Today im going to be looking at a fairly imfamous match. its Jeff Jarrett vs raven from TNA April,30, 2003. TNA was barely a year old. Raven joined the company in January after being released from WWE. In three months TNA had actually done a good job in generating interest in this match online. Something they had not managed to do before with their weekly shows. The show also made a profit, something else TNA had not been able to do with the weekly ppvs.
Raven vs. Jeff Jarrett NWA Title
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Later Jarrett hits Raven with the Stroke and Raven catches Jarrett with the DDT. Jarrett puts Raven thru a ringside table with an elbow off the second rope. We eventually have the big ref bump and the run ins start. We have S.E.X (Sports Entertainment eXtreme) run to ringside for some reason. Only to be attacked by the New Church. This leads to one of my favorite over kill run ins ever.
The ECW group (Saturn, Sandman, New Jack and Justin Credible) hit the ring and attack Jeff Jarrett. Sandman and Justin cane Jarrett. New Jack hits him with a trash can followed by Saturn hitting Jarrett with a Death Valley Driver. They then handcuff Jarrett and Saturn and Justin hit a superkick conchairto on him.. Now I think its safe to say an assualt like this would be enough to keep Hulk Hogan and Steve Austin in their primes down. But JARRETT GETS UP.
he lights go out and when they come on Sabu is not quite in the ring yet. Though to his credit he is more over than anybody else on that show. Does a good job cleaning house on the other ECW guys. For good measure he even takes out a fan.
With Sabu gone, Raven starts pummeling Jarrett and Jarrett to his credit is doing some great selling. They then do the old guy ducks the chair only for it to smack him in his face spot. Jarrett almost getting the pin gets a decent reaction. Nowc Bill Bearhens has come to the ring to unlock Jarrett's handcuffs. But he cant the key to work. After a minute Raven does it himself. Jarrett kicks out of the Raven Effect. Reverses the Raven Effect into the Stroke for the win. The fans start throwing garbage at Jeff Jarrett.
Im not sure what to sum this match up with. Its a very flawed match. The booking was ridiculous with Jarrett surviving that kind of onslaught. But at the same time it has its charm with some good stuff in it. As I said performence wise Jarrett looked great. Raven lookd pretty good. But it was overbooked and fate seemed against it, with various hings getting messed up. I could be mistaken but I belive this was the last time TNA made money doing the weekly pay per views.