My Favourite Matches

Originally posted on my blog on April 9th 2010

I used screen capture for this post


You have all heard me saying for the last few months how unimpressed I am with the whole direction TNA Impact has gone. I keep complaining but no one is bothering to listen. Or are they? I read other fan sites and I know I am not the only one who feels this way. So, this will be a new column; don't worry, I'll still do the weekly review of the new Impact episodes every week; but this new column will be about matches from old episodes that I thought rocked. So let's kick 'er off shall we.

X-Division Match from Sept 14th 2006
Alex Shelley vs Chris Sabin

We start with an armbar on Sabin who countered with his roll through flip, reversing it on Shelley before taking him down to the mat. Shelley managed to kick off putting distance between them both. We move into a side headlock on Shelley, who broke the hold going back to working on Sabin's shoulder before sweeping out the legs from under Sabin. Shelley then had control of the match by standing on Sabin's wrist. Back to a standing position, and Sabin switches it putting another side headlock on Shelley. Sabin then off the ropes with a hard looking shoulder block sending Shelley down. Sabin then uses his cartwheel/armdrag tossing Shelley across the ring. Shelley then bounces off the ropes with his spinning underarm hook, following it with a knee to the stomach. He then put Sabin face first into the top turnbuckle before the counter of a headscissors sending Shelley outside of the ring. Suicide dive by Sabin knocks both men out for a moment. Back into the ring and Shelley delivers a hard forearm to the side of the skull of Sabin, rocking him. They back and forth with the forearms for another few moments. Shelley breaks the rhythm with a rake to the eyes, snapmare and a kick. It only gave him a two count. Shelley then went for a double leg takedown before landing one of his beautiful moonsaults, which missed. Sabin then is flipped over the top rope to land on his feet on the apron, giving Shelley a fist to the jaw before setting up his springboard dropkick. Shelley stumbled back into the corner and Sabin came charging at him with a straight kick to the side of the skull. Both men are tangled in the ropes. Sabin gets his wits about him and hangs Shelley in the tree of woe for his hesitation drop kick. Beauty. He got a two count but Shelley grabbed the bottom rope for the break. Nice. Shelley then comes back with his mule kick and a running drop kick. Lethal/Dutt/Devine case a small distraction letting Sabin use a rollup small package for the win.

What I liked about this match, it was no-nonsense. Even with the little distraction at the end it still focused on the men in the ring. This was at a point when Chris Sabin had held the X-Division belt only twice and Alex Shelley had been tagged up with Johnny Devine as the Paparazzi. I actually liked the paparazzi angle Shelley was doing at that time, it was different and somehow natural. It seemed to me though that they were just tossing him with anyone trying to create a tag team that never really gelled. (Nash, Devine, Aries) Sabin and Shelley as the MotorCityMachine Guns! Beauty. Like a gift from Dionysus. Shelley and Sabin against each other in a match, genius pure and simple.