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| SHOW REPORTS |
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| August 2, 2008
NWA Anarchy was back at the NWA Arena in Cornelia last night with their first television taping since Hostile Environment. With so many storylines blown off at the big show, it figured to be an eventful evening. And on several levels, reality was more eventful than expected Attendance was a solid 190. Judging from the heat level, all of the new story directions got over well with the crowd, despite there being more shaky spots than usual for an Anarchy show. Bill Behrens opened with the stunning announcement that Jerry Palmer was absent. Palmer’s wife, Tab had a pregnancy-related seizure in the process of giving birth to their first child. The baby was born 10 weeks prematurely. It was touch and go for a while, but the good news is that mother and baby are both doing well. Griffin Hamil Palmer weighed in at 2 pounds 6 ounces. More on this in the notes section. True to form, Anarchy didn't miss the opportunity to incorporate Chad Parham and Seth Delay came out. Parham said Palmer had no business in the business because he had no respect for the boys. He said Palmer a coward for no-showing the hair vs. hair match. Parham wanted to call it a forfeit and shave Sal Rinauro’s head on the spot. Rinauro had other ideas. Like fighting for it. “Your two asses are getting handed to you tonight, and somebody’s getting their hair cut.” Behrens announced the formation of the Young Lion’s Division for wrestlers under 25 years old weighing less than 200 pounds. Behrens said the winner of the first Young Lion’s match woulde earn the final entry position in a future Young Lion’s Mega Rumble. (1) Adrian Hawkins won the inaugural Young Lions Division match over Kyle Matthews & Chip Day & Bo Newsome in 4:53. Andrew Alexander took a seat in the announcer’s booth. It's nice to see them taking advantage of Alexander's considerable verbal skills. Hawkins has added a black leather jacket. Lots of high risk flipping and flying. Mostly good and few things not so much. The crowd chanted for Matthews. They did a round of big moves. Among the hightlights: a Matthews slingshot double stomp on Day, Hawkins powerbombing his way out of a triangle choke by Matthews, and a badass flip dive by Day. Newsome was setting up for dive when Hawkins caught him with a reverse roll up. Interesting that Hawkins was booked to beat three babyfaces. Adding a Junior/X Division for younger wrestlers was a sound idea. Anarchy has plenty of guys that can work that style, and it provides another way to showcase their talent besides what was becoming an endless stream of midcard tag matches. Don Matthews came out channeling Stan Hansen. The Merciless one said Jeff Lewis made the biggest mistake of his life by blowing him off at Hostile Environment. He called Lewis out and got the next best thing, or at least that’s what Jay Clinton alleged - “Ain’t I great?” (2) “Merciless” Don Matthews pinned Jay Clinton in 30 seconds. Clinton did the Memphis strut. Matthews took his head off with the Lariat. “Hey Jeff, that was you’re Feature Presentation,” said Matthews and mocked Lewis’ bowing routine. Perfect. (3) Slim J & Shadow Jackson beat Jeremy Vain & Rob Adonis when Jackson pinned Vain at 11:23. Crowd was absolutely on fire as J and Jackson had their way with the heels early on. When Jackson ran into difficulty suplexing the 280 pound Adonis, he appealed to the power of the people to give him extra strength. Adonis distracted J to him up for Vain’s VKO to start the heat. The visual of Adonis working on little J made for powerful stuff. Crowd was really into J’s hope spots. Jackson cleaned house. All appeared well. That’s when J’s night went to hell in a hand basket. His trademark flying reverse DDT was botched. He went for a top rope corkscrew plancha and slipped on the ropes. It was a total crash and burn straight to the floor. Scary stuff. He landed so short that Adonis had no chance to save it. Anarchy personnel rushed to ringside to check on him. Meanwhile, Jackson pinned Vain in a finish that garnered little attention. Amazingly, J was not seriously injured and was more angry than hurt after the show. Attorney Jeff G. Bailey came out with the new NWA Anarchy Tag Team Champions. Bailey had one of the title belts around his waist. Funny stuff. Bailey gloated about being on top of the world after leaving Devil’s Rejects for dead at Hostile Environment. He put “The Butcher of Pyongyang” Kimo over as a trained-from-birth killing machine. (4) NWA Elite (Shatter & Kimo with Jeff G. Bailey) destroyed Big Time Playaz (Scott McKenzie & Danny Matthews) in 3:18. A classic Cornelia squash and nobody knows better than Bailey. Playaz were outstanding as enhancement talent. Matthews facials and selling were stellar. Kimo no sold Playas and did this awesome hanging tree slam. Shatter speared both Playas and pinned McKenzie with the PTSD. Kimo applied the Information Extractor (crossface variation) after the match. (5) Sal Rinauro beat Chad Parham & Seth Delay in a hair match. Delay lost the fall at 14:27 and got his head shaved. Parham had his midsection wrapped in bandages. It looked like one of those fad weight loss gimmicks. For comedy, they did a quadruple spear into Parham’s tender tummy, three of them inadvertently delivered by Delay. Parham collapsed head-first into Delay’s man region. Rinauro was handling the numbers disadvantage until he he ventured up top. Delay interfered to set up a superplex by Parham. They zeroed in the small of the back with Delay applying the Sharpshooter. Rinauro eventually made a huge one-on-two comeback. He slipped off the ropes on a knuckle lock top rope rana. Slippery ropes tonight for some reason. Delay hit the Kool Krusher. Parham tossed brass knucks to Delay, but Rinauro ducked and ref Dee Byers got knocked out. Rinauro gave Delay a German suplex but no ref to count. Parham kicked a field goal with Sal’s nuts. Ace Rockwell hit the ring and took out Parham with Aces High. Brent Wiley came out as the second ref. Rinauro hit Pass the Courvoisier on Delay for the pin. What a pop. The real life events amplified what was already an emotionally-charged angle. Parham tried to carry Delay out to avoid the head shaving, but the entire babyface side of the dressing room came out to block his path. Delay was held down against his will for the shaving. I imagine the heat was an issue. Rinauro didn’t get all of Delay’s hair by any means, but he did give him a hideous rim job. I imagine the heat was an issue. My thoughts drifted to the night Chris Candido was supposed to shave Ricky Morton's head at SMW's Fire on the Mountain and the razor wouldn't do a d**n thing. I understand they finished the deed in the back. (6) Chris King beat Tyler Smith (with Bob E & Todd Sexton) via DQ at 3:48. Smith’s side burns are a bushy, bright red. King was looking more Sam Houston like than ever as Smith worked on his shoulder something fierce. King made a one armed comeback. King ducked and Smith went flying through the ropes onto Bob E. Back inside, a pissed off Bob E. clubbed King with a rabbit lariat for the DQ. Surprisingly good. King’s selling was excellent. Postmatch, Technicians destroyed King’s arm with Sexton egging them on. Great heat. The fans were calling Sexton a quitter. Sexton was yelling back that King the quitter. Sexton called for a match. He said that if couldn’t make his opponent quit, then he would quit as a wrestler. Cue up Mikal Judas. The Technicians took one look and abandoned their mentor. (7) Mikal Judas retired Todd Sexton in 1:51. Sexton took mad bumps, as good as anybody at Anarchy has ever taken for Judas. Sexton went up to the heavens for Judas’ choke slam finisher. It’s mind boggling that TNA still has not signed Judas. He is so beyond ready. After the match, Judas waved bye-bye to Sexton, who was on the ramp looking like he was about to breakdown in tears. A great farewell performance by Sexton. (8) Truitt Fields & Texas Treats (Don Juan & Chris Marval) beat Sex, Talent & Money (Caleb Konley & JT Talent & Drew Pendleton III) in 7 minutes. Fun match here. It wouldn’t be a Treats match without Juan’s dancing. A female fan in the front row got a double dose. If John Morrison can grate cheese on his abs, then Fields most certainly can do the same. Funny spot early where Talent thought he was hot s*** and ended up eating a lariat from Fields. Konley stopped the match to strip down to his underwear tights again. Marval took the heat. Fields saved after a slingshot elbow drop by Konley. Crowd was hot for Marval to make the tag. Fields batted clean up. Talent & Pendleton tried to double up on Fields. Juan came to the rescue and pulled the ropes down and to dump both of them. Fields pinned Konley with the Killing Fields. Juan celebrated with a victory dance and invited Fields to do the same. Shades of Rick Rude. The fans ate it up. It could not have gotten over better. (9) New Wave (Derrick Driver & Steven Walters) beat Devil’s Rejects (Azrael & Shaun Tempers with the Reverend) in 7:45. Walters has upped his game and look to a completely different level than he was on a few short months ago. Rejects were beating on Walters right from the opening bell. Azrael did this awesome sweep kick and knee to the face - just a wicked looking move that he allegedly stole from a video game. Rejects pulled the distraction shenanigans on ref Jacob Ashworth. Walters ducked a lariat with a baseball slide and nailed a dropkick. Hot tag. Azrael wacked Driver with the Reverend’s stick to break up one combo finisher. Huge pop when Driver kicked out. Rejects went for the Hellhammer on Driver, and Walters broke that up with Blockbuster. New hit the Unskinny Bop on Tempers and Driver made the pin. An excellent finishing sequence. Their series of matches with the Rejects has done wonders for New Wave’s standing. (10) Brodie Chase (with Melissa Coates) beat Daffney in 3:24. Daffney was a pleasant surprise. She demonstrated her amazing flexibility to Brodie and Melissa. With Daffney as the clear fan favorite, the “she’s a man” chant for Coates was back in force from the Bleacher Bums. Chase said Melissa wasn’t going to soil herself with the likes of Daffney, but he had no problem slapping a woman around. Chase slapped Daffney’s ass. Daffney slapped Chase’s face. Chase went to work on Daffney’s elbow, contorting the joint at a sick angle that had the Scream Queen screaming in agony. The fans chanted for Don (Matthews). Daffney made a comeback with a top rope huracanrana and popped Coates for good measure. Chase rolled her up with a severe pull of the tights to where the crack of Daffney’s derriere was exposed. Postmatch, Coates spanked Daffney. The refs corp came out to restore order. Daffney badly wanted a piece of Coates. It got a “Let them fight” chant. Good stuff, hopefully, to be continued. (11) Iceberg (with the Reverend) pinned Ace Rockwell to retain the NWA Anarchy Heavyweight Title in 11:55. Greg Hunter did one of his awesome championship intros. He pointed out that this was month 5 of Iceberg’s title reign. Rockwell opened with a barrage that drove Iceberg to one knee. But Iceberg ducked away from Rockwell’s flying body press and seized the advantage with the Thigh Drop of Doom. Iceberg busted out the Abdullah style flying elbow drop an an Air Raid Crash. Crowd was strong for Rockwell’s underdog comebacks. Iceberg missed a senton backsplash that drained the pool. Rockwell went wild, but Iceberg blocked his running bulldog and did the cannonball splash in the corner. The crowd felt that one. Rockwell mounted yet another comeback, hitting a top rope bulldog to put Iceberg down for a near fall. Iceberg came back with a crushing belly to belly suplex, and went for a middle rope Ground Zero. Nobody home. The Reverend tried to use the stick on Ace and konked Iceberg instead. Rockwell hit a middle rope Aces High, but the Rev put Iceberg’s foot over the ropes to save a three count. Rockwell slugged the Reverend. Rockwell went for another Aces High, but Iceberg had recuperated enough to finish him with the Ground Zero. Rejects gave Rockwell the beatdown after the match. Rinauro tried to save and got beaten down as well. Cue up Jackson’s music and the place went nuts. Iceberg told the other Rejects to clear out. Iceberg squared off with Jackson mano a mano. The crowd was itching for them to go when Iceberg said “my time” and left the ring. NOTES: More on the situation with Palmer’s family. The medical status of wife Tabitha and their newborn son were both extremely serious earlier in the week. Tabitha is at home recovering. Tabitha is well known to the Anarchy fans because she handles the box office. Griffin spent three days at Grady Hospital in Atlanta before being transferred back to the local hospital, where he will probably be for two more months. Palmer asked the Anarchy fans to pray for his family and to take care of Anarchy while he was away. When I spoke to Jerry earlier today, he couldn’t say enough about how much he appreciates the overwhelming support the Palmer family has received from the Anarchy fans…Shatter, Vain, Rinauro and Talent are all booked for WWE RAW on 8/4 in Macon in and 8/5 Smackdown in Atlanta. |