2/113 TNA Live: Huntington, W. VA.: Hardy/Aries Steel Cage Main Event, Angle Wrestles Tag Match

http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/Arena_Reports_10/article_68697.shtml

TNA house show results
February 15, 2013
Huntington, W. Va.
Est. Attendance: 500
Report by Lou Pickney, PWTorch reader (LouPickney.com)

The show started right on time at 7:30 p.m. EST.

(1) Chavo Guerrero & Hernandez beat Matt Morgan & Joey Ryan in 11:00. The finish saw Hernandez throw Morgan out of the ring, where he appeared to injure his right knee. While I looked in that direction, Guerrero and Hernandez hit some sort of double-team move on Ryan, allowing Guerrero to get the pinfall.

(2) Knockouts champion Tara beat Velvet Sky in 10:00 to retain the Knockouts Title. Tara won with a roll-up after holding the ropes for leverage. After the match, Velvet beat her down and Tara clumsily stumbled around.

(3) Kurt Angle & Bully Ray beat TV champion Devon & Wes Brisco in 8:00. This was billed as Bully Ray vs. Devon in a singles match, but Kurt Angle came out to plug Change.org/wrestling to restore wrestling to the 2020 Olympics before being jumped by Brisco. Devon came out and they briefly put a double-team beat-down on Angle before Bully Ray ran out to make the save. Angle and Bully challenged Devon and Brisco to a tag match, which they accepted and that started right away. Angle wasn't in all that much and didn't take any bumps as far as I recall.

Next match was Bobby Roode vs. James Storm.

(4) TNA tag champion Bobby Roode beat James Storm in 8:00. Roode won via pinfall after interference from Austin Aries, who left Storm prone for Roode to jump on top for the three count. There was plenty of stalling before the match and Roode made Jeremy Borash say on the house mic that he was going to leave and never wrestle in Huntington again unless the fans showed him respect. Storm then jumped Roode and there was brawling. On the outside, Roode ridiculously took two tubs of popcorn fans and dumped them down Roode's tights before they made it into the ring to start the match.

[ INTERMISSION: Fans were encouraged to meet James Storm, Earl Hebner, and Brian Hebner by the gimmick table up front while the ring crew assembled a steel cage. It was a "tennis court fence" style cage, only with sharp looking blue posts. ]

(5) TNA World Hvt. champion Jeff Hardy beat TNA tag champion Austin Aries in a steel cage in 8:00 to retain the TNA World Title. It was a cage match and it took almost twice as long to assemble the cage during the intermission as it did for the match to unfold. The match could be won by pinfall, submission, or first to escape. After a ref bump, Roode ran into the cage, waylaid Hardy, and helped Aries to the floor. The ref stayed down, though. James Storm then ran out from the back, hit Roode, and threw Aries back through the open cage door. Roode and Storm brawled into a corner of the arena (blocked off to two-thirds capacity), which was distracting since they had a spotlight on them. Back in the cage, they went to the finish, with Hardy hitting Aries with the Twist of Fate and the now-awakened referee counting to three.

Overall, I had a fun time and definitely got my $15 worth of entertainment. It would have cost me more to buy my ticket ahead of time (when you add in Ticketmaster fees) than it did to buy my ticket at the arena box office. The only media promotion I saw/heard for the show was a 20-second reader I came across during WSAZ Sunrise on Friday morning. That doesn't mean it wasn't out there, but I never saw anything for the show and might have outright missed the show had a friend not mentioned last week that TNA was running a show here soon.

An additional report that may be better:

http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/Arena_Reports_10/article_68696.shtml

TNA house show results
February 15, 2013
Huntington, W. Va.
Report by Brandon Dingess, PWTorch reader

Pretty good attendance for tonight's show, more then the past few years. Tara was signing autographs at the merchandise table before the show started.

Jeremy Borash came out and introduced the first match of the show. Earl Hebner then came out and did his usual Bret Hart imitation to some heat.

(1) Chavo Guerrero & Hernandez beat Matt Morgan & Joey Ryan. Basic back and forth match; Chavo and Big Mex dominated early. Ryan and Morgan made a comeback, which didn't last long. Chavo and Hernandez then won with a frog splash. Nothing spectacular happened; basic tag match. (*)

Next was the Knockouts Title match.

(2) Knockouts champion Tara beat Velvet Sky by holding the ropes. Basic Knockouts match with some decent back and forth. There was a funny spot where Brian Hebner grabed hold of both girls's boobs, which Tara was outraged by, but Velvet let him get a handfull of hers. After the match, Velvet hit her finisher on Tara to please the crowd.

JB came out next and introduced Kurt Angle, who was not advertised until late this week. He came out to talk about how to fight the Olympics getting rid of wrestling. He was jumped by Devon and Wes Brisco, which brought out Bully Ray to even the odds and it turn things into a tag match.

(3) Kurt Angle & Bully Ray beat TV champion Devon & Wes Brisco when Angle hit the Angle Slam on Wes for the 1, 2, 3. (**)

Next match was Bobby Roode vs. James Storm.

(4) TNA tag champion Bobby Roode beat James Storm. Bobby stalled a lot to start, only for James to chase after him and bring him back in. Very funny spot where Storm dumped a whole thing of popcorn down the back of Bobby's trunks; he had popcorn coming out of his trunks all match. Bobby won with a low-blow after Austin Aries came down to distract the ref. (**)

Intermission started with James Storm signing autographs and the Hebners at the merchandise table.

After intermission, the main event started with Jeff Hardy defending his TNA Heavyweight Championship against Austin Aries in a steel cage match.

(5) TNA World Hvt. champion Jeff Hardy beat TNA tag champion Austin Aries in a steel cage match to retain the TNA World Title. Nothing spectacular, actually pretty disappointing for the talent that both have. The ending was pretty lame. Brian Hebner got bumped, which led to Bobby Roode coming out and pulling Aries out of the cage, which led to James Storm to come out and put Aries back in and get revenge on Roode for earlier in the night. Hardy won with the Twist of Fate. (*1/2)

Hardy stayed after the show to take pictures for $20 bucks.

Not the best show I've been to, and I've been to every show that's come to Huntington.

Best Match: James Storm vs. Bobby Roode

Worst Match: Morgan & Joey Ryan vs. Chavo & Hernandez

Biggest Pops:
(1) Jeff Hardy
(2) Kurt Angle
(3) James Storm, Velvet Sky

Biggest Heat:
(1) Bobby Roode
(2) Austin Aries
(3) Devon

» 1/23/13 TNA Live In Glasgow, Scotland: Aries/Storm/Roode, Blossoms v Tara/Gail, Cage Main Event
» 8/2/13 TNA Live: Tyler, TX.: Angle Pulled From Show Post-DWI; Sabin/Roode Main Event, Etc
» 9/2 TNA results Burton, Ohio: Angle vs. Styles main event, #1 contender match, Knockouts MOTN
» TNA Live Results: Dublin (1/21/13) -Sting Teams With Angle In Cage Match, Bully Ray In Action, Etc
» 7/28 WWE House Show Results Lexington KY: 4 Title Matches + Cage Match Main Event