Bryan Staebell
TNA YEAR NINE: June 14 2010-June June 12 2011
When Lethal met God
Jay Lethal had made his name in TNA by doing a Randy Savage impression. As Year nine began…he revealed he had more than one in his arsenal.
Flair obviously took exception to this and things escalated between the two en route to an inevitable match:
Lethal would win a pretty fun match at Victory Road. Flair was actually a lot of fun in year nine of TNA. He’d mostly vanish in year 10 (and is long gone now) but this year he was bleeding everywhere, cutting awesome promos, and hanging out with the faction that he’d form…Fortune:
Kazarian is still a poor replacement for Desmond Wolfe
Flair announced that he was going to relaunch the Four Horsemen in TNA under the name Fortune. Although it originally appeared that Desmond Wolfe was heading to a spot in the group…that didn’t happen. AJ Styles and Kazarian were made the first members and were soon joined by Beer Money. Doug Williams and Matt Morgan would have some affiliation with the group for a while (and eventually Christopher Daniels too)…but for the most part Fortune was those first 4 guys.
Tag Team Rasslin
As mentioned in last years recap…the TNA Tag titles were vacant when year nine began. Beer Money and the Motor City Machine Guns met at Victory Road to determine the new champions. It was the night that the Guns finally won the big one:
7-11-10 Beer Money vs. Motor City Machine Guns
Following this the teams set off on a best of 5 series that highlighted Impact ever week. Beer Money jumped out to a 2 match lead by winning a ladder match and a street fight. The Guns came back to take a cage match and this Ultimate X match to force match 5:
Match 5 was originally going to take place at the Hard Justice PPV but didn’t for reasons we’ll get to in a minute. Instead it took place on a special Impact called “The Whole F’N Show” where they basically did the original Hard Justice ppv on free TV. Honestly this whole series was excellent…but as this was the final, and IMO the best…I’m calling it the Year Nine Match of the Year:
8-12-10 Beer Money vs. The Motor City Machine Guns (you’ll have to head to dailymotion via the link to watch)
In retrospect the zombie was a fine representation of the brand because the fucker won’t stay dead
The reason that Hard Justice didn’t occur as scheduled is that Tommy Dreamer had come into the company and managed to talk them immediately into doing yet another ECW reunion show. His reasoning was that he got his closure at the One Night Stand PPV…but then Vince had brought it back in the bastardized TV version and he had to watch all of his friends get shit on and fired. So Hard Justice was renamed HARDCORE Justice and was run with only ECW talent.
The show was…weird. There wasn’t any good wrestling on it…but that’s hardly the point of a nostalgia show. It was kind of neat to see some of the people you don’t see around anymore like 2 Cold Scorpio who had a decent match with C.W. Anderson.
Someone even dug up Tracey Smothers corpse
Team 3D put someone through a flaming table (and someone had actually found Mustafa Saed to join New Jack in the classic Gangstas garbage beat down afterwards). Raven beat Tommy Dreamer in the final showdown in a match that would have probably been really great when they were in their prime…but here came off slow and kind of sad. The main event was supposed to be RVD vs. Jerry Lynn but Lynn injured his back and was replaced with Sabu. The match is worth watching just to see how frigging hard RVD works with a banged up Sabu to try and have a good match:
8-8-10 RVD vs. Sabu
After Hardcore Justice was over TNA ran that special Impact with the original scheduled main event of RVD defending the TNA title against Abyss. They had a better hardcore match than anyone on the reunion show. RVD retained. After the match Hulk Hogan came out to congratulate RVD and put over all of the ECW (called EV2.0) guys for having raised the bar at the PPV. We’d find out later that he had totally set them up:
EV2.0 would spend the next few months feuding with Fortune. The only thing of note that came out of that was an I Quit match between AJ Styles and Tommy Dreamer where Styles proved how great he is once again:
9-5-10 AJ Styles vs. Tommy Dreamer
There was also the final Mick Foley/Ric Flair showdown which you’d think would happen at Bound For Glory…but instead happened on the go home edition of Impact 3 days before. It’s actually Foley’s final singles match (and aside from a stint in the 2012 Royal Rumble, his final match overall).
10-7-10 Mick Foley vs. Ric Flair (another dailymotion link, sorry)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xf4mc5_tna-impact-7-10-10-last-man-standin_sport#.UaAbHLUsnng
RVD would return at Bound For Glory to get his revenge on Abyss in a monsters ball match:
The rest of EV2.0 would not fare as well and Tommy Dreamer would have to watch all of his friends get shit on and fired. Again.
Halfway to nowhere
When we last left Kurt Angle he had beaten the #10 ranked Kazarian on his quest to win his way through the rankings system. He’d beat #9 Desmond Wolfe on Impact on June 24, #8 ranked POPE at Victory Road in July and #7 ranked Hernandez on the July 22 Impact. On “The Whole F’n Show” broadcast he’d beat #6 AJ Styles.
And…that’s where it ended. The EV2.0 beatdown would happen at the end of that show and RVD would have to vacate the TNA title due to his injuries. Angle was put into a tournament to crown the new TNA champion at Bound For Glory (note that RVD would actually be back BEFORE a new champion was crowned). He beat Doug Williams in the quarterfinals to move on to face Jeff Hardy in the semis. They had probably the best match Jeff Hardy has ever had in TNA:
9-5-10 Jeff Hardy vs. Kurt Angle
Mr. Anderson defeated the POPE to get to the finals…but with no winner in the Angle/Hardy match we were looking at a 3 way at Bound For Glory.
10-10-10
Abyss had been going around forever telling anyone who would listen that “They” were coming. And that “They” would be here on 10-10-10. 10-10-10, of course, was Bound For Glory.
Sting had spent all of his time since returning to TNA telling people not to trust Hogan and Bischoff. Kevin Nash and the POPE agreed with him. Jeff Jarrett was on Hogan’s side as was Samoa Joe. On 10-10-10 it was supposed to be a 6 man tag with Hogan joining Jarrett and Joe but Hogan was legit injured and had a bunch of surgeries on his back (his ability to get out of working at BFG would come to an end next year). So it became a 3 on 2 handicap match…or so Joe thought until Jarrett abandoned him while team Sting laughed at him and told him he should have listened to them.
That brought us to the main event for the vacant TNA championship:
10-10-10 Jeff Hardy vs. Kurt Angle vs. Mr. Anderson
“They” became Immortal. Jarrett, Abyss and Bischoff joined Hardy and Hogan who turned heel and Hardy became champion.
Another me is what there will never be
And what a champion. Defying all human logic Jeff Hardy of all people was a fucking fantastic heel. A guy who had never strung three words together into a coherent promo was suddenly captivating and downright awesome.
Hardy fit so well into his new role that you had to figure he must have been thinking about what he would do with a heel run for some time. The character came fully formed out of the gate and he would (unfortunately right at the end of an all too short run) figure out how to use his built up reputation as the most resilient wrestler around to work a wonderful slimy piece of shit heel who crawls away from your best and then cheats to beat you gimmick.
As Hardy was killing it as a heel, Mr. Anderson and his new “Asshole” gimmick (which actually was pretty cool for about a month or two believe it or not) was positioned as the top babyface. After Anderson defeated Matt Morgan to become the #1 contender at the end of Genesis…Hardy and Bischoff thought they had him right where they wanted him:
1-9-11 Jeff Hardy vs. Mr. Anderson
Hardy would win the belt back the next month in a ladder match. The match was pretty good with an awesome idea for a finish (Hardy was supposed to hold onto the belt while Anderson gave him a mic check off the ladders so Hardy would come down with the belt) which they botched…but given the degree of difficulty it wasn’t a big deal:
2-13-11 Jeff Hardy vs. Mr. Anderson
The beginning of the end for Heel Jeff Hardy came when Impact taped 2 shows in Fayetville North Carolina and Sting returned as his mystery opponent, winning the TNA title yet again. Hardy showed up in bad shape at Victory Road so they had Sting beat him in about a minute in a disaster of a main event. That would be the last we’d see of Hardy in year nine…and the last we’d ever see of Heel Jeff Hardy.
RIP Heel Jeff Hardy. 10-10-10 – 3-13-11
DEVON…GET THE…HELL OUT OF HERE
Team 3D had been having some problems with each other prior to HARDCORE Justice but they put them aside to celebrate the reunion. At Bound For Glory Team 3D announced that they would be retiring from tag team wrestling but asked for one more match against the TNA tag champions the Motor City Machine Guns. Given that it was to be their last time teaming up they went out to try and put the Guns over as best they could…including letting them kick out of the 3D (which was pushed as a first. Probably wasn’t…but who cares):
11-7-10 Team 3D vs. The Motor City Machine Guns
Brother Ray would turn on Devon in their goodbye segment on the next Impact. He would rebrand himself Bully Ray and would get into the best shape of his career. Devon came back as just Devon as a singles wrestler…but Bully Ray went through an incredible transformation into one of the best heel characters and promos in the business today. They feuded with each other at first…but the feud would never get to fully play out as Bully Ray had to join Immortal once Jeff Hardy imploded and they needed guys. Spoiler alert…everything works out just fine for Bully Ray.
Shaking hands did nothing for Dolph…not shaking hands did nothing for these guys
With Beer Money behind them for the moment, the Guns moved on to their next challengers, Generation Me. They opened Bound For Glory that year with an awesome tag match:
10-10-10 Motor City Machine Guns vs. Generation ME
The feud would escalate in the coming months including this brutal empty arena match that originally aired on the REaction show (I couldn’t find a great version…but this will do):
The blowoff of the feud came at Final Resolution in a Full Metal Mayhem match:
12-5-10 Generation ME vs. Motor City Machine Guns
The Guns would lose the titles back to Beer Money in January, ending one of the best title reigns anyone had with any title in company history. At least match quality wise.
1-9-11 Beer Money vs. Motor City Machine Guns
They’re back
Fortune joined up with Immortal right after BFG (where it was also revealed that Bischoff had gotten Dixie to sign the company over to him). Not long after that Doug Williams turned babyface and challenged AJ Styles for his TV title. I know I said we weren’t going to talk about that title…but this match is the one great thing that ever came out of it:
12-5-10 AJ Styles vs. Doug Williams
In January…Kurt Angle started talking about “They” again. That “They” were coming…again. This time “They” turned out to be Fortune who turned on Immortal and became babyfaces again. Flair stayed with Immortal. What was supposed to happen was the return of the Main Event Mafia as babyfaces. Kurt Angle was there and Scott Steiner returned but Booker T and Kevin Nash decided to make surprise returns at the Royal Rumble instead. I’m not sure if Booker was ever in the plans or not but Nash actually had signed to return and Dixie let him out of the contract so he could work the Rumble.
He got a pop so loud you could hear it for months
The tragedy in all of this is that when the Mafia broke up…Scott Steiner had refused to believe it and talked about how they were as strong as ever. Now when he could have been proven right it fell apart.
The Fortune/Immortal feud actually led to some quality stuff. For maybe the first time in their history they managed to get a Wargames right:
4-17-11 Immortal vs. Fortune Lethal Lockdown
And it all led to an excellent Bully Ray/AJ Styles last man standing match at Slammiversary:
6-12-11 AJ Styles vs. Bully Ray
It’s catch up time, once again
Jay Lethal won the X title from Doug Williams and then traded it with Red at house shows in their hometowns. Robbie E got a brief run before Lethal got it back and dropped it to Kazarian. Before the end of the year he would lose it to Abyss who was trying to destroy the X division (which is weird since by this time the job was already done for him).
Mickie James returned to TNA at that years’ at Bound For Glory. That’s about the only thing of note that happened in the Knockouts division. She had a pretty good feud with Tara including this match from right after she arrived:
11-7-10 Tara vs. Mickie James
She would win the Knockouts title from Madison Rayne (who had held it most of the year) at Lockdown.
Oh and Mr. Anderson would beat Sting to win the TNA title at Slammiversary leading to him briefly joining Immortal. If it seems strange that a World title change is filed under a “catch up” chapter…remember it’s Mr. Anderson. … Anderson.
The king of the mountain, undefeated MMA superstar Big Daddy Jeff Jarrett
After Jarrett turned on Joe at BFG he went on to defeat Joe a couple of times while informing the world of his MMA mastery.
He initiated the Double J Double M A challenge on Impact and spent weeks proving his MMA dominance over crowd plants (funny story…people got so into this that one week they had trouble figuring out who the plant was) and lower tier TNA guys. He even started being accompanied to the ring with his own fight team. Crimson actually made his debut as Red’s little brother in this storyline…but even he couldn’t tarnish it’s greatness.
Kurt Angle used the open challenge to get a Double J Double M A match with Jarrett at Genesis. They went to a no contest (still undefeated). This set off their feud that would last the rest of year 9.
They met again at Against All Odds in a match with the stipulations that if Jarrett won Kurt had to give his ex-wife Karen away at their vow renewals. If Angle won he got custody of his kids. How this made Jarrett the bad guy I don’t know. Jarrett was the greatest dad in the world in storyline and Angle was constantly in legal trouble. Thankfully…Jarrett won. The vow renewals were pretty great…until Angle had to go and ruin things…twice:
They’d have their big rematch at Lockdown under “Ultra Male” rules…with that kind of name only one man could win:
4-17-11 Kurt Angle vs. Jeff Jarrett 2 out of 3 Falls
The next month Angle would bring in Chyna! for one night…ahem…to take on the Jarrett’s in a mixed tag. Chyna made Karen submit to win the match. This led to Slammiversary where Angle and Jarrett met once again, this time to determine the #1 contender to the TNA title, and this time with Angle finally the victor.
This next part actually happens in the first week of year 10…but since it closes out the feud I’ll put it here. On the June 16th Impact Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett had a parking lot brawl to end their feud once and for all.
This would bring an end to inarguably one of the greatest runs in pro wrestling history.
OR WOULD IT????
What can follow that?
Let’s see what else was going on. Matt Hardy showed up in TNA with dreadlocks and Tyler Reks trended on twitter. Wanting to look slim by comparison, Hardy would bring in Chris Harris to team with him against Beer Money. The crowd gave him a “Knock knock! Who’s There! Braden Walker!” chant. Having failed to get into Fortune Desmond Wolfe formed a promising tag team with Brutus Magnus called London Brawling that unfortunately ended with Wolfe’s mystery medical condition.
Finally, Orlando Jordan and Eric Young (tell me if you notice a theme with Eric Young yet) formed an awful tag team. Though it was still better than what Jordan was doing before I suppose…
