Live at TNA No Surrender
Last Sunday, TNA made their pay-per-view debut in nearby Oshawa, Ontario (of all places...), and I was lucky enough to be there to see the whole thing go down. How was the show live? Well...it was an experience, that's for sure.
Attendance at the General Motors Centre was relatively sparse- though the floor seats and on-camera side of the stadium were packed, the other half of the arena was practically deserted, but for a few poor shmoes who bought their tickets at the last minute- myself included. If I had to guess, I'd say the attendance was in the mid 3000s...but that's just a ballpark figure.
At 7:30, the pre-show began. The crowd was already fired up- the appearance of the ring-announcer was met by a round of Flair-style Whoos, and Hector Guerrero received a huge pop and loud "Eddie" chants, which he acknowledged by pointing to the sky. Don West was roundly booed, proving that there's no accounting for taste. That man is seriously my favorite part of most TNA broadcasts. The commentators' entrances were followed by speeches by Jeremy Borash and TNA president Dixie Carter, who both praised the local crowd (such as it was). It's a Cheap Trick, but as always, it was effective. As the main emcee of the pre-show, Borash was surprisingly good at keeping energy levels high, even when the always unpredictable Ontario fans threw him for a loop, loudly booing his references to fans from Detroit and to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Should have gone for a shout-out to the Sens. Even still, by the time the show went live, Borash had the fans whipped into a frenzy.
Although the show ended up being somewhat of a mixed bag, the atmosphere in the GM Centre that night was electrifying. At many points in the show, the most entertaining performance didn't come from anyone in the ring, but for the crowd itself. I've been to shows with fifty fans in the audience and one with an attendance of over 68,000 people, but Sunday's crowd may have been the liveliest one I've ever been a part of. What they loved, they LOVED- Petey Williams got a hero's welcome of course, and Christian was treated like the second coming of his namesake. On the other hand, as anyone watching the show likely picked up on thirty seconds into the MMA-Rules Match, when the Oshawa fans didn't like what was being presented to them, they let people know...loudly.
As much fun as it can be to get swept up in the mob mentality, a crowd as... opinionated... as the men and women of the Greater Toronto Area can also no doubt be a huge pain in the ass to book for. TNA wisely avoided putting Petey Williams in a singles match for his X-Division title- outside of Canada, he's better as a comedy heel, and Oshawa would have turned him quickly in a regular match. As it was, Consequences Creed managed to eventually get over just by virtue of his in-ring abilities, and Shiek Abdul Bashir stepped into the role as the match's main heel. The main event didn't fare as well. Even discounting the poor booking of the Sting/Samoa Joe angle, and Sting's unwillingness to properly heel himself, there was no way in hell Joe was coming into a match against Christian Cage as anything but the most hated man in the building. Many in the crowd were also confused and annoyed by the absence of Booker T- though on the pay-per-view they announced in a backstage segment that he had missed the show due to the hurricane, the live crowd was left completely in the dark.
In any other city, Jeff Jarrett's return from such a long hiatus would have cemented his status as a babyface, and hopefully, it came across that way on television. However, by indirectly costing Christian the match, Jarrett managed to make himself Oshawa's public enemy number one. Also, once and for all- Stop the f--king "You Screwed Bret" chants. Yes, Earl called for the bell- he did his job as an employee of a major company. If he hadn't, someone else would have. It's been ELEVEN YEARS. Let it DROP.
In the end, No Surrender was the typical TNA show- excellent wrestling, poor booking, a with just a touch of Vince Russo's insanity. It was exactly what I love about TNA- what's good is great, and what's bad is at least morbidly entertaining. As for the experience of seeing TNA live, well, maybe Jeremy Borash said it best in the pre-show, when he commented that there's no crowd like an Ontario crowd. That's probably a good thing for everyone involved.
