There wasn’t a lot of star power at the TNA house show in St. Cloud, MN, but it was still entertaining nonetheless. I was able to pick up first row tickets for the event, which drew maybe around 500 people or so. I have been to two other TNA house shows over the past two years and this one had the smallest crowd by far.
It could have been due to the lack of advertising or name recognition, with the biggest for the event being AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. Past shows I attended were headlined by the likes of Kurt Angle, Jeff Jarrett and Booker T. This show didn’t feature many ex-WWE talents with the exceptions of Matt Morgan and Sheik Abdul Bashir.
The event also coincided with St. Cloud State University homecoming events, which may have contributed to the low crowd numbers. From what I could tell, most of the floor seats were filled, however, most of the seats that surrounded the hockey rink that the floor seats were sitting on were empty.
The show started at 7:30 and a total of six matches filled the card with two of them being title matches. The two title matches closed out the show, which were ODB vs. Madison Rayne for the TNA Knockout Championship and AJ Styles defending the TNA World Championship against Samoa Joe.
The first match of the night was Sheik Abdul Bashir against Hernandez. Bashir got on the microphone and shouted out lines of Arabic to get the crowd in a frenzy. The crowd seemed to be hot for this match as Hernandez came out a dominated with his power moves, which included his trademark standing vertical suplex that he held Bashir in for about 30 seconds. In the end, Hernandez won the match after hitting a shoulder block and picking up the pin fall.
Match two featured Homicide against Daniels. Homicide came out with a New York Yankees jacket on and spoke highly of the Bronx Bombers and ripped on the Minnesota Twins as they are currently in the middle of a best of five series in the ALDS with the Yankees up 2-0. Daniels came out and the two had a great match but Homicide won the match after using the ropes for leverage. Daniels tried to get Earl Hebner to restart the match but nothing ever came of it.
Eric Young took on Matt Morgan in the third match of the evening with Young playing the scared heel who wouldn’t step into the ring to get things going. Morgan finally got him into the ring and dominated for most of the match before putting EY away with a Carbon Footprint.
The final match before the intermission was a three way tag team elimination match between the Motorcity Machine Guns, the British Invasion and Beer Money. I’d have to say that this match was probably the best one of the night as all three teams worked well together and really got the crowd into it with fluid double team moves and fast action.
The Guns were the first to be eliminated from the match and Beer Money won the match after hitting the Last Call for the pin fall victory.
After a 15 minute intermission, the event resumed with a match for the TNA Knockout Championship that put ODB defending her title against Madison Rayne. ODB came out with a St. Cloud State hockey jersey on and stated that she played in this very arena with the women’s hockey team when she attended college here. As expected, ODB won the match, but Madison Rayne did look good in the ring.
After the match, a fan asked ODB to take a drink from her flask and she handed it to the fan and told him to keep it.
The main event of the evening was up next and it was AJ Styles putting his TNA World Championship on the line against Samoa Joe. I wish this match would have gone on longer than it did, but it was fun while it lasted. The two wrestled for about 10 minutes before they started hitting their patented moves with Styles winning after connecting with a Pele kick to retain the title.
After the match, fans could pay $20 to have their picture taken with AJ Styles and the TNA World Championship. A lot of the other wrestlers also headed to the ringside area to sign autographs for those who stood around the ringside barrier.
At the merchandise stand, they were selling the usual items including t-shirts, programs, and DVDs for reasonable prices. They were also selling TNA Grab Bags for $20 which I decided to get. I was surprised to see that it contained four DVDs and a t-shirt when I opened it up. All of it was probably old stock they were trying to get rid of, but it was worth the $20.
My bag contained a Scott Steiner Big Bad Booty Daddy t-shirt and DVDs of Destination X 2005, Lockdown 2006 and 2008, and Against All Odds 2006. The Destination X DVD featured Christopher Daniels on the cover and I was able to get it autographed by him when he came around the ringside area.
All in all it was a great show and I still recommend going to TNA’s house shows. My one gripe is that they move by pretty quick and only last two hours, but they are entertaining while it lasts. Getting to meet most of the talent afterwards, though, makes up for the length of the event.
As always, I brought my camera with and took about 300 photos of the event. Unfortunately, my seats were right across from some of the ring lights, so I had to contend with that all night long. I will post some of the better ones later on.
Quick Results
- Hernandez defeated Sheik Abdul Bashir by pin fall.
- Homicide defeated Daniels by pin fall.
- Matt Morgan defeated Eric Young by pin fall.
- Beer Money defeated the British Invasion and the Motorcity Machine Guns in a tag team elimination match.
- ODB defeated Madison Rayne by pin fall to retain the TNA Knockout Championship.
- AJ Styles defeated Samoa Joe by pin fall to retain the TNA World Championship.
Nice read