#its omori spoilers because this is what happens in the good ending TRUST

[wowisuredoloveballs]

sunnyxsage kiss gif

sunnyxsage kiss gif to destroy my enemies

[sharktalkswrestling]

Looking at NWA-TNA Weekly PPV #3 (03 July 2002)

We’re back at it again with NWA-TNA PPV #3, which aired live on 03 July 2002. This week they’ve upgraded to two women awkwardly dancing in cages, so you know it’s gonna be a good one. Here are links to the first review and second review.

Quality: 3/5. The show starts off rather poorly, but from the Shamrock match onward, it’s actually a pretty fun show. The X-Division and Tag Team Championship matches border on great, and the main event is fun enough. Plus, K-Krush (R-Truth) makes fun of Nascar some more, so I’m happy. With four matches I enjoyed, this is best PPV so far.

Significance: 5/5. They’ve done a great job of making these early shows feel important. The first Tag Team champions are crowned in a one-night tournament and the other two titles are defended. Monty Brown debuts. There’s a somewhat noteworthy angle at the end of the show. I’m sure it’ll slow down at some point, but for now big stuff is happening every week.

My thoughts [Spoilers]:

Jim Miller, president of the NWA, is a poor talker but says that he was scouting in Japan and announces that the winner of Shamrock-Malice will defend the title next week against “a gentleman by the name of Omori”. This is Takao Omori, who would eventually become Triple Crown Champion in All Japan. While he wasn’t a big deal at the time, it’s cool to see how early TNA began bringing in international talent. It’s a smart move to emphasize that the NWA belt is still a world championship, and three title matches in 4 weeks makes the PPVs feel must-see. Hopefully the match is good.

Mortimer Plumtree is bad and the Johnsons are worse. I have no idea if their match with America’s Most Wanted was good or not. I just spent the whole time trying to drown out the “jokes” of Don and Ed. To give credit where it’s due, there is a pretty funny line that Ferrara has about how Mortimer hasn’t called or written his mother in 15 years...because she tucks him in bed every night and that’s when they catch up. Maybe I’m just desperate to enjoy anything they guy says. After the match the Johnsons attack Plumtree, so hopefully this gimmick is over.

Monty Brown calls out Shamrock before his squash match. Unfortunately he wins with an “Alpha Bomb” rather than the pounce.

The Rainbow Express vs Buff Bagwell & Apolo in the World Tag Team Championship tournament is of such little importance, they figure it’s the perfect time to continue an angle where a woman named Alicia receives money from people on camera. A referee, Jeremy Borash, and now Ed Ferrara. Bagwell cuts a weird promo after his loss about how he’s Marcus now and “Buff” ruined his career. He acted like he was quitting because he lost to gay men. Something something fragile masculinity. Hey, at least Joel didn’t cut a promo.

Shamrock comes out to cut a promo. Don comments that he’s never seen a crowd react to a wrestler like this, before the crowd proceeds to chant “what” at Shamrock throughout. They are not that into him. They do a lights out moment where Malice (the Wall, brother) jumps Ken to absolutely no reaction. Puppet “the psycho dwarf” in the next segment got a bigger babyface response - when he said he wanted “midget blood” - than the NWA champion.

After a “match” between Taylor Vaughn and Francine, they repeat the Ferrara-Francine angle from last week. The match ended by DQ before the bell even rang, if you’re curious.

I would watch K-Krush / R-Truth make fun of Nascar all day long. Apparently, he’s going to have a “match” with driver Hermie Sadler next week. If he loses, I will legit be peeved.

Shamrock’s victory over Malice (the Wall, brother) was a decent match that worked with his character. Injured - but still the World’s Most Dangerous Man - he took a beating for a while before opportunistically using some grappling and suplexes to secure a quick victory.

AJ’s title defense over David Young was a lot better than expected. Young even had a really impressive spinebuster before falling to a middle-rope Styles Clash. A pretty good match overall. During Young’s entrance, Mike Tenay name drops Alex Marvez of all people. He apparently called last week’s PPV the best thing he’d seen in PPV all year. West called the match the X-Division at its best. God, I hope not. Also, I hate Bobcat’s gimmick.

Aw hell, Joel Gertner cuts a promo from the back. I doubt I need to tell you this, but it's bad.

All this talk lately of New Japan’s double championship and here AJ Styles is a double (and inaugural) champion at the age of 25 after only three shows. For real, this was a pretty good match. I’d probably say it’s a bit better than the previous match. The crowd was really into AJ pulling off a second win. I find it really odd to do two very similar injury angles that play into title matches on one show, but TNA must have been crazy high on AJ Styles, as they should be. That or, AMW are the only good tag team in the company and they wanted them to chase the titles rather than just steamroll everyone and have nothing to do.

There were approximately fifteen thousand segments where they would cut to Goldilocks in the back hoping for her to have found answers to various questions (Are AMW gonna be okay? Is Shamrock gonna be able to defend the title? Where’s Jim Miller?) and someone tells her that they’re busy and can’t give her information. This is all “paid off” when backstage crew find NWA President Jim Miller hogtied in the back with the letters “F U” written on his stomach in sharpie. None of the non-wrestlers are any good at acting.

The main event tag of Scott Hall & Brian Christopher vs K-Krush and Jeff Jarrett was pretty decent, but ended (for some reason) with Christopher turning on Hall for a three-on-one beatdown. Hall fought them off for a bit, looking kinda strong, but was brought down by a Stroke and a Hip Hop Drop. Jarrett cuts a promo afterwards, saying he ran Hall out of WCW and he’s gonna run him out of the NWA. He also calls out the Titans’ offensive line, which is pretty funny. I thought maybe this was their way of writing Hall out of the company, but he has some more matches this year before leaving.

That’s it! A lot of the show is skippable, but I still recommend this edition of NWA-TNA. As a whole, it’s probably the best one yet. I’m curious as to when the number of title matches slows down. Not that I’m complaining, but I assume at some point they’ll start trusting that people are watching for guys like Jarrett, Shamrock, and Styles rather than the NWA belts. This one was a bit longer than the previous couple. Let me know what you think of the show and my posts!