Okay, this whole thing is taking longer than I thought to get through…but we will. I’m just getting warmed up for the really good stuff, too.
The second women’s match of the night featured one ex-WWE diva (fittingly, the one who doesn’t have a generic look and therefore was seemingly losing Vince’s interest, plus she’s not 20 years old any more) and two women that there’s no way in hell would ever be pushed “up north.” The ex-diva, formerly known as Victoria, is now Tara, and maintains her spider fixation…now amped up with the addition of a pet tarantula in a glass case (echoes of Goldust bringing a pet rat when he was known as “Black Reign”…what is it with TNA and verminous sidekicks?).
The other ladies include the earlier mentioned Awesome Kong…younger fans may not know that Awesome Kong used to be the name of a masked male wrestler who was fat and hairy, but just like WCW repurposed the name “Gorgeous George” for Randy Savage’s girlfriend, Awesome Kong is now making the name better known than ever. It’s hard to define exactly what her gimmick is aside from being huge and fierce – she has the name of a gorilla, braided hair, and a Roman gladiator outfit. Also a female manager named Raisha Saeed, whose role is of a Muslim woman in full Hijab. That’s quite the confusing multicultural combo, not unlike, say, Taco Bell’s “Mexican Pizza.”
The third woman in the match, ODB, is a character I can totally get behind: her gimmick is that she’s an awesome drunk slut who likes to flash panties and rub her own boobs. They never ever ever say it out loud on TV, but her initials stand for One Dirty Bitch. And she’s big and curvy, but in the right proportions. Chugging liquor from a flask is part of her prematch ritual, which rocks.
The tough part about matches involving Kong is that she’s so much bigger than most other female wrestlers that it’s hard to believe anyone is a challenge to her. This is akin to the problem with someone like the Great Khali, except because WWE writers are insane and have lousy senses of humor, they always end up having him lose to Hornswoggle the midget leprechaun. TNA have Kong pose a legit challenge, and in this match, have maybe found the only two worthy opponents – ODB is big enough, and Tara is legit tough enough. So the match was pretty well-fought. At one point Tara got in a fight with someone in the crowd, and it was hard to tell if this was real or a plant, especially since security took out the interloper on the aisle right beside me, and she looked athletic, not like a typical fan. Later I found out online that this was Kim Couture, wife of UFC star Randy Couture, who’s been having an Internet war of words with Tara. Not part of the script, though maybe they should make it so. Except that would encourage legitimately crazy bitches to attack the stars.
Anyway, the match ends after Raisha Saeed, not previously at ringside, comes running to the ring, and keeps trying to give Kong a chair, which Kong does not want. Is she turning good? Sales of her T-shirts doing well amongst fans who finally have a star they can relate to? Kong ends up the victim of the chair, as ODB does a facebuster right as Raisha slides the chair in again, where it falls perfectly into place for Kong’s head to hit it. Good work on that choreography. ODB wins, and it looks like Kong will turn on the evil Muslim, which is naturally a recipe for fan cheers. Cultural stereotypes still play well in the ring.
Big, bald, black giant Bobby Lashley took on the totally non-ripped but frightening Samoa Joe in a submission match, 
designed to capitalize on Lashley’s actual side career in MMA, and Joe’s gimmick as an MMA-type wrestler. Joe now wears face paint that looks like a tribal tattoo…this may be a dig at the fact that WWE’s “Umaga” character was supposedly intended for him originally. Lashley, pushed to the moon as a super-good-guy by WWE back in the day, is not well-liked by “smart” fans, i.e. fans who aren’t young kids and cheer for who they want to cheer for. But nobody seems to have told Lashley this – he posed for the crowd like a good guy, and performed like one. There wasn’t really a video explaining this fight, so I don’t know for sure who was meant to be good or evil in this contest, but the fans kept chanting “Lashley sucks!” Joe totally dominated the match, only to have Lashley pull out a triangle choke at the last minute and win. He posed like a hero, but nobody cared. After he left, (and I think once the cameras were off the ring), Joe got back in and received a loud ovation. Since Lashley signed a deal that allows him to do MMA as well, I suspect part of it is that TNA not make him look too weak to have street cred for the octagon. But that’s just a guess.
And then…There Will Be Blood. Which, as a fan, I like to see if it’s appropriate. And when the match in question is called “Monster’s Ball,” and features Abyss, a crazy half-masked mofo who actually has scars across his own tattoos, it is appropriate.
Abyss’ opponent for the night is veteran Mick Foley, which is something of a dream match since Abyss basically started out as a rip-off of Foley’s original “Mankind” persona: a basement-dwelling loon in a medieval restraint mask. Like Foley, Abyss’ character has evolved somewhat, and now he wears flannel and speaks coherently. Foley was long ago supposed to have retired from hardcore matches, but like his idol Terry Funk, seems unable to stay away.
What makes the match a Monster’s Ball, it seems, is that the fight can go anywhere and involve any thing, provided that whatever “thing” is taken up is wrapped in barbed wire. Stevie Richards, now known as “Dr. Stevie,” is the special guest referee.
The video highlights make it look like Foley treated Abyss as a protégée and then turned on him. Make no mistake, Foley has been a great bad guy in the past, but nearly always as a result of playing a butt-kissing sell-out who turns his back on the 
violence the fans love him for. In a hardcore weapons match, you want the fans to root against him? Ain’t gonna – and didn’t – happen. Not that they booed Abyss, because they like him too, but the “Foley!” chants were the loudest, again reiterating my point from previous installments that “legends” are nigh-impossible to turn heel.
Abyss has jets of blue flame as part of his entrance. Creepy.
Foley began the match by teasing a big fall – climbing the pylons at the side of the entrance stage. But then Abyss followed him up there, and got kicked down, taking the obligatory big bump into some tables below. It wasn’t clear at that point if the match would be ending early to set up some even bigger, grosser thing in the future.
But then as Foley goes to the ring to celebrate, Abyss crashes up through the ring ramp. Cool, I’ve never seen that before. 
The fight continues. Abyss sets up a barbed wire board balanced between the ring and the audience barrier. Any knowledgeable fan at this point will guess that whatever the ending of the match is will involve this bit of foreshadowing. Hardcore matches are often like movie scripts in this regard, all about the planting and payoff.
Abyss is bleeding a lot by the end. Foley less so. Foley is still doing the silly sock-puppet bit. I’ve never been a big fan of the idea that a sweaty sock stuck in an opponent’s mouth is a lethal weapon. Even the notion of a “mandible claw” was a stretch to begin with, as a victim can surely just bite down hard. Happily, Abyss dodges the mighty sock. Then there are shenanigans as Dr. Stevie turns out to be totally on Mick’s side, and will not count pinfalls for Abyss. Abyss takes him out, so another ref comes down. Right as the other ref is about to score the win, Stevie wakes up and kicks ref #2’s ass.
Then Daffney the Evil Goth Chick comes running down to ringside. I didn’t even know she was with TNA, but that’s what happens when you don’t have cable. I do kinda wish that the video package had indicated Daffney and Stevie’s role in this whole story, but honestly, it wasn’t too hard to follow the plot in medias res, as it were.
Anyway, it turns out that the bit of foreshadowing at the beginning of the match was for Daffney, who took the fall straight through it. Abyss knocks out Stevie and Foley, then slaps Stevie’s hand to the mat three times for the most unofficial official three-count I’ve ever seen.
Knowing it would take a while to clean up the mess, I went for my second beer, then damn near spilled it on the way back when Matt Morgan came out to a sudden, loud BANG. Not expecting that kind of volume.
Morgan’s match with Kurt Angle was a good match, but after so many gimmick matches, it almost felt like a letdown. Kurt’s new unshaven look seems really odd to me, since his whole persona is based around the fact that he’s a perfectionist, but maybe he’s trying to be gangsta…his new t-shirt has a picture of a rose on it and calls him the Godfather. Which is fine except for the fact that wrestling fans have long been taught to associate the word “Godfather” with a pimp who says “It’s time once again for everybody to come aboard the HO TRAIN!” I hear the guy who played that role, Charles Wright, now owns a strip club in Vegas or something.
Anyway, Angle does his still-impressive bit where he pretends to be hurt, waits for his opponent to climb to the top rope, then gets up, runs up the turnbuckle and belly-suplexes the guy. He won, but the way he shook Matt Morgan’s hand afterwards was clearly supposed to make it look like a win-win situation.
Up until this point, I would say that BFG was MUCH better than WWE Summerslam, which I was also at live. But what came next would have put anything over the top.
All that was left now was the main event. Except I was not going to get to watch it in the way I had anticipated. A colleague of Marcs came to our seats and beckoned us to follow him. We did, as he went down to the floor.
I passed by Jeff Katz, whose American Originals company has a business deal with TNA. He beckoned me over, but I had to follow Marc or lose him, so I figured I’d have to catch Jeff later. And as Marc walked quickly, I followed him behind a big black curtain, and…
Holy shit I am backstage. The PPV feed is playing on a big-screen TV, as just about every talent in the TNA locker room are circled around it in chairs, watching. I am standing directly behind Bobby freakin’ Lashley to see Sting versus AJ Styles on a backstage monitor. Rhino is watching the most intently, almost like he plans to “gore” the TV if it talks smack to him.
Daffney is being taken out on a stretcher. Looks like she really got hurt going through the barbed wire.
Biggest surprise is that Mick Foley is taller than I thought. Dude is taller than me by a few inches.
Overheard, not sure of the speaker: “Whatever happened to Van Hammer?”
“He’s in rehab again.”
“That guy was cool.”
Marc introduces me to Christopher Daniels, who seems like a smart dude. Most wrestlers I’ve met in my life totally seem like friendly jocks, but there are some, like Chris Jericho, who always seem to be thinking, and Daniels came across like that. Later I read that he suffered a separated shoulder during the Ultimate X match, but I would never have known he was even in pain just by talking to him.
Given the circumstances, keeping both eyes on the match at hand was not the easiest thing to do, and I was surprised that AJ Styles beat Sting cleanly and pretty suddenly, it seemed to me. As Sting starts to talk on the mic, I am ushered into another room, where the post-show press conference is set to be.
This room appears to be the land of leftovers from old shows – not TNA shows, but any and all. Lots of stuff covered up, and a giant cyborg head on the wall above the area where TNA have put the podium and backdrop to make things look official. Marc offers to let me talk to any of the talent one on one, but having not brought my recorder I tell him not to worry about them; I will just listen and take fast notes as they address the Internet fans.
The format of this press conference is that a handful of the stars are here, and they take questions from one guy, who also reads one or two from the Internet. Most of the questions are “kayfabe,” i.e. they don’t break character or storyline. Eric Young, who will be up first, is openly discussing the extent to which he should be answering in character or not; D-Lo Brown, now a road agent for the company, looks to be giving him some advice on that. Ultimately he comes off as the most similar to his TV persona.
He’s asked about a cut on his head received during the match. “We didn’t plan for it but I pulled through and it’s not that big of a deal.” Says the biggest deal was winning, and it was all thanks to “mental capacity – it’s one of my #1 strengths and I exposed him [Hernandez] tonight.” Says he wants to challenge AJ Styles for the world title at next year’s Bound For Glory. How long does he think he’ll hold the title? “I don’t like to put a timeline on it, but forever sound good to me.”
He’s then asked what wrestler from any timeline he would go against if he could. Behind the camera, D-Lo raises his hand and points excitedly to himself. Alas for D-Lo, Young names Ric Flair instead.
Up next is Matt Morgan, who is barely audible, so soft-spoken that this can’t possibly be totally in-character or he’d yell more. He calls Kurt Angle “the ultimate chess master” and said he has “a thousand and ten percent respect for Kurt.” (He’s an athlete, not a mathlete.) Says that Kurt whispered in his ear that this is the furthest he [Kurt] has been taken in any match. Could be true, could be story, I suppose.
Morgan says it was “shocking” to have Kurt raise his hand afterward, but the match was close: “My shoulder went up at three and one hundredth of a second.” Is finally asked if he, as a seven-footer who is in good shape and can actually move around the ring, represents a change for how the business sees big men. He says he hopes he’ll force future giants to raise their standard.
And now it’s time for Christopher Daniels, who is also soft-spoken. He also seems to be being himself rather than a character. How does he feel? “A little beaten up, sore.” How was the match? “A blur, watching the mat come at me at 90 miles per hour.”
At this point Sting walks right in front of me and grabs a bottle of water. It’s a bit surreal.
Asked if Ultimate X is an instant respect-builder, Daniels says, “It’s not really wrestling; the object of the match has so little to do with wrestling, but rather what you are willing to put on the line…if there’s any question about how far Daniels is willing to go, I hope they’re answered.”
Next door, there’s loud clanging as something is being dismantled. It’s distracting. Someone goes next door to try to stop it.
Daniels is done now anyway. AJ Styles’ turn. He’s hard to hear also, as ambient noise is getting louder. “I won the match, but I wish he could have still won, if that makes sense.” How do you feel? “Beat up.”
Now it sounds like there’s a fight next door. Again someone goes back to try and keep things down.
“I wasn’t surprised by Sting. Sting’s an icon – you know what you’re getting into.”
“Sting and I are more than just friends, we’re believers.”
He’s asked about his new powder blue/pink/white tights. “It’s not because I think I look beautiful in pink.” It turns out it’s for breast cancer awareness. “I got an aunt who died.”
What would he say to Sting, if he could? (Clearly a “kayfabe” question since, well, Sting is standing right next to me, and could certainly be spoken to directly.) “Thank you, thank you for your friendship, you’re an awesome mentor, thank you for being patient with me, thank you for all those quiet moments where it was just you and me sharing the Gospel.”
Wow, AJ is gosh-darn clean cut for a wrestling good-guy. This is the sort of stuff fans nowadays often boo…but he is such a daredevil in the ring that they dig him despite the clean image. He seems totally sincere too, unlike a certain other person in another company whose name I shall not mention.
Next, and last, is Sting, or as everyone has specifically called him tonight, The Icon Sting. And in case you’re confused, yes he is middle-aged, but no, he is not an English pop star. Steve Borden, not Gordon Sumner.
One of the signs in the crowd earlier: “Goodbye Sting. Hello Realtor Steve.”
Sting has donned a clean T-shirt, but still has the remnants of his facepaint on.
Sting is asked to compare AJ to Ric Flair. Lot of Flair mentions tonight; could this be a tease that they’re trying to make a deal with the “retired” but apparently financially strapped legend? I have no idea, but it’s odd to officially mention someone who isn’t part of the company like that. [UPDATE: this all may have been a classic bit of misdirection, since it now appears that a deal with HULK HOGAN was being worked out the whole time. Which is not to say Flair couldn’t follow.]
Sting responds, regarding AJ: “He cannot be compared to anyone. AJ is probably the innovator of innovators. His creativity is endless.”
Sting is more audible than most of the previous talkers; he enunciates. Hard to say if he’s “in character” since the character and the real man have merged over time (though thankfully he doesn’t evangelize on TV).
Where does this match rank, career-wise? “It’s too early to tell, but right here at the getgo, I can tell you it’s gonna be top 3”
What if he retires, and goes out having lost this big match? Says he was determined that “win or lose, it wasn’t gonna define me, it wasn’t gonna define my career.”
Can he sum up his time in TNA? “I have tried on 3 or 4 occasions now to stop – I feel like Pacino from SCARFACE, every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.” (actually, I believe that was GODFATHER 3, but Sting is nonetheless probably better at film criticism than I’d be at wrestling, so let’s move on)
“I don’t even wanna talk about a rematch with AJ right now. Not right now.”
He says he used to ask Ric Flair why he kept wrestling when he had nothing left to prove, but now he understands the desire to stick around. “The crowd in California, they make me wanna stay, that’s for sure.”
Does he have anything left to prove? “No. I don’t”
(Again with the Flair name-drop? Hmmm.)
Is this your last match?
“I just don’t know right now.”
(when wrestlers say that, it usually ends up meaning “no.”)
Here endeth the press conference, and here beginneth our search anew for Daniels, who was with Marc’s daughter (nothing untoward, just hanging out somewhere we didn’t know). The problem was that even though we were kinda VIPs, we had no passes of any kind, and as soon as we checked out by the loading dock, security wouldn’t let us back in the building.
I had Wayne’s World 2 flashbacks. “My [daughter]’s in there!” “A lot of people’s [daughters] are in there.” That wasn’t what was said, but I reckon the security guy was thinking it.
We finally found Chris, and I asked him to apologize to Katz for me for missing him. On the way out, I went into the men’s room and referee Earl Hebner was washing his hands.
Walking to the car, some guy saw my T-shirt, and recognizing it as the one worn by many crew, yelled out, “How can I work for TNA?”
“I have no idea!” I said.
But I would suggest maybe moving to Florida for starters.
[All photos are courtesy of and copyright TNA Wrestling, used with permission. Click on images for a larger version]
