Another year, another Bound For Glory PPV event, another title shot for the ICON known as Sting. Is AJ Styles the one to break the curse? Tune in and find out (or not… I really don’t care.)
I will say this right off the bat… I kinda regret watching this show for reasons that I will get into at the end of the musings.
Amazing Red defeated Suicide (the masked dude from TNA’s one video game), Daniels (Christopher Daniels, who’s on a last name basis for some reason, Homicide, Chris Sabin, and Alex Shelley in an Ultimate X match. Your usual high spot matches of sorts.
Knockouts Tag Team champions Taylor Wilde/Sarita defeated the Beautiful People (Madison Rayne/Velvet Sky) in a really short match to retain the titles. Like, it went by so quickly that it felt like the makeout bit between the ref and that Lacey girl lasted longer than the actual match. Wow.
Eric Young defeated Legends Champion Kevin Nash and Hernandez in a triple threat match to win the title by way of throwing Hernandez towards Nash in a way that somehow caused ‘Dez to headbutt Nash’s balls. And even though Nash had the shoulder up, the ref counted to three anyway because we want this shit to be over and done. There were plenty of other times where I wish TNA showed this sort of initiative with their trainwreck matches, so I will take this as an absolute blessing. The fact that this was being fought over what was essentially a glorified vanity title that somehow became a real title baffles me… but then again, the WWF did the same with the Hardcore title back in the day, so I guess it checks out? Russo was still writing this show, wasn’t he? I’m pretty sure he was.
IWGP Tag-Team Champions The British Invasion (Rob Terry and BRUTUS MAGNUS a.k.a future TNA and NWA World’s Heavyweight champion and Smackdown General Manager Nick Aldis) defeated TNA Tag-Team Champions Scott Steiner/Booker T (Main Event Mafia members and former rivals over the WCW World Championship), Beer Money, and Team 3D in a ladder match to claim both tag titles. And I’m pretty sure that New Japan was thrilled that their tag titles were being held by someone named BRUTUS MAGNUS.
Knockouts champion ODB defeated Awesome Kong and Tara (a.k.a. Lisa Marie a.k.a. Victoria) to retain the title in what I would call a perfectly acceptable triple threat match. ODB was fine as the fighting champion, Awesome Kong almost always lived up to her name, and there are very few times where I’ve seen Victoria in a bad match. This is not one of those case. This was fine women’s wrestling for its day.
Bobby Lashley defeated Samoa Joe via submission when Lashley caught Joe in some sort of reverse choke thing that cause him to pass out and earn Lashley the win. I completely forgot about the weird face tattoo that Joe had on for a while, though I will say that he looked a bit leaner compared to the last time I saw Joe on a TNA PPV circa 2009, which I believe would have been (checks notes) Victory Road 2009… fuck my life.
Anyway, this was a submission match and they were trying for a moment pseudo-MMA shoot fight deal, but it doesn’t quite work. Far be it for me who has never been into MMA to critique a former MMA guy’s striking prowess, but Lashley throwing punches looked about as threatening as a baby hitting itself with a teddy bear’s paw. Almost like he’s overcompensating for not trying to hit Joe for real or something. Whatever they were trying for here… didn’t work for me, brother.
What’s that rumbling sound?
Probably nothing… let’s move on.
Abyss defeated Mick Foley in a hardcore match with Dr. Stevie Richards as the guest referee who eventually gets knocked out and we get the Over The Edge finish where, after giving Foley a chokeslam, he uses Stevie’s limp hand to count the pinfall in the same way Steve Austin did with Vince McMahon in his match against… Mick Foley. How about that? I did like that Stevie was supposed to be the crooked referee that wants to stack the deck against Abyss, but when he’s knocked out and Abyss is pinning Foley, they have another ref come out and count the pin… actually make the three count, but Foley kicks out at FOUR and the ref tries to pass it off as a two count… and this Irvine, California crowd rightfully gave this ref shit. And then Stevie came back and became a fucking professional. And then Daffney went through a bunch of tables and stuff. Hey, it’s crazy hardcore shit that’s fun to watch unfold if you’re into that sort of thing and I found myself fascinated by this whole deal, but I can also see someone watching this and going “That’s a bit much.” Different strokes and all that, I suppose.
Kurt Angle defeated Matt Morgan in a lousy finish of sorts, as Angle had hit Morgan with both an Angle Slam and a goshdarned FROG SPLASH that would make the late Eddie Guerrero blush… but instead of winning with those moves, Angle rolls up Morgan for the pin, thus proving that even in 2009, the roll-up remains the single most deadliest move in professional wrestling. It’s clear that they were trying to prop up Matt Morgan as the next big thing in TNA and Angle was doing all he could to give Morgan that shine… which I didn’t think he needed because I thought Morgan held his own just fine, even if the crowd really didn’t care for him, what with the occasional smatterings of “Morgan Sucks” chants. Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded TNA running with Morgan for a bit because I thought it deserved a fair shake… we’ll get back to that.
And in the main event, the Icon STING does NOT defeat TNA World Champion AJ Styles… but rather AJ retains his title. This was touted as Sting’s last hurrah, which… obviously didn’t happen, but the main event had no shenanigans. It was just two guys who respected each other fighting to see who was the better man. Simple, effective storytelling that goes a long way.
Bound For Glory 2009 was a significant improvement over the previous show and watching this show, it was the first time where I saw that TNA had the basic foundation for what could have been a solid direction moving forward. There were some stars in the making, there was .
Nine days later, Hulk Hogan would sign with TNA and brought Eric Bischoff along for the ride. By the time January rolled around, TNA had shifted their plans and let those guys run the ship. Now I’ve already given my fair share of TNA in 2010 both at the time and in the days since then, but at the time, I had barely watched TNA or at least had little exposure to the product. Those write-ups were from the perspective of someone who dove into TNA without the baggage of what came before and really didn’t care for the product that they were putting out.
And now, as I watch this Bound For Glory show and I’m watching all these matches take place, I’m sitting here thinking that TNA actually had something here. The show, as a whole, was pretty damned good. Well booked, fun show. Part of me is curious to see where things go from here because, like I said, everything in between 2007-2009 is a total blur. The last two BFGs left me with little desire to follow up on the show, but this one… I’m wanting to see how this plays out… only to realize that none of it is going to matter once whatever they had in mind for a direction is going to get jettisoned once the chimaera of Hogan and Bischoff arrive to ruin the whole damned thing.
And now I’m thankful that I didn’t watch TNA in 2009… because if I had… let’s just say that whatever visceral I had for the product in 2010 would have paled in comparison to what I was feeling after watching this show and knowing how things played out. I could watch the Impacts and PPVs that followed afterwards, but what would be the point? To see things play out in a way that… fuck.
This is why I regret watching BFG2009. Not because it’s a bad show or anything; it’s a great show. But it also brought my hopes up before reality set in and sent them crashing down again. And now I feel very upset.
Next week, it’s Bound For Glory 2010, which I’ve already covered… and I’ll be honest. Other than the opening blurb and some minor touch-ups, it’s pretty much a copy and paste of the older post.
Some might call it lazy.
I call it mercy.
Later.
