Another week in our little lookback at these Bound For Glory PPVs, another year has passed in the timeline of Bound For Glory and we’re about a year and a half into this Impact Wrestling phase of the promotion, which have been bouncing around between shows in Canada and shows in the US.
Willie Mack/Rich Swann defeated Ethan Page/Matt Sydal in a fun little opening match. Apparently, Ethan Page is a fresh face in TNA at this point and we’re nowhere near the likes of Karate Man making his presence known… if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then know how much I envy your ignorance on this matter. Not a bad way to star the show. I had forgotten how much of a lovable, charismatic player Willie Mack was back in the day. I wonder what happened to that guy.
Eli Drake comes out for an open challenge, cuts a quick promo that the crowd gets into, and then among various chants of Y2J or DELETE among other things, Drake’s mystery challenger turns out to be… James Ellsworth. Yes, that tiny man with no chin. Anyway, Drake disposes of him in a couple minutes and then Abyss comes out and chokeslams Drake through a table. What is it with wrestling promoters not having a fucking clue on what to do with Eli Drake/LA Knight? The guy cuts a good promo, has a good look, oozes charisma, and the crowd seems to be behind him – yeah, he’s supposed to be a heel, but nobody was cheering for fucking Ellsworth, I’m sorry. Drake would eventually find his way over to Billy Corgan’s NWA where he’d stick around for a bit before being picked up by WWE, where the rest of the story is fairly known, I think.
Knockouts’ Champion Tessa Blanchard defeated Taya Valkyrie to retain the title. A fun brawl between two brawlers. Tessa looked like a force and Taya looked like a threat. I’d imagine my tune would change had I been following the show weekly, but within this one isolated instance, I enjoyed this match for what it was.
Tommy Dreamer/Eddie Edwards defeated Moose/Killer Kross via a roll-up – the deadliest move in wrestling, don’t forget. This started off as a regular match between Edwards and Moose that went about a minute before Kross ran in for the DQ and then Dreamer showed up to make this a no-DQ tag match, where naturally devolves into hardcore shenanigans. Replace Dreamer with some other brawler type and this would have been a fun time. As it is, I’m just wondering why Tommy Dreamer is involved in a program in 2018… to which I respond with “Because he’s probably part of management… and as of this writing, still is.” Okay, fair enough, I suppose.
OVE (Sami Calihan and the Crist guys) defeated Brian Cage and the Lucha Bros. in a Losers Eventually Have To Sign With Some Upstart Promotion Run By Shad Khan’s kid Next Year Match… okay, maybe not. I do know that Sami and Penta have been feuding with each other and then other people got involved. Brian Cage getting kicked in the head constantly by three guys before eating the pin felt a bit excessive; do these guys not have other moves to hit the guy with? Regardless, the idea was sound; it keeps Cage strong while giving Sami a strong win, which I’d imagine will lead him to future title shots. (Yes, I call them shots, not opportunities. Shut the fuck up.)
TNA Tag-Team Champions LAX (Santana/Ortiz) defeated the OGz (Hernandez/Homicide) in a non-title Concrete Jungle match, where they removed the turnbuckles and mats from the ring and we’ve got what is essentially a street fight of sorts. I’d almost call this a knock-off of those Bloodsport PPVs that come around every so often on the indy scene, which a friend of mine has often encouraged me to check out because they’ve supposedly fun times. So I’m guessing the current LAX (the champs) were feuding with the old LAX (the originals) and this is the culmination of that… and the old guys were beating on the new guys until the barely mobile Konnan came in for the assist on behalf of the champs. And then people wonder why #LOLTNA is a thing that exists. At least the right people won.
And then we have a cinematic thing where Allie is going to hell to rescue some girl and she “dies” or something. And then Rosemary comes back and saves Allie, but now she’s a demon or something. The only positive I could levy is that Allie looked fine in her hunter getup, but besides that, this was a thing that happened and… you know what? I don’t know what to think. I guess I should hate this, but honestly, I’ve seen worse.
By the way, this is the thing you play before your main event championship match on PPV. Excellent.
Johnny Impact defeated World Champion Austin Aries to win the title despite a number of run-ins… and then Austin Aries walks off and flips the crowd off. Ooh, he looks upset. I wonder if I should care. I don’t recall if this was Aries being pissy or if it was part of the script – is Russo writing this shit? DERP! – but yeah, whatever, I heard this happened back in the day, it went over like a fart in church because nobody gave a shit about Austin Aries or TNA or Impact or whoever, so really, whatever happened that facilitated this tantrum on air is probably easily found on the Net at some point if I had cared to look it up… which I don’t. In any event, this was a fine match. Not a barnburner or anything, just two talented guys working well together before the run-ins came into play and the post-match stuff afterwards. Will this get me to watch Impact in 2018? Probably not, but not a bad way to end the show.
I thought this Bound For Glory show was fine. It was an embarrassing display or a house show in Japan pretending to be a major PPV event or just a bad, bad show. It was largely inoffensive and most passable fare. I could think of worse ways to spend three hours watching a wrestling show… some of which, as it turned out, originate from TNA.
Still, a good show is a good show. Maybe next year continues that momentum.
