Impact Wrestling Base Brawl In Marion IL - June 10, 2011

Last night was the first Base Brawl event from TNA Impact Wrestling. It was held in Marion, IL at Rent One Park which is the home field of the Southern Illinois Miners.

First, here are the results of the event. The show opened with Jeremy Borash in the ring hyping up the crowd. He would be in the ring in between matches all night. He does a great job and backstage passes were given away. Some kids got some backstage passes and the look on their faces were great. They were so excited. First match was Robbie E with Cookie taking on Eric Young. Lots of comedy in this match. Robbie and Cookie started dancing to the music. Then, the ref started dancing with Cookie. Not long after that, the Miners mascot got in the ring and started dancing with Robbie but Robbie didn't know it was the mascot. Cookie was in the corner looking horrified telling him to turn around. Eric then rolled up Robbie for the win. Borash introduced Earl Hebner who ended doing the whole Hitman gimmick pose in the ring including wearing the Hebner t-shirt that is being sold. Next match was Velvet Sky taking on Angelina Love. WSIL's Kevin Hunsperger accompanied Velvet while Winter accompanied Angelina. The finish had Winter trying to interfere but it backfiring on Angelina leading to a rollup pin for Velvet for the win. Matt Morgan and Scott Steiner was next. Steiner was a heat magnet with the crowd. Thought he went over the line with getting heat but that is just me. Morgan gets the win. Next was my favorite match on the show. AJ Styles and Devon taking on Bully Ray and Tommy Dreamer. Interesting that Dreamer got to come out to the regular version of Man In The Box. Old school ECW feel to that entrance. I wasn't crazy about Bully Ray's heat tactics either but being an ECW fan, it was pretty tame from back then. LOL. I really enjoyed just listening to the interaction in the ring including the taunting back and forth between Bully Ray and Devon. Trash talking while hitting and reversing moves. It was fun. AJ is just incredible with his high flying stuff. AJ and Devon did the classic wassup to Bully Ray. AJ dove over the ropes on to Bully Ray. Devon pinned Dreamer with a spinebuster. Afterwards, Devon taunted Bully Ray to get back in the ring. Bully Ray teased that he was going to and then bailed out. Dreamer gave a wave as he headed to the locker room. I should point out that there was a ECW chant at the beginning of the match. Devon was all pumped for it. I looked at Dreamer who just had this look on his face of not being able to hold back a grin for the chant despite trying to stay heel. Just loved seeing that. After the intermission, Matt Hardy took on Kazarian. Kazarian hit a move that I had not seen before as I am not a frequent watcher of the show. It was like a backwards piledriver that looked awesome. Kazarian wins the match. Main event time with Kurt Angle taking on Jeff Jarrett. Not as long as I expected it to be. Toward the beginning of the match, Jarrett kept jawing with Hebner. Hebner finally shoved him and said do you want to go. They tied up and Jarrett was sent to the ropes. Hebner nailed a hip toss on to Jarrett who looked completely stunned. The finish had Angle hooking on the anklelock and getting the submission win. The show ended with the fireworks show.

It was extremely hot at the event. It was outdoors of course but it was just even hotter than normal making it very uncomfortable at times. The $50 ticket got you into the meet and greet before the event with many wrestlers making their way down the line on the field to sign autographs and take pictures including Tommy Dreamer, Devon, Kazarian, Robbie E, Cookie, and more. It was fun to just sit back and have the wrestlers come to you. Usually it is the other way around. Everyone was in a good mood and happy to sign and take pictures. AJ Styles signed in the dugout for his action figures. If you bought the action figure, you were able to go get in line and get it signed by AJ but that was the rule on that. A photo opportunity up on the main level of the park where you could have your picture taken with Velvet Sky for $10. I felt bad for Velvet a lot of times cause she looked like the heat was too much and it was really hot up in that area. Just no breeze at all. Matt Morgan signed over at the merchandise table. At intermission, Angelina Love and Winter signed at the merchandise table. Angelina was in full zombie type gimmick. After the show, Jeff Jarrett signed and took pictures at the merchandise table. While that was going on, Kurt Angle was taking pictures in the ring. You could pay $20 and get your picture taken with Kurt and it didn't matter how many people that you had in your group. $20 paid it. It was fun to do the meet and greet stuff. Not really that crazy about how certain people would sign for free and these others wouldn't but that was the company call and their way of making money. I thought the $50 meet and greet pass should get autographs from whoever you want that is available but that is just me. I absolutely had to pay the money to get the picture with Kurt and he was extremely nice to everyone. Fun deal there and I think that is a great money maker for the company to do. Getting to meet Dreamer was very cool especially with this being his last weekend in working with the company. I told him that I was a long time ECW fan and he said "me too". Cracked me up. Don West was in full selling mode at the show. He works hard for sure and was all over the place with the microphone announcing signings and all.

So, there you have it. The happenings of the first Basebrawl event. Memphis gets the second one tonight. Hoping that you all get cooler weather! Wow.