5/17 TNA in Fayetteville, N.C.: A fan who stopped watching TNA programming takes a chance on a house show, which featured A.J. Styles vs. Booker T for the Legends Title, Suicide vs. Kiyoshi for the X Division Title

TNA in Fayetteville, N.C.
Report by Dot Net reader Patrick Harris

For the record, I really want TNA to succeed. I’m the type of fan that wants them to offer an alternative style instead of WWE-lite. I’ve long given up on it since their TV programming is dreadful. It drives me mad. I wasn’t exactly blown away with the Genesis PPV they ran in Charlotte back in January, but feedback for their house shows is almost always positive, so I thought I’d check this out.

The show wasn’t actually at the Fayetteville Crown Center arena as advertised, but in the smaller adjacent building next door. Its capacity was probably 2,500, and they didn’t fill half of that. My best estimate was around 800-1,000. Lots of younger people were there to make it a family atmosphere. Beer Money shirts were selling like crazy.

Jeremy Borash came out at 4PM and started to hype the crowd. It’s well known he’s cheesy and goofy as hell, but it works. He gave out some backstage passes to the loudest fans.

1. Suicide defeated Kiyoshi to retain the TNA X Division Championship. It wasn’t really a high flying match you’d expect from the X division, but it was good enough. Suicide won with his leg hook suplex in about eight minutes.

2. Madison Rayne defeated Daffney. Not much to this one at all. Daffney shrieked and screamed at the start to scare Rayne and make her stall. Rayne eventually rolled up Daffney and held onto the ropes for the pin in about 10 minutes.

3. Rhyno defeated Shiek Abdul Bashir. Rhyno had a nice touch here before the match started. A solider in the front row was waving his dog tags in Bashir’s face, so Rhyno took them and climbed the turnbuckles to receive a great response. Bashir started speaking Arabic in the mic for huge heat, so Rhyno ran into the stands in the middle of everyone and explained how he was going to give Bashir a down south, American ass kicking. Rhyno won with the gore in about 15 minutes.

4. Jeff Jarrett and Christopher Daniels defeated Beer Money (Robert Roode and James Storm). Beer Money is as over as anybody in the company it seems. They can really work a crowd. They insulted Fayetteville and North Carolina in general before the match. They did a spot at the start where Daniels threw Storm head first into Roode’s crotch. Storm got up looking puzzled, so he reached into Roode’s pants to reveal Roode was stuffing his junk with a sock. He looked disgusted and threw the sock into the crowd. Later they ran into each other in the corner and ended up in the 69 position. They worked over Daniels for most of the match until the hot tag to Jarrett. Daniels made the pin in about 15 minutes.

Daniels is from Fayetteville, so after the match he got on the mic and thanked Jarrett for an opportunity to wrestle in TNA and the fans for supporting him. Jarrett also spoke for a bit about TNA’s growth and to thank the fans.

5. Eric Young defeated Kip James. This match stunk, plain and simple. James would stall, walk around outside and pose, stall more, and pose even more. Extremely slow and extremely boring. Young thankfully hit the Death Valley Driver on James for the win in 10 minutes.

6. AJ Styles defeated Booker T to retain the TNA Legends Championship. Best match of the night. The crowd was hot all night, and was divided for each guy during the match. Styles would hit the Spiral Tap on Booker for the pin in 12 minutes.

After the main event, Borash announced the photo op in the ring with Styles and Suicide for $20. The line for it was insane. I still think it screams indy for TNA to charge for that, but I watched for a while and saw every kid leave the ring with a smile. Styles and Suicide were friendly and interacted with each person. Christopher Daniels, Eric Young, and Daffney also came out to sign autographs and take pictures around ringside.

The in ring action was below average, but the wrestlers were able to make up for it and deliver an entertaining show overall.