2/15 TNA in Huntington: Jeff Hardy vs. Austin Aries for the TNA Title, Kurt Angle and Bully Ray vs. Devon and Wes Brisco, Matt Morgan and Joey Ryan vs. Chavo Guerrero and Hernandez, Tara vs. Velvet Sky

TNA live event
Huntington, West Virgina at Big Sandy Superstore Arena
Report by Lou Pickney of LouPickney.com

The show started right on time at 7:30 p.m. EDT with roughly 500 in attendance.

1. Chavo Guerrero, Jr. and Hernandez beat Joey Ryan and Matt Morgan in 11 minutes when Guerrero pinned Ryan. The finish saw Hernandez throw Morgan out of the ring, where he appeared to injure his right knee. While I looked in that direction, Guerrero and Hernandez hit some sort of double team move on Ryan, allowing Guerrero to get the pinfall.

2. Tara pinned Velvet Sky in 10 minutes with a rollup where she held the ropes for leverage. After the match, Velvet beat her down and Tara clumsily stumbled around.

3. Kurt Angle and Bully Ray beat Devon and Wes Brisco in eight minutes when Angle pinned Brisco after an Olympic Slam. It was billed as a Bully Ray vs. Devon singles match, but Kurt Angle came out to plug change.org/wrestling (activist site whose goal is to push to restore wrestling to the 2020 Olympics) before being jumped by Brisco. Devon came out and they briefly put a double-team beat-down on Angle before Bully Ray ran out to make the save. Angle and Bully Ray challenged Devon and Brisco to a tag match which they accepted and that started right away. Angle wasn't in all that much and didn't take any bumps so far as I recall.

4. Bobby Roode beat James Storm in eight minutes via pinfall after interference from Austin Aries. Aries' interference on Storm left him prone and allowed Roode to jump on top for the three count. There was plenty stalling before the match and Roode made Jeremy Borash say on the house mic that he was going to leave and never wrestle in Huntington again unless the fans showed him respect. Storm then jumped Roode and there was brawling and Roode ridiculously taking two tubs of popcorn from fans and dumping them down Roode's tights before they made it into the ring and the match started.

Intermission: Fans were encouraged to meet James Storm, Earl Hebner, and Brian Hebner by the gimmick table up front while the ring crew assembled a steel cage. It was a "tennis court fence" style cage, only with sharp looking blue posts.

5. Jeff Hardy pinned Austin Aries to retain the TNA Title in eight minutes after a Twist of Fate. It was a cage match and it took almost twice as long to assemble the cage during the intermission as it did for the match. The match could be won by pinfall, submission, or first to escape. After a ref bump, Roode ran into the cage, waylaid Hardy, and helped Aries to the floor. The ref stayed down. James Storm then ran out from the back, hit Roode, and threw Aries back through the open cage door. Roode and Storm brawled into a corner of the arena (blocked off to two-third capacity) which was distracting since they had a spotlight on them as they went to the finish inside the ring, with Hardy hitting Aries with the Twist of Fate and the now-awakened referee counting to three.

Overall, I had a fun time and definitely got my $15 worth of entertainment. It would have cost me more to buy my ticket ahead of time (when you add in Ticketmaster fees) than it did to buy my ticket at the arena box office. The only media promotion I saw/heard for the show was the 20 second reader during WSAZ Sunrise this morning. That doesn't mean it wasn't out there, but I never saw anything for it and might have outright missed the show had a friend not mentioned last week that TNA was running a show here soon.