So we’re going to spend the rest of the year (pretty much) going through all xx Bound For Glory events, from the very first event in 2005 to (possibly) this year’s event. There’s a couple that we’ll probably skip since I’ve already done those and I think those musings hold up… but that leaves us with a bunch more to look at.
And who knows? Maybe I’ll give you all a break and give you something else to watch.
Hey, it’s the Impact Zone from Orlando, Florida.
Samoa Joe defeated Jushin Thunder Liger via submission in a relatively short match. This was where TNA was building Joe up to be this undefeated monster heel that would eventually get his comeuppance when the time came (a year later) and while I wouldn’t call this a great match, it did serve its purpose in building Joe up. That’s all you need out of a match; it doesn’t have to be a nine-hour ten-star classic with a billion moves at the Tokyo Dome. It can be nice, short, and build hype towards a potential event.
Elix Skipper and David Young – the so-called Diamonds In The Rough – defeated the three-man tandem of Apolo, Sonny Siaki, and Shark Boy… and of those five, I recognize Skipper from his WCW days, Sonny from the early TNA days when they were trying to make him another Rocky Maivia, and Shark Boy from his… dude, you ALWAYS remember fucking Shark Boy and I will forever be torn that we never got that Steve Austin vs. Shark Boy in a Gimmick Infringement On A Pole match. Anyway, this was a thing that happened. A rare win for the Diamonds, who were known for losing all the time… how bad do you have to be when the jobber team doesn’t even job?
Monty Brown defeated young Lance Hoyt in a fine little hoss fight. Monty would eventually move on to WWECW for a short run before falling off the face of the Earth, which is a shame because TNA had something with this guy that could have been one of the big marquee stars, but instead they did nothing, Monty went on to be Marcus Cor Von or whatever his WWECW gimmick name was. As for this Lance Hoyt character… he’s still around in some form or fashion. Murdering Hawks or something to that extent.
Bobby Roode, Eric Young, and some guy called A-1 (part of the Scott Demore-led Team Canada stable) defeated the 3 Live Cru (comprising BG
“Road Dogg” James, Konnan, and Ron “R-Truth” Killings) in a really short match that saw the two sides brawling for a bit until Billy Gu… er, I mean, KIP JAMES, appeared and teased turning against D-O-Double-G before hitting the mean Canadians. This Team Canada was around for how long exactly? Seems like they were around since the dawn of time… or was it after Vince Russo fucked off from TNA the first time? I don’t recall. I also don’t care. Moving on.
Petey Williams defeated Chris Sabin and someone named Matt Bentley in what I believe is one of the first Ultimate X matches that TNA ever held… for those who don’t know, Ultimate X is where you have an X dangling above the ring and you have to climb jungle ropes to grab it for the win. The finish is kinda funny in the sense that Sabin and Bentley were fighting over the X, it fell down, and Petey sort of caught it, at which point the ref decided “fuck it” and gave Petey the win. I’m supposed to hate the finish, but I can’t help but laugh because you have to wonder what would happen if you had a ladder match, you had two wrestlers fighting over the belt or whatever it hanging up in the ring, and when they unhook it, it just falls to the ground and then what? This sort of answered that scenario for me and that gave me a weird happy feeling. Up until then, however, it was a perfectly fine X-Division match. Moves, high spots, and stuff. No clue what became of this Bentley fellow, but he seemed okay in places.
NWA Tag Champions AMW (James Storm and Chris Harris) defeated the Naturals (Chase Stevens and Andy Douglas) to retain the titles. I did like the story of how the Naturals were the one team that AMW couldn’t quite figure out and this was sort of the resolution to that deal. All in all, tremendous hard-hitting tag match. The Naturals are a team that largely escaped my radar and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them once or twice before in these PPV rewatches, but this was the first time that I saw them as being solid brawlers. AMW is always great whenever I pop them on TV.
Rhino defeated Jeff Hardy, Abyss, and SABU in a Monster’s Ball match that was notable for Jeff Hardy jumping off a stage and putting Abyss through a bunch of tables, only to eat a middle-rope piledriver from Rhino to give the Man Beast the duke. Monster’s Ball is just four guys beating the shit out of each other, sometimes doing crazy shit, and if that’s all you’re looking for, that’s all you’re getting. For the 12+ minutes this was going on, I was thoroughly entertained by the chaos.
X-Division Champion AJ Styles defeated Christopher Daniels in an awesome match that I somehow didn’t realized was booked as a 30-minute IRON MAN match to retain the title. There was only one fall and it happened towards the end of the 30 minute period, which begs the question as to why you needed the Iron Man stipulation if you were going to do nothing with it. I suppose I should be thankful that they didn’t stretch this out to an hour or have a billion falls beforehand, but sometimes, you just need to tell these guy to go 30 and put on a good show… and they did do that.
Right, so at some point, Jeff Jarrett’s originally scheduled challenger for his NWA World title, Kevin Nash, was announced as not cleared to wrestle due to a recent hospitalization. Don’t recall if this was a genuine thing or just something that they changed because god forbid we have our first PPV that we’re trying to push as our version of Wrestlemania be headlined by the same guys who headlined WCW’s second to last PPV event before its eventual demise. That’s be like Vince going “Hulk, we’ve got a new extravaganza coming up called Summerslam and I think you ought to defend the WWF Championship against Greg Gagne.” That is a DEFINITE “doesn’t work for me, brother” if there ever was one.
So they booked a ten-man Gauntlet for the Gold that’s more like a traditional mini-Royal Rumble where the last man standing after everyone else is tossed challenges Jarrett for the title right then and there. The match is eventually won by Rhino, who looks to have hurt his leg or something, and we immediately go into the World title match with Jarrett coming hard on Rhino. You have run ins from Gail Kim and AMW that are countered by Tito Ortiz – yes, that MMA guy Tito Ortiz – who is the special ref for this match for some reason. Anyway, this was Rhino taking a beating for a bit before hitting the Gore on Jarrett and getting the win to earn him his first NWA World title… that he would drop back to Jarrett a couple weeks later on Impact… way to undo your big happy moment there, TNA.
AMW would beat on Rhino for a bit before tossing him in a casket… which brings out the 3 Live Crew… which brings out Team Canada… and then Team 3D/Dudley Boyz show up and Rhino burst out a casket to kill Eric Young or someone before the show ends… which would be a fine ending save for the fact that Rhino would drop the belt back to Jarrett a couple weeks later… and by a couple weeks later, I mean a couple days later when they were doing the TNA tapings. Again, way to undo your big happy moment there, TNA.
Bound For Glory 2005 kicked the franchise off to a good start, I feel. You had some good to great matches, some generally entertaining stuff, and there was even the happy ending that I wish I had witnessed in the moment rather than two decades later when I know the results of the shows that came afterwards to ruin the moment. Would I call this a Wrestlemania-caliber show? Not really, although part of that has to do with holding the show in the Impact Zone, which makes all their shows look the same and thus you lack the specialness brought about by these special events. At some point, you need to make these shows feel special and I don’t think BFG 2005 succeeded on that count… but on the other hand, this was a fine effort on TNA’s part and I largely enjoyed the show, so you know what? This gets a thumbs up from me. Good stuff.
