Bryan Staebell
Bound For Glory 2013 Recap
This year’s Bound For Glory was a fine 3 hour PPV that didn’t have a big show feel and certainly wasn’t the grand slam the company desperately needed.
AJ Styles won the TNA title from Bully Ray in the main event. They had a very good match and Styles’ post match celebration in the crowd sold the moment bigger than it probably was. In one of the craziest spots I’ve seen in a while…Styles did a springboard 450 through a table on the outside. The story of the match was that Styles wouldn’t stay down no matter what Bully did to him. At one point Dixie came out and ordered Earl Hebner not to count Styles pinfall attempt on Bully…but in the end he did. I guess that’s supposed to be some weird redemption for Earl or something. No one outside of the two guys still left in Aces and 8’s (Knux and Bischoff) ran in.
Bobby Roode avenged his loss to Kurt Angle 2 years early in another very good match. The story here was that Angle was trying to shake off ring rust as Roode outwrestled him to start the match..when that sequence is classic Angle humbling his opponent. They did the back and forth submission attempts and at one point Roode appeared to pass out instead of tap. When the ref raised his arm to see if he was out…it fell on the rope and the ref had to break the hold. I loved that spot. The finish saw Angle knock himself out on a top rope Angle Slam allowing Roode to get the pin. Angle stayed down for a long time afterwards and eventually they went for the stretcher. He ended up refusing it and walking out on his own.
Chris Sabin won the X title in the opening Ultimate X match. Some good spots and a good match…but not as good as you would have thought given the talent involved. Hardy brought in the ladder (which is supposed to be illegal…but I guess they dropped that). Sabin threw Velvet into the ring and while Jeff Hardy was distracted trying to get her out…Sabin climbed the ladder and won.
Magnus made Sting tap out clean to the Texas Cloverleaf. It was a Sting match. Crowd didn’t really buy the finish since Sting never really does clean tap outs (he’s did one for Samoa Joe way back. He’s done clean pins to some guys like AJ and Angle too). Post match they continued to tease that Magnus was going heel as he blew off Sting’s attempt to congratulate him on the win.
Gail Kim won the Knockouts title in a 3 way over ODB and Brooke. Lei’D Tapa came down and took out both ODB and Brooke and revealed she was with Gail. Tapa ended up getting a good reaction when she powerbombed Brooke into the ring from the ramp. Match was alright. Brooke stood out as looking pretty good working as a heel.
BroMans, who won the preshow gauntlet to get a title shot, shockingly beat James Storm and Gunner to win the TNA tag titles. Match was better than you’d have thought going in. Jesse Godderz in particular looked great here. Crowd didn’t think much of the match at first but when it became competitive and they started kicking out of each others big moves…they got into it. The problem here is that TNA has spent a lot of time making sure Robbie E and Jesse Godderz are joke jobbers so it was really jarring to see them go toe to toe and then beat Storm and Gunner.
Ethan Carter III made his TNA debut. He defeated a skinny jobber hand picked by his Aunt Dixie. The EC3 gimmick is pretty solid…especially his entrance which is oddly more “superstar” feeling than anyone elses.
Elsewhere on the show Kurt Angle turned down his Hall Of Fame induction saying he hadn’t earned it yet. Abyss also returned…taking out Bad Influence who had bloodied up Joseph Park on the preshow.
In the end the most interesting thing about this show is who they chose to push. They went with both of the younger guys (Magnus/Roode) where they should have. They put the X title on Sabin like they should have since he has a new character to get over. The EC3 debut was good. The Gail Kim win was as much about pushing Tapa as it was anything else. Even picking BroMans to pull the upset is there if you want it. Despite that being really out of nowhere…they are 2 of their younger guys on the roster.
Impact Recap for 10/24
The first thing you need to know about this Impact from Salt Lake City is that TNA should have held BFG…in Salt Lake City. This crowd was AWESOME. Despite being filled mostly with in ring talking segment…the crowd was wild.
The big story here was that AJ Styles showed up for his rematch with Bully Ray that Dixie booked after BFG. The show started with Dixie offering Styles a new car, preferential treatment and other gifts to try and appease him. She also offered to cancel the Bully Ray rematch. Styles, being a babyface, told Bully he’d get his rematch. The match was very good. Styles pinned Bully again. Post match Dixie came out with the contract that Styles wanted. Then, after finally breaking Dixie to the point where she fully caved…he told her when he said she would pay…he wasn’t talking about money…he was talking about taking the belt from her. Then…he left. The crowd was super into Styles here who looked more like a superstar driving into the night with the TNA title held high than he ever has before.
Of course this is a total rip off of the CM Punk storyline. TNA believes they can do the payoff better than WWE did. WWE nailed the set up in a way that TNA didn’t come close too…but they dropped the ball on it 8 days later when there had already been 2 new WWE Champions crowned (Mysterio who won the tournament, Cena who then beat Mysterio) before Punk just walked right back onto the show claiming he had signed a new contract (and gotten new music queued up) in the seconds after Cena won and he walked out. I always believed that the way to do the Punk storyline involved making a different star in the end. Punk was already elevated by the beginning of the angle. The crowning of a new champion allows you to make someone else until Punk came back for the inevitable showdown. The way I’d have done it then was to have a babyface character win the WWE title tournament and then book him to win matches for the next few months…but push on commentary and lead people to believe that despite doing everything right…people believed that Punk was the true Champion. You end up with a justified heel in the making and megastar Punk returning to unify the titles. Instead…John Cena was just WWE Champion again a week later.
I don’t know what TNA has planned (well…they are doing a tournament with Angle, Aries, Hardy, Joe, Storm, Roode, Sabin and Magnus. The first 7 are former TNA Champions and Magnus earns his way in by winning a gauntlet) but the goal is to do what WWE didn’t. To me…Magnus should win. He’s the perfect guy to pull off “Why don’t people respect my title…I’ve done everything right”. It also pushes the guy they should be pushing. Hell…he’s already at the start of a heel turn anyway. This is the perfect thing to push him over.
The only other matches were another entertaining EC3 squash and a Knockouts tag match.
Ken Anderson returned and fought with Bully Ray. They sold that Anderson wasn’t supposed to be there (yes…he, like AJ, is apparently without a contract in storyline). That explains why he didn’t get a bye like all the other former champions into the TNA title tournament. Abyss should be pissed though.
They also did talking segments to build to a BroMans/Storm & Gunner rematch and another Roode/Angle match. Both take place next week.
Speaking of next week…
Impact Preview for 10/31
This show was already taped in front of the great Salt Lake City crowd so this will just be a non spoiler (aside from the one I already gave) look at the lineup:
Bobby Roode vs. Kurt Angle
Gail Kim vs. ODB for the Knockouts Title
BroMans vs. James Storm and Gunner for the TNA Tag Titles
Dixie Carter announces the tournament to determine the next TNA Champion
The Gauntlet to determine the 8’th participant in the TNA Title Tournament
Ethan Carter III squash
Random Data
The era of Impact live from the road is sadly coming to an end. They’ll be doing Impact from Cincinnati on November 7 for the 11/7 and 11/14 shows. Then they’ll be returning to Orlando (albeit in a different stage at Universal Studios) to tape a bunch of weeks. They will still do Impact from the UK all of February as far as I know.
After cutting down on house shows recently they will apparently be pushing them again once they settle back in to Orlando. So…basically back to square one.
The company is also launching something called “Where Action Never Ends”. The gist is that they plan on bombarding their website, twitter, facebook, youtube channel and even Impact itself with behind the scenes footage of the wrestlers. I think the plan is to try and let the talent get themselves over with them sending in videos from the road and giving their reactions to the goings on in the company. They also promise that EC3 and Lei’D Tapa are just the start of new characters they’ll be debuting going forward. My take on this is that, on paper, someone is on to something. A 24/7 look into the company, storylines and characters is a smart fit in the social media obsessed modern TV watching world. Also…in execution…they’ll screw it up. It’s almost not their fault this time. They’re talking about an idea that can only really work if it is MASSIVE and won’t allow for it’s content to not infiltrate every part of social media. Anyone think they’ll pull that off? What will be interesting is seeing who is good at this and who isn’t. Back when they did REaction after Impacts and the roster was told to cut realistic promos in character while only give a direction and not a script…some people really flourished. It was the first time Kaz, for example, stood out at all. If nothing else it could be a logical way to run the AJ Styles is gone storyline while keeping him off of TV.
