TNA Live Event
Dublin, Ireland at National Stadium
Report by Dot Net reader Steve Cooney

1. Kazarian defeated Chris Sabin and Mark Haskins in a Triple Threat match to retain the TNA X-Division Title in eight minutes. Good fast paced opener. Sabin was crowd favourite by far here. Haskins was hated simply because he was English in the first (but not last) showing of good ol' casual racism from the crowd. Typical triple threat match with one wrestler outside the ring recovering while the other two fought. Kazarian won after hitting an RKO on Sabin after Sabin had jumped from the top rope, and then hitting his reverse tombstone on Haskins for the three count.

2. Angelina Love and Mickie James defeated Knockouts Champion Madison Rayne and Tara in nine minutes. Not much love for Angelina here. A lot of disappointed faces when everyone realized it wasn't Velvet Sky representing The Beautiful People. Can't blame them personally. Great reaction for Mickie James, and super heat for Madison Rayne and that Queen-like wave she does now. The match itself was better than I expected. Mickie picked up the win for her team after hitting a sloppy looking version of her jumping DDT move.

3. Rob Van Dam defeated Matt Hardy in 10 minutes. Unlike the French show, there was no problems for Hardy getting heat here. The crowd absolutely hated him, but not in a go-away-heat kind of way. Huge reaction for RVD, and his music works much better in a live setting than on TV in my opinion. Really gets the crowd going. The match was as expected from these two. Matt was really going through the motions here. RVD did most of the work and won after hitting a very impressive five star frog splash.

4. Beer Money (w/Ric Flair) defeated Douglas Williams and Magnus to retain the
TNA Tag Titles in 16 minutes. Longest and best match of the night by far. Keeping with tradition, being that Williams and Magnus are English they were booed out of the building. No attempt was made to have them play a babyface role so this was the "to hell with the story lines" match. Before the match, Flair cut a promo about how much he loved Ireland and, of course, the fact that the Irish love to drink.

Flair went old school Horsemen by telling to ladies to come find James Storm in the Radisson hotel after the show. The crowd absolutely loved Flair. Beer Money played the crowd for cheers at every opportunity also. All four wrestlers put on a great match here, especially impressive was Magnus. He needs to be back on Impact asap. Flair got involved with the referee several times and each time was greeted with a chorus of Wooooos. Great match which ended when Beer Money hit the DWI on Williams for the three.

Intermission

5. Shannon Moore and Matt Morgan defeated "The Pope" D'Angelo Dinero and Jeff Jarrett in a tag match in 12 minutes. This was an odd pairing of teams and never really worked for me. The disappointment in the air was palpable when Shannon Moore walked out, but in fairness to him he wrestled the entire match for his team with Morgan only coming in the last minute.

They seemed to be doing everything they could to have Moore not seem out of place, and he did his best, but it was still a strange Eric Young style placing of him in with the main event level guys. Jarrett worked very well as a heel along with The Pope. As I said, this was all Jarret and Pope vs. Moore for the most part. The match ended when Moore finally got the tag to Morgan and he finished Pope off with a sick looking Discus Clothesline.

Dixie Carer came out to the ring and gave speech thanking all the fans for sticking with TNA, and also advised that she should be able to announce in the next day or so the details of how we and the UK will view Impact now that Bravo is gone. She said that a new home on Sky has been found but she didn't have details of when it would begin to air as of yet. Good reaction for Dixie here.

6. Mr. Anderson defeated Jeff Hardy to retain the TNA Title in 13 minutes. This was a match where the wrestling was an afterthought, as all the crowd were interested in were chanting anti-Hardy messages. Chants of "Hardy's wasted" (he seemed in good shape for a change actually), "he's my dealer," and "CM Punk" all rang out around the arena for almost the entire match. There was also a loud chant of "Change Your Title" when Anderson was holding it up for the crowd to see (why is he still carrying around Jeff's belt anyway?).

Anderson never really connected with the crowd here since he was battling the anti-Hardy stuff from the get go. There was one "let's go Anderson" chant but it was short lived. Not much to the match really but it had a TNA special overbooked ending. There was ref bump followed by Hardy hitting the Twist Of Hate. Earl Hebner ran out to make the count but Anderson kicked out at two. Hardy then knocked out Hebner leaving no ref again. Matt Hardy ran out and hit Anderson with the title belt and rolled Jeff on to him. The first referee woke up and made a slow two count. Anderson eventually hit the Mic Check for the win.

After the match, Anderson was looking for a drink leading to the Beer Money music
hitting and Beer Money, along with Flair, led all the babyfaces including Dixie into the ring. Flair then shook hands with Anderson, and took the mic declaring Dixie to be the best promoter he ever worked for. Fortune (and Kayfabe) be damned, I tell you! I know it's only a house show but a bit of continuity would be nice in my opinion. All the babyfaces stayed for a while drinking beers and shaking hands with the fans to close the show.

Notes:

- Dixie was signing autographs and taking photo's before the show, during the intermission and after show with each session lasting about 20 minutes. She really put the time in to meet as many as she could and you could really tell when she came out to the ring for the speech that the crowd really appreciated.

- The TNA music is so generic. I watch every and for at least 5 of the wrestlers I had no idea who was coming out until either JB announced the name or that person walked through the curtain (examples would be Matt Hardy, Shannon Moore and Douglas Williams). They really need to improve their entrance themes in my opinion.

- This was TNA's third trip to Dublin. First time round they played this same venue twice and sold out both nights (holds approx 2,000 people). They then made an ill advised attempt to do the O2 on their next trip (approx 11,000 people) and barely sold over a third. Third time, back in the smaller arena, and they really struggled to fill it. Dixie mentioned on twitter that it was sold out but there were several (not many) empty seats around. That's a shame because this was the best of the shows they've done here in my opinion, although the first half was a lot better than the second half which might explain their rating trends of losing viewers as they move towards their main events each week.

- Jeremy Borash did his usual schtick of giving out backstage passes to the loudest people throughout the night. While it's cheesy and always the same stuff, it really works. The crowds eat it up every time, especially the kids.

All that said, it was a really good show and I'm selfishly glad that I get to see them in such a small venue when they come. It really adds to the atmosphere.

Biggest Pops
Ric Flair and Beer Money - easily
RVD
Mickie James

Most Heat
Jeff Hardy
Matt Hardy
Douglas Williams and Magnus

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