick Steiner & Road Warrior Animal- 3.75/10
This was one of those situations where finding an replacement for Scott that wouldn’t feel like a disappointment was almost impossible, but TNA managed to get just about the only guy who could have worked in this spot. Props to them and to Animal for that. Animal got a HUGE pop, as expected, as well as loud �"LOD!” chants.
Things were going decently well until Animal pissed me off by no-selling a piledriver. He the no-sold some more before tagging out to Rick. Rick did some stuff with the Dudleys before we got the bafflingly stupid finish of Rick getting pinned with the 3-D. Yes, Rick. The guy who actually works for TNA and who is one half of the dream match that TNA still surely be looking to promote as soon as Scott Steiner is healthy enough. He was the one who got pinned while Animal, who was only in for this one show and, to be blunt, doesn’t really have any dream matches left because his partner has passed away, was merely held back by Brother Ray.

STING vs. CHRISTOPHER DANIELS- 5.75/10
Okay, between Daniels’ earlier promo, the video package, and Tenay’s explanation, here is what seems to be the issue here. Daniels’ felt that his career and personal life both weren’t in good places. He realized that Sting had been in a similar position a few years ago and seems to have turned everything around, so Daniels went to Sting for advice. Daniels apparently got something different out of the advice than Sting intended, which has caused Daniels to be a heel.
Now, between Daniels quoting the Bible earlier and everything we know about Sting (a lot of which has been alluded to in TNA programming since his feud with Abyss began), it seems to me that what happened was that Sting told Daniels to read the Bible, but Daniels came out of it liking the old school version better than the New Testament, and this has caused him to turn heel. I am still trying to determine whether or not I, as a Jew, should be offended by this.
Sting repelled down from the rafters. Tenay went nuts like this was the greatest thing in the world. If only he would react like this to stuff like IMPORTANT MOMENTS DURING MATCHES! Don and Tenay then tried to spin this as Sting playing mind games with Daniels. That was incredibly stupid (at least Don was smart enough to admit that maybe he was reading too much into this).
Daniels worked over Sting’s chest and stomach, but Sting eventually hulked up and started no-selling for his comeback. The match was WAY too short (less than seven minutes) two stars of this magnitude. They should have scrapped Daniels’ earlier promo and given the time to this match. They really seemed to be running short on time for this show, as they didn’t even give Sting ten seconds to celebrate before they cut a video package for Abyss vs. Tomko (which was good, by the way).

CHRISTIAN’S COALITION PROMO- dumb.
Christian said he would win the world title tonight. AJ objected, but Christian summoned up painfully fake tears and said it meant a lot to him that AJ would sacrifice himself for Christian tonight. AJ seemed to be okay with this because he is apparently a moron. He seemed much more excited that he and Christian were going to be wearing matching colors.

NO DISQUALIFICATION MATCH: Abyss vs. Tomko- 4/10
Yeah. Some idiot thought it was a good idea to have the only two No DQ’s matches on the show go on back to back in the main and semi-main. Both Sting vs. Daniels and especially the tag title match would have been better choices for this spot. They were bigger matches and THEY WEREN’T NO DQ’S MATCHES RIGHT BEFORE A NO DQ’S MAIN EVENT!
They were brawling on the outside, and the ref yelled at them to get back in the ring. In a No DQ’s match. Mike Tenay, being a complete and total idiot, said that this needless interference by the referee in a No Disqualifications match was the referee showing �"leeway” by letting them fight on the outside at all. Mike Tenay is a moron.
They did some brawling… then they just jumped right to thumbtacks. Abyss got them out, but Tomko quickly chokebombed him into them. Abyss managed to make a comeback and then got some broken glass. He was quickly clotheslined into it by Tomko. Then stabbed with a shard of glass and got his face stomped into it. The man has two signature weapons, and he quickly got put into both of them. What a dork.
Tomko then picked up a shard of glass and cut himself in the chest with it. This was AFTER Abyss had gone into the glass twice and was bleeding a lot. Yeah. I’m sure that was sanitary.
After Tomko’s surge of offense, Abyss started to wander up the ramp, and it looked for all the world like this big monster babyface was turning tail and running like a coward in this grudge match he wanted. Tomko then grabbed a barbed-wire covered baseball bat and beat Abyss up with it.
Abyss started to climb up some scaffolding, again looking like he was trying to run away. Tomko climbed a ladder and got up to the top first, still holding the bat. Abyss continued to climb up and managed to trick Tomko into swinging the bat down at him. Abyss avoided it, grabbed Tomko’s wrist, and threw him through… something at ringside. It was covered by a big sheet so we don’t know what it was, but it looked great and I assume the sheets were there to hide whatever padding and stuff they had set up to make this bump safer, so that was cool…
Then the DVD just cut to Tomko stumbling around, and then we saw Abyss on the ground in pain. WHAT THE F*CK HAPPENED?! When I buy a DVD, I expect the FULL F*CKING MATCH, and if you aren’t going to give me that, it should be clearly noted on the DVD. Don claimed that they were in an area where TNA didn’t have any cameras. Fine. Then SHOW ME SOME REPLAYS OF THE SICK BUMP UNTIL ONE OF THEM IS VISIBLE AGAIN! And I still don’t know how Abyss got hurt.

Anyway, Tomko, who took this sick bump, beat Abyss back to the ring, and when Abyss tried to get back to the ring, Tomko stomped away at him… so this big bump didn’t even change the momentum of the match?!
Tomko then charged at Abyss who caught him with a Black Hole Slam into the glass. They did a lot of damage to their bodies, but the psychology was TERRIBLE.

JB INTERVIEWS ANGLE & JOE- pointless.
Kurt said that he and Joe should go out to the ring and beat each other up. Joe said he would break Kurt. This took up even more time than it should have.

SPECIAL JEFF JARRETT VIDEO PACKAGE- he sniffles a lot and talks about TNA. Then he talked about his wife, who had recently died from cancer. He said that he didn’t know if he would ever return to in-ring action, and thanked the fans for their support.

CORNETTE ANNOUNCES THE FINALLY PARTICIPANT IN KING OF THE MOUNTAIN- bad.
He says that in his mind, there were only two choices. His first choice was Jeff Jarrett, but Jeff insisted that the opportunity go to the other guy: Chris Harris. So not only did Harris not win his qualifier (he and Storm went to a double DQ), but he wasn’t even management’s top choice among the people who didn’t qualify for the match. Why the f*ck should he get this match? He hasn’t won a match in OVER A YEAR, and hasn’t won a singles match in ALMOST TWO YEARS (yeah, I know he was out with his eye injury for a few months and he was a tag team guy before that, but still! This is the World Heavyweight Title)! They could have at least given him a win on the pre-show or something!

KING OF THE MOUNTAIN MATCH TO FOR THE VACANT TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: Kurt Angle vs. Chris Harris vs. Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles vs. Christian Cage- 8.5/10
They showed a graphic entitled �"Tale of the Tape” and then used it to explain the rules of the match. They clearly do not understand what that expression means, which is surprising because it is very straightforward. It means �"this is the story (�"tale”) that would will see if you watch our video footage of the events leading up to this match (�"tape”). If you’re going to do a graphic with the rules (which you should for something as complicated as King of the Mountain, then just call the graphic �"THE RULES” or something like that!
Remember that segment earlier with AJ and Christian? Well that was to set up AJ laying down for Christian so Christian could pin him and become eligible to hang the belt. They only did this once before AJ turned on Christian, and that pin as broken up, so it didn’t even matter.
That bit of story aside, this match wasn’t much more than a bunch of big spots put together in a logical order, but that’s totally fine. The only one that I didn’t like was the stuff on top of the penalty box, and it wasn’t the spot itself so much as I didn’t understand why AJ went up there in the first place. He wound up taking a sick bump off of it, but while showing us a replay of that bump, they missed Joe apparently taking a bump off of it as well. The finish was also kind of wonky, as Kurt and Christian were fighting on the ladder, and instead of knocking the ladder over, Harris decided to spear only Christian, which let Kurt win. Wonkiness aside, this match really saved the show.

POST-MATCH STUFF- Joe and Kurt had a stare down before Joe offered a handshake. Kurt kicked him in the gut and gave him an Angle Slam for no reason. The people still popped and Tenay sold it like this wasn’t a heel turn. The whole thing was stupid. Kurt Angle, the top babyface, just finally won the world title in one of TNA’s signature matches on one of their biggest shows of the year… why would you do ANYTHING to take away from this moment, especially turning him heel?!


This was a bad show from TNA, saved by the main event. They tried to do WAY too much here, with TEN matches plus the Jarrett video and the Daniels promo. As a result, only two matches got any more than ten minutes (the main event and the Tomko vs. Abyss match), and thus nothing got the time to be as great as it should have been. Despite this, a lot of the matches on the show managed to have the truly big feel to them that a show like Slammiversary demands, but this also just led to the matches feeling disappointing with how short they were.
The matches were listed out of order on the DVD case, which is a pet peeve of mine. More amusingly, though, was the insert in the DVD case, which contained an advertisement for the new TNA Mobile service. It advertised all of the things you would get like exclusive wallpapers and videos and breaking news. Anyway, the ad consisted of SoCal Val and Leticia talking on their cellphones while smiling, as if to say that ordering this service would mean that these attractive women would call you up personally to tell you the news, and maybe hang around to chat with you afterwards. I’m calling bullsh*t.
I’m also fairly certain that TNA didn’t have the rights to be using the song that they used for the DVD menu because they only played twenty-nine seconds of it before it looped. This was very apparent because it would jump back to the beginning IN THE MIDDLE OF A WORD!
Stay away from this one, unless you really want to see King of the Mountain or the bonus match.


BONUS MATCH (from the 6/7/2007 Impact):
KING OF THE MOUNTAIN QUALIFYING MATCH: Chris Harris vs. James Storm (w/Jackie Moore)- 8/10
Awesome action, but poor logic and booking. They immediately brawled forever on the outside. This would have been fine because they were never in the ring… except that the bell rang and Mike and Don treated it like the match had started. The referee was totally fine with them using weapons, though. Then, for the finish, it was announced that if they couldn’t get back into the ring by ten, they would be DQed. In the middle of this counting, Kurt Angle decided to randomly stroll down the ramp. This was done purely so that Samoa Joe could come out and have a confrontation with him… right in the middle of the referee counting for the finish of this match!
Kurt and Joe then started to brawl, and it would have been really cool if we hadn’t just seen a crazy match with a bunch of weapons.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Don West- �"There’s such a thin line between love and hate, and these two have crossed it!”
WHAT?! No, Don. The line between love and hate is not thin at all.