Another year, another annual Bound For Glory PPV from the fine folks at Impact Wrestling, who were about to get a bit of a boost in viewership thanks to parent company Anthem purchasing AXS TV, which had been hosting weekly episodes of a New Japan highlight show. Earlier in the year, Impact had moved from PopTV to one of Anthem’s smaller channels that very few people had, but there was also a live stream on Twitch of the program, which was kind of nice of them. Impact would move to AXS following this PPV, so this would be something of a first chapter to a(nother) new era in TNA Impact Wrestling history.
I’ll say this much. This is not something you’re going to pass off as same old shit because the roster has seen a bit of a shuffling in between BFGs. Some folks are still there, while others are long gone and then you’ve got… stuff.
Eddie Edwards won the opening 20-person Gauntlet match, last pinning some dude whose name escapes me. It’s a Rumble with quick intervals and people going in and out fairly quickly. Not much of a spectacle, but at least twenty people got their PPV payday… maybe. It’s TNA; you never know with these people no matter who’s running the damned show.
Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie (with some dude named John E. Bravo that isn’t the one-time John Morrison) defeated Tenille Dashwood to retain the title. Honestly, not that bad of a match all things considered. Hope both ladies are doing well these days.
Tag Team Champions The North (Josh Alexander/Ethan Page) defeated Rich Swann/Willie Mack and Rob Van Dam/Rhino in a three-way dance to retain the titles… with Rob Van Dan turning heel on Rhino with a sidekick and allowing the North to take out the other team for the win. I almost vaguely remember someone mentioning that RVD turned heel on this show back in the day and I was like “Huh?” The heel turn aside, I thought this was a pretty entertaining enough match, often forgetting how well Page and Alexander worked well together, but also happy both eventually would move on to bigger and better things. Now you’ve got me curious about where this RVD thing goes… is that a good thing?
Bucket list entry… another one on there, I guess.
Michael Elgin defeated Naomichi Marufuji in roughly nineteen minutes of a good clean hoss fight. Know very little of this Marufuji fellow other than his hair game is superb… yeah, that’s my takeaway from this match is some guy’s hair. Would it have been more fabulous had it been styled in the Tokyo Dome? Maybe…
Ace Austin (yes, the same Ace Austin currently in AEW) defeated X-Division Champion Jake Crist, Acey Romero, Tessa Blanchard, and Daga in a ladder match to win the title. If you like moves and high spots, this is the match for you, I suppose. Entertaining fare, so I can’t complain.
Moose defeated Ken Shamrock with a spear. I forgot that rare period where Ken Shamrock made a brief return to wrestling and TNA in particular. Probably in hopes of being noticed by WWE for a Hall Of Fame induction or Legends contract. Obviously, neither has happened yet, but in any event, the match was okay for what it was; Moose trying to make Shamrock not look like a complete joke and it’s fair to say that even Shamrock held up his end of the bargain. Not a bonafide classic match or anything like that, but still okay.
World Champion Brian Cage (sporting a pretty sweet Wolverine-esque get-up) defeated Sami Callihan in a no-DQ match to retain the title. Well, would you look at that? In the musings for the 2018 BFG, I mentioned a possible title feud in Sami’s future and without watching the TV or knowing the in-betweens, here we are. The extra juice in having Sami being a dick to Cage’s significant other is just the sort of thing you need to let Cage go unhinged and beat the stuffing out of Sami… and that’s exactly what happened. Fun brawl with a believable bloodlust between the two guys… a personal issue fueling the violence in this no holds barred contest of sorts… someone should built a time machine and send this back in 2008 so that Hunter could learn a thing or two about having a main event blood feud at a major PPV event.
Disregard the banner because much to my surprise, this turned out to be quite the entertaining PPV event. The matches were pretty good for the most part, they did a good job explaining some of the feuds with their video packages (which I don’t mention often, but Impact has always had solid montages and pre-tapes – something I’m glad they leaned into), and in terms of setting the stage for the next phase of Impact on their new channel, this seems like a good start.
Sadly, we’re not going to be watching those shows, because next week, it’s prevailing circumstances time.
