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TNA house show report 12-5 Troy , OH

By Justin McClelland

TNA returned to the Hobart Arena in Troy Ohio on Friday, Dec. 5. A lot of families and kids attended the show and were really hot most of the night. A lot of credit goes to Jeremy Borash who does a tremendous job in keeping the fans fired up. They did a thing where they would promise backstage passes to fans who were the most enthusiastic throughout the show, which is a pretty neat promotion. Also, JB claimed to get text message during the show, one from Foley promising to be at the next show and one from Angle saying to "tell the morons he was on his way." The sound in the building was AWFUL, which wasn't TNA's fault, but made it difficult to understand some of what was being said.

1. Shark Boy defeated The Guru Sonjay Dutt with the Stunner. Good opening match with some comedy to get the fans into it. Guru had a local sports writer with him (I think). After the match, the sports writer went back and forth with Shark Boy - it was hard to tell what was being said, but Shark Boy basically challenged the writer to a match. The writer claimed to have a cold so Shark Boy said they could fight when TNA came back in three months. I have no idea if this is a true return date, and nothing else was said about them coming back. You'd think if they did have a set return date, it would be emphasized throughout the night. At any rate, Shark Boy then laid the writer out with a stunner anyway.

2. Women's Champ Awesome Kong defeated Taylor Wilde and Jackqueline in a short match. Match was probably five minutes long. Kong missed a charge and went flying out of the ring early. Jacqueline and Wilde wrestled for a while but it was just bidding time until Kong got back in. She went in and of course ran wild over the other two women.Neat spot where she tried to powerbomb Jacqueline and WIlde rolled her up. Kong threw Wilde out of the ring and pinned Jacqueline with a Urinage.

3. Abyss beat Kip James. Not very good. Match was about 8 minutes, 4 of which was stalling. Kip's offense had little effect on Abyss, who pinned him with a black hole slam.

4. AJ Styles beat X-Division champ Shiek Addul Bashir in a non-title match. Really really good match. AJ did a lot of his high flying stuff and was way over with the crowd. Bashir drew a ton of USA chants. AJ did a dive to the floor and Bashir hit a top rope huricanrana. Really long match (relatively speaking) at nearly 15 minutes, with AJ winning with the Styles Clash.

5. Tag Team Champs Beer Money defeated LAX. This was the most split match of the night with a lot of the crowd supporting Beer Money. Homicide started a "Brokeback Mountain" which doesn't seem like the best idea with a big crowd of kids, but they got into the chant anyway. Another very solid match, which ended when Homicide went up top for something, but Harris spit beer in his face. Rood gave Hernandez a low blow, then Beer Money gave Homicide their assisted neckbreaker for the pin.

6. Samoa Joe beat Scott Steiner. Steiner came out in a hooded sweatshirt with his face covered up, then cut a long promo, which when you combine the sweatshirt and the bad sound was almost completely unintelligible. The gist seemed to be he hated Ohio because Ohio State beat Michigan in football. He also was dressed in jeans because the airport lost his luggage. He refused to fight. Joe came out, also in jeans, mocked Michigan, and challenged Scott to a street fight. Match was real bad unfortunately, despite a lot of heat, mostly for the Buckeyes, but some for Joe. Joe looked limited in what he could do because of the jeans and Steiner is Steiner. Pretty short match with Joe winning with a very scary powerslam where he looked to drop Steiner right on his head. Steiner seemed fine, fortunately.

JB then announced that Rhino, who was scheduled to fight Kurt Angle in the main event was in the hospital, even mentioning the name of a local hospital who had sponsored the show, saying he was taken there. Turns out, this was true. JB said Kurt had challenged anyone in the back to a match. So for our main event we got

7. AJ Style beat Kurt Angle. Crowd was more than happy with this last minute substitution. Super hot main event with the entire floor section standing for the whole thing. Match was about 10 minutes long. Great finishing sequence with both guys escaping finishers. Kurt got the ankle lock on twice, which seemed to spell doom for AJ, but AJ managed to roll up Kurt for the pin. Scott Steiner ran out to give AJ a 2 on 1 beatdown until Joe made the save to conclude the show.

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