Honestly flabbergasted…
Rob Van Dam defeated X-Division Champion Zema Ion to win the title in a fun and exciting opening contest that shows RVD in his element.
Samoa Joe defeated future NWA World’s Heavyweight Champion and Smackdown General Manager BRUTUS MAGNUS in what I would charitably call a perfectly acceptable wrestling match to retain the Championship Belt of 1,004 Names that TNA, at this show, called the Television Championship. Well, the important thing is that Magnus got a bit of a rub and would eventually get better to become the National Treasure he’d eventually be… and hopefully a decent payday. That’d be nice, too.
So here’s the deal… at BFG2011, Booby Roode challenged Kurt Angle for the TNA title and lost. Then on Impact, James Storm beat Angle for the belt in 90 seconds. And then on the next set of Impact tapings, Roode turned heel and beat Storm for the title, which kicked off the blood feud between the former Beer Money members. This culminated in a cage match for the title at Lockdown, in James Storm’s hometown, which would have you assume this would be the perfect place to blow off the feud by having Storm beat his former partner for the title and send the crowd home happy… except that didn’t happen and Roode retained.
For the record, I have seen that show. I did a musings on the show years ago that never saw the light of day until recently. Probably because I didn’t want to post musings on a TNA show from 2012 whose horrible booking of their world title picture at the time reminded me of the horrible booking of WWE’s entire creative output in 2018. However, it’s up now if you want to check it out here.
And so here we are; a year later, both guys are still feuding and we’re going to (supposedly) blow this off in a street fight… and we’ve got a special ref in the form of some MMA guy that I’ve only heard of once or twice before completely forgetting about. Had this been for the World title and in the main event, this would’ve been a nice full circle moment of sorts. But instead, it’s in the middle of the card while the WWE seniors tour hog all the main event spots. So you’ll have to forgive me if I come into this match a bit miffed.
And yeah, look. James Storm got the win in this one and for what it’s worth, it was a great brawl between two big hosses. But it’s a hollow win following a crushing defeat months earlier over higher stakes. This win means nothing. It ends the feud (maybe? I don’t know; I’m not checking ahead because I might be more upset), but not on some high note or anything. Eh, whatever. Next.
Joey Ryan defeated Al Snow with an assist from Matt Morgan… right, so Joey Ryan was a fellow who was known for a spot where people would grab onto his junk and he’d “suplex” them through sheer will of force or something; a spot that has either entertained or enraged people over the years… and then he got hit with allegations that pretty much ruined his wrestling career. And while Ryan has yet to reach his most “infamous” part of his career by this point… yeah, I don’t know. All I will say is that the match was a thing that happened and move on.
Chavo Guerrero/Hernandez defeated Tag Team Champions Bad Influence (Christopher Daniels and Kazarian) and AJ Styles/Kurt Angle to win the titles… I want to say that it’s 2012 and Chavo Guerrero is winning championships… but I’m writing in 2026 after 60+ year old Sting retired as a tag team champion, so what do I know? Anyway, the match was fun stuff with a bit of a surprise finish in seeing Chavo get the pin and the titles. Not something I was expecting, but hey, something different, I guess and then everyone else can focus on Claire Lynch or something… oh right, that was her gimmick name, wasn’t it? Now I’m sad again…
Tara (Lisa Marie/Victoria) defeated Knockouts Champion Brooke Adams… oh, sorry, Miss Techmacher… yes, they gave Brooke Adams the name of a minor DC Comics character who appeared in two Superman movies and thought no one would fucking notice… yeah, so the match was short and quick and Tara won the title back because… sure, why not? Not knocking Lisa Marie or anything because she’s fun to watch, but was Gail Kim not available to win the title this year or something? Or Mickie James? Or someone new who isn’t a multi-time champion? I swear Tara is turning into STIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGGG at this point and I don’t mean that in a good way… or was that Gail Kim? Now, I’m confused and it’s this match’s fault. BAH!
Oh and wouldn’t you know it? Our next match involves STTIIIIIINNNNGGG!
So we have Sting and Bully Ray teaming up against Aces & 8s, the new faction that debuted some time ago because someone watched Sons Of Anarchy and decided that needed to be the thing that would take TNA to the next level or something. So we have masked biker dudes running roughshod all over the Impact Zone until they kidnapped Sting and Hogan and challenged them to a tag match… but then Bully Ray decided to take Hogan’s place because he knew better (in more ways than one) and so we have Sting/Bully vs. two masked guys, who the stip being that if the masked dudes won, they’d have full reign over TNA… which means they can make regular appearances or something.
This leads us to the match where the masked bikers beat Sting and Bully in the tag match that involved more run-ins because Sting can’t do much and the masked guys can’t do much without giving themselves away, so it’s more of a brawl than anything. Eventually, Hogan comes out and punches everyone out until we’re down to one masked guy, who’s unveiled to be… Brother D-Von… which went over like a fart in church… which is probably why they’d eventually do the reveal that it was Bully Ray all along, Austin. And people touted this as one of TNA’s best storylines for some reason… but the only memorable I can recall from this whole deal was the church bit when they killed this thing off for good, so… I mean, look, this was more about story because, again, there’s only so much you can do with the pieces given and I can forgive that if the story was pushed in a satisfying way, but had I been watching this at the time and the first reveal of the group ended up being the guy who gave the world DEACON DAVE, I’d be scratching my head going…
Jeff Hardy defeated TNA World Champion Austin Aries to win the title and give the fans a feelgood moment to end the show, which is nice because we needed one of those. So once upon a time, Jeff Hardy showed up at a TNA PPV under no condition to perform, which resulted in one of the most infamous matches in TNA history, which you can read my thoughts on here. Needless to say, Jeff Hardy cleaned himself up, made his return, and began one of many redemption arcs that he would undergo over the latter course of his career. Naturally, I was skeptical because I wasn’t entirely convinced that he had let go of his demons (and unfortunately, that proved to be the case earlier this decade). And when I had heard that he won the title, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea because, again, I wasn’t entirely convinced that the man was completely clean.
Watching this back… you know what? This was a perfectly fine cap on one of many redemption stories for Jeff Hardy. The match itself was tremendous; Hardy hardly missed a beat and Austin Aries continued to be one of TNA’s best assets in getting a good to great match out of almost anyone he works with. And yes, for whatever it’s worth, Jeff Hardy looked like he was back in top form and his reign with the title would largely exist without incident… although he did bring back his ugly title belt thing that deserves to burn in the deepest reaches of Hell, but I digress. 2012 Dave might have been dismayed by TNA’s sacrificing Aries for the altar of Hardy, but 2026 Dave is perfectly fine with that. Besides, someone has to lose that title to Bully Ray when he does his big reveal and I’d much rather have Hardy lose it, so…
So after a couple Bound For Glory shows that were largely disappointing affairs, we’ve finally got one that’s pretty solid, where the good stuff was really good and even the weaker aspects of the show fortunately didn’t last long enough to drag the whole thing down. So, yeah, on a whole, a good show in 2012.
