Tremendous Tirades 7.05.13: TNA One Night Only – Hardcore Justice 2

LAX (Homicide and Hernandez) vs. The New Church (Slash and Sinn): Many fans know Slash as Wolfie D (PG-13) while Sinn was Kizarny in WWE, and is unfortunately wearing his Kizarny-like gear. Also the lack of Father Jim Mitchell with the New Church hurt the reunion, especially since he is on the show later. LAX is Hernandez and the returning Homicide. This was a perfectly acceptable opening match. Some solid wrestling, some plunder, but not over the top since it is the opener. Homicide and Slash worked hard and will be welcomed additions to the taped PPV events. LAX scored the win with a cutter/splash combo, and the crowd reacted well to the match.

Match Rating: **½

ODB vs. Jackie Moore: I liked that they showed a video package for the two before the match, reminding fans of their histories in TNA. Unfortunately instead of a hardcore brawl, which we got a little of, it went more in a comedy direction as they used hair spray, shaving cream, and other stuff raided from the women’s locker room. They used a giant heeled boot at one time as well as Moore using a wig to choke out ODB. While not what I expected, the crowd seemed to enjoy it for the most part, even chanting for Moore to use the broom that was in the ring. It was what it was.

Match Rating: *½

$20,000 Ladder Match: Bad Influence vs. Generation Me: If you’re going to put on a ladder match, you cannot go wrong with these two teams. Daniels is a veteran that can lead, Kazarian has a ton of ladder match experience and Generation Me always deliver in these sort of environments. Word was that this was the best match from the last set of taped PPVs, and it is easy to believe. Generation Me needs to be back in TNA for the good of the tag division, because they are simply great. The match had a good layout, the crowd loved it and also delivered all of the high spots you would imagine from the two teams. Like this…

Daniels would use the power of the Appletini to blind Max Buck, leading to Kazarian getting the victory. Great match here, and considering that it was the one I was looking forward to the most, I came away very happy with this 15-minute ladder match. Not the best in the company’s history or anything, but a damn fine match for sure and one of the best TNA PPV matches of 2013.

Match Rating: ****

Hardcore Gauntlet: Devon Storm, Little Guido, Crimson, Shark Boy, Sam Shaw, Funaki, Johnny Swinger, Gunner and 2 Cold Scorpio: Two men start, new men in every two minutes and you can bring a weapon to the ring with you. An interesting lineup for sure, but also a fun one because I like to see Guido, Scorpio and hell, I was happy to see Funaki. Lame weapons for the most part; a crutch, golf club, umbrella, cane and a dustpan with long handle. I mean come on, I don’t need flaming tables, but something a little more fun would have been nice. Pretty tame opening until Funaki hit the ring with a giant plastic guardrail and did the Terry Funk spinning spot with it, which was fun. Outside of shorter hair, Funaki looks exactly the same, the man does not age. Shark Boy was the comedy relief and brought out a giant fish and attacked Crimson with it. Shark Boy and his fish then eliminated Gunner and Crimson back to back and scored the big victory. This was overall a fun little gauntlet, nothing special and in many ways just an excuse to get guys on the show, but there was nothing wrong with it. I like when they bring back some guys like they did here, it is fun and something you do not get as a regular thing.

Match Rating: **½

Elimination Tag Match: James Storm, Magnus and Hardcore Holly vs. Aces and 8’s (DOC, Knux & Wes Brisco): Ok, this is where I have my first booking issue on the show. You just run a big multi-man gauntlet, and then you’re going to follow it up with a match that is similar, a six-man elimination tag. It makes no sense when you could have put the monster’s ball or hell, anything in postproduction in the slot. If you can help it, you should not run similar matches like this back to back because the second match can suffer, due to the fan being desensitized due to seeing essentially the same thing minutes ago. Not sure if you realize this, but Holly is 50 years old. He looks great for his age and works way better than Wes Brisco. Seriously, Wes Brisco is not a good professional wrestler. He constantly messes up the simplest bumps and will either end up hurting himself or someone else. After a long stretch of regular tag work, the weapons hit the ring and then Knux, Holly, Briscoe and Magnus were eliminated within 30 seconds of each other, leaving Storm vs. DOC. Very poor booking, as if they forgot that they were doing eliminations and someone had to get in the referees earpiece so he can tell the guys to start eliminating people. If someone laid out the match that way, they should be fired from their agent job; it was piss poor. Storm got the win for his team in what ended up being a disappointing match, partly due to poor booking, partly because the guys seemingly walked through it like it was a house show match instead of a PPV match.

Match Rating: **¼

Monster’s Ball Match: Joseph Park vs. Judas Mesias w/Jim Mitchell: Now part of this is because I am not a fan of the Park character, but I do not understand why you bring in Judas Mesias for a monster’s ball match and do not have the Abyss character work here. With the Abyss character, you have the chance of a heated hardcore match, fitting of the PPV. Instead, we have Park playing scared, playing bad wrestler until he bleeds and snaps. Yeah, they explained things with the pre-tape promo as far as it making sense, but I am looking for good PPV matches, so here, the Abyss character would have worked much better. Also, we got exactly what we all expected. Park wrestles badly, gets beat up, makes awkward comeback with weapons, gets cut off, gets busted open, plays Abyss and there you go. It was mostly fine, but felt VERY long. Park wins with the black hole slam in a match that lasted a long 13-minutes.

Match Rating: **

Tables Match: Jeff Hardy and Brother Runt vs. Team 3D: Bully Ray cut a big promo about putting out a challenge for a tables match that no one wanted any part of. But then little brother Runt accepted the challenge. They said Sandman is drunk, Dreamer is at a buffet and no one knows where Balls is; so Runt needs to come out here and go through the table so they can go home. Runt appeared, in overalls and old school Dudley glasses, and revealed his opponent to be Jeff Hardy. The one thing that annoyed me is the fact that they worked this as a regular tag, there are no rules, but they tagged in and out, and then it just broke done when they brought the tables into it. Just work it as a tornado tag so that it makes sense. This really didn’t have a PPV main event feel to me, instead felt like a greatest hits compilation, only with the 2013 version of the guys doing the spots. It wasn’t bad, but it was lacking as a PPV main event. Jeff and Runt won when they put Devon through a table.

Match Rating: **½