Live at TNA No Surrender
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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.
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