TNA house show Westbury (8/1/2010)
After putting themselves on the Monday Night map with a 1.5 live Impact rating, TNA opened their return to the Northeast with a very good house show, selling out the Capital One Theater in Westbury, Long Island, NY to the tune of 2,500 fans. The venue is without a doubt, one of the best buildings ever built for live concerts with awesome acoustics in the round, including a slowly rotating stage, so no matter where you are sitting, at some point, the band will be facing you. With that set up in mind, it's perhaps the perfect setting for the company's six-sided ring.
The show ran the typical two and a half hours for a TNA live event - much longer if you include the extremely long "autograph
party" afterwards with most of the roster signing around ringside and the opportunity for a group to get into the Six-Sided ring with TNA champion AJ Styles and pose with him and the championship belt. If there's one thing that sets the TNA house shows apart from every other company out there, it's the level of glad-handing done to the crowd. Jeremy Borash does an insanely great job getting the crowd to pop and go nuts with the tease of being picked to go backstage during intermission. There is a lot of crowd interactions and mic work from the talent since it's such an intimate atmosphere. While WWE sometimes makes you feel like you are just seeing an average road show, TNA goes out of their way to push the idea that you are seeing something special and they are thankful that you came. For a lot of fans, that makes a huge difference and it certainly pushes the energy level to the next plateau. I don't think I can recall a house show where I've seen an audience just flat out enjoying themselves so much the entire night.
In a smart piece of strategy, TNA brought Don West in to the house shows this weekend. Although he was advertised as managing The Amazing Red, he was actually working the merchandise stand the entire time. The idea here was that by putting West there, they were going to move a lot more merchandise and it would give them a chance to do some "specials" in the vein that they do on
www.shoptna.com. At the Westbury event, they were selling a special Sting t-shirt that was printed just for this loop with the deal being if you purchased the shirt, you received 4 free random TNA DVDs for $20. A secondary deal was a pair of photos signed by Kurt Angle and Desmond Wolfe for $15. West knows how to play to the audience and I'd be really interested in seeing what the average merchandise sale is per show usually vs. when he's on the road as he's a master salesman.
In another smart move, TNA had Taz, Earl Hebner and Slick Johnson signing for free in the lobby. Positioned next to them was a vendor selling the TNA program for $20, so they were racking up in that regard as well. During intermission and after the show, Mick Foley signed in the same location. Again, in comparison to a WWE show, fans were now seeing TV characters signing for free. You'd never see that at a WWE event.
Of course, the meat and potatoes of the event itself is the actual wrestling. In that regard, five of the six matches were good. The other, featuring Kevin Nash and Eric Young vs. Beer Money was as good as a match with Nash in 2010 could allow. There was nothing terrible on the show at all, but it was interesting to see the slight differences in the TNA television show product and the live event. On Impact, everyone is trying to hit their TV marks and whip out as many fast moves as possible. On the house shows, they slow down considerably and play off the crowd. There's a lot more chain wrestling and back and forth counters. There's more of a build to the matches and there's a lot less reliance on insane dives and crazy bumps. It's much more of an old school pro wrestling babyface vs. heel formula and it was an excellent presentation in that regard.
The show opened with TNA's Craig Jenkins coming out and laying down the ground rules for the event (no video taking or we feed you to Shark Boy) and then introducing Jeremy Borash. Borash got as big a pop as any worker on the show. Seriously. Borash puts over the "if you are crazy, we might tap you on the shoulder and take you backstage" bit. Jenkins heels the crowd by saying they won't have time but Borash overrules him and sends employees into the crowd. The first time I saw this bit at an Impact taping, I thought it was a work, but I've seen them legitimately pull fans out and give them passes, so it's something the company legitimately does.
*TNA X-Division champion The Amazing Red pinned Homicide with the Code Red. Since they are both from NYC, both men were over huge. Homicide did a bit where he wanted Red to shake his hand early and they played off the crowd's cheers early. Some solid wrestling here. Red did some spots off the top but no crazy dives to the floor since they had such little room to work with on the elevated Westbury stage.
*Taylor Wilde and Sarita defeated The Beautiful People's Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne. The BP did mic work ripping on New York and putting over the dreadful MTV Jersey Shore series to gert heat. This was solid stuff, especially when Sarita and Sky were in the ring together. The finish was Madison taken out after she ended up in Earl Hebner's arm and he kissed her, followed by the worst Fargo Strut in history. Seriously, Jackie Fargo should have shown up with a belt to beat him, it was so bad. Sarita back suplexed Wilde onto Sky for the pin. There's a really good charisma to the babyface team live that hasn't translated onto TV yet.
*In the best match of the show from a technical standpoint, Desmond Wolfe pinned Daniels in a heel vs. heel match with The Tower of London. Since they are both villains, they ended up shaking hands early and both ripping the crowd. It was a good back and forth wrestling showcase early. Daniels ended up getting frustrated and slapped Wolfe. The look on his face was hilarious and he responded in kind. At that point, they were going at it a lot more aggressively and trying to cheat the other. Lots of fun stuff here. Wolfe looked 100% times better here than he did on Impact since his style lends itself much better to actually building and working a match. Daniels was his usual self as well.
*The Pope D'Angelo Dinero pinned Rhino after Rhino missed a gore into the corner and Dinero nailed the Elijah Experience into the corner. Rhino came right out and heeled the hell out of the crowd, saying he was from Detroit, "A real football city." Even though all the New York teams play in Jersey (so he's right), the crowd hated that. Dinero got a huge reaction coming out and did some good mic work, saying he was going to give Rhino a nice pimp slap. They worked really hard here. This was my favorite Rhino match in a long time and it's amazing to see the night and day performance of Dinero compared to his WWE run as Burke/
*Mick Foley came out and really, said nothing. There was no acknowledgment of the angle where he was laid out at the end of the live Impact, even though Kevin Nash was in the building. Foley put over that he's from Long Island and made his first official TNA appearance at a house show here, only now there was a lot more people. He got the crowd to sing "Happy Birthday" to his youngest son, Mickey and then plugged he'd be signing. Foley was announced as the "executive shareholder" despite being told by Eric Bischoff his stock meant nothing on Impact.
*After intermission, Beer Money defeated TNA Global champion Eric Young and Kevin Nash after hitting the DWI on Young. They had neutralized Nash by spitting beer in his face, blinding him, which led to James Storm nailing a superkick on him. Beer Money led the crowd in chanting their team name and offered backstage passes. Young and Nash took the passes and tore them up to get heat. That was hilarious. Young worked the lion's share of the match, as you might expect. Nash did his typical spots.
*TNA champ AJ Styles pinned Kurt Angle with Jeff Jarrett as the special referee. They did nothing to play off the issues with Jarrett and Styles here. Angle and Styles did a competitive, back and forth babyface match that was fine for a house show, although a little short for a main event. Styles caught Angle in a crucifix-type pinfall combination for the win. Angle disappeared and Styles did mic work putting over New York City and saying he had a surprise for them - and that was the post-show autograph event.