With TNA’s Victory Road event in the back-burner, we begin the road to Bound For Glory, which should be an interesting show if nothing else. All I know is that you better believe that I will be watching… though I respect that you don’t believe my genuine anticipation for an upcoming TNA PPV from 2024.
Anyway, on with the show.
The big takeaway from this show is that Joe Hendry, fresh off his win over Josh Alexander, wants a shot at the TNA title, but first, he’ll need to face off against Frankie Kazarian in a No. 1 Contendership match next week on Impact. Given the popularity of (not so) young Joseph and given that I’ve already glanced at SOME (but NOT ALL) of the taping spoilers… well, let’s not jump THAT far ahead, but I think anyone following this show for a while knows where things could potentially be going.
In other news, reigning KO tag-champs Spitfire retained their titles over another NXT team that I’m not familiar with, which is pretty much reaching the diminishing returns portion of this TNA/NXT relationship. Mike Santana beat the tar out of the former Dango (now called JDC… that’ll never get over) in a fun Texas Deathmatch match that was nowhere near as violent as whatever AEW was putting out, but still felt intense enough to be enjoyable. No needles were used here. Oh and the main event saw the Hardys win over the System, which puts them in position to challenge for the tag titles. Because that’s what the world is clamoring for is another Hardy TNA tag title win.
Oh yeah, next week (a.k.a. this Thursday) is going to be the TNA debut of Lei Ying Li – the former Xia Li of WWE fame. I’m not sure if this is a TNA thing or if this is her, but this name feels like some kind of sick joke designed to stumble anyone trying to say it five times fast. It’s the verbal equivalent of a Chinese Finger Trap, except there’s no easy solution to get out of it. Maybe I need to hear other people say it before I even attempt a butchering of said name… honestly, I don’t know why she didn’t go with Xia Zhao, which is almost her real name and sounds like a better wrestling name than the tongue twister that is Lei Ying Li. That’s the sort of name you’d expect from Asiansploitation flicks from the 70s or something. I don’t know… give it a chance and if it doesn’t work for me, brother… well, just go with the old gimmick name, I suppose.
Speaking of WWE stuff… um, yeah… no chance of seeing JBL in the Impact Zone anytime soon, huh? He’s popped up on a couple TNA+ events, but not so much the actual TV show. Actually, Layfield has been making a number of appearances in other places, including GCW and MLW. Who knows if TNA will elude to these outer excursions? In any event, seeing John Layfield in non-WWE events is not exactly something that keeps me up at night, but it is something different that I’m actually somewhat intrigued by. We’ll see if Impact touches on this more in the future or if it leads to anything more significant beyond a couple cameos here and there, but for the moment, this has been an interesting development if nothing else.
This wasn’t a great episode of Impact, but you are getting some build-up for Bound For Glory. So long as each episode does its part to build that show up and start booking some matches to look forward to, it doesn’t matter whether the episode is a blowaway or not. In isolation, it’s another story, but in context to a larger canvas, these so-so shows get a pass if they serve some purpose. And this show did that in setting up Hendry/Kaz for next week.
And also Xia Lee Ling Yei… see, I can’t even keep her name straight in writing! GODDAMIT WOO!
Okay, I’m done. Tomorrow we do BoD 2010.
Yes, I’m serious.
Later.
dtm666 