BOUND FOR GLORY

October 23, 2005

So this is supposed to be TNA’s biggest show of the year. Of course, what TNA fails to grasp is that the first WrestleMania helped to put the WWF on the map. TNA had been doing PPVs for more than three years by this point, so the only reason that this is any more important than any other PPV is because they say so.

Samoa Joe . . . treats the living legend, Lyger, like he’s just another scrub in the X-Division.

AJ Styles . . . and Christopher Daniels blow away most of their X-Division contemporaries in an iron man match.

Rhino . . . was probably sore the next day after working three times in one night, but the end result was worth it.

ALEX SHELLEY vs. RODERICK STRONG vs. AUSTIN ARIES vs. SONJAY DUTT

It’s nice that this match enforces tags and tries to make sense of this format, but it still ultimately fails. It’s not believable that Aries would simply sit on the apron and let Dutt pin Shelley, so the match still has the same task of finding ways to get two guys out of the way so that one can pin another. Everyone gets their chance to show off, with Aries looking the best thanks to his explosive execution, and there are some fun moments like Shelley and Strong’s slap and chop exchange, Aries shoving Strong and having it called a tag, and Dutt pulling off some pretty ranas. But, this winds up being a case of X-Division matches living up to their reputation of go-go-go spotfests. There aren’t any really meaningful exchanges between Dutt and Strong to make the finish any more meaningful than “Dutt hits the right move at the right time.”

SAMOA JOE vs. JYUSHIN “THUNDER” LYGER

First Kobashi and now Lyger, it looks like Joe had some good opponents in October 2005. The problem with this match is that it’s worked like a typical Samoa Joe match, which still means it’s a good match, but it’s below par for what Joe vs. Lyger should be. There are some fun moments of Lyger outsmarting Joe, like Lyger goading him into hitting the ropes, and then tripping Joe. There’s a smart moment from Lyger where he stomps on Joe’s foot to hit the fisherman’s buster and a bit later on, Joe outsmarts himself and puts himself into position for a powerbomb. But, this is mostly the usual Samoa Joe match, where Joe does his usual shtick and hits his usual spots. The only real difference this time being that Joe has to outsmart Lyger to do the muscle buster and that Lyger doesn’t actually tap out, but rather lets Joe choke him out. Had Joe had this sort of match with a young lion like Hirooki Goto or Ryusuke Taguchi or even a more experienced New Japan wrestler like Gedo or Kanemoto then it wouldn’t be a big deal, but a match between Joe and Lyger deserved more time and a better layout. ***

SIMON DIAMOND/ELIX SKIPPER/DAVID YOUNG vs. SHARK BOY/APOLLO/SONNY SIAKI

The Diamonds show some nice intensity here, but once you look past that, there isn’t much to see. It doesn’t help that Shark Boy is all gimmick and that Apollo and Siaki are both horrible. The only real highlights of the match are Elix doing the enzuigiri to Siaki off of Apollo’s back, which was negated with how long it took to set up, and the dive sequence. Apollo and Siaki muck this up with their attempts to be ‘innovative’ by tossing Skipper into the air and planting him with something on the way back down, but only Siaki’s Samoan Drop looks any good. The finish is completely out of nowhere with Young hitting the spine buster after the dive sequence. It was fun to see the Diamonds win, but that’s about the extent of the fun here.

MONTY BROWN vs. LANCE HOYT

This actually isn’t horrible. Both Hoyt and Brown are fired up and it shows. The first half of the match isn’t anything special, aside from Brown feigning throwing Hoyt into the crowd and then changing his mind and mocking the fans for being excited. It’s right after Hoyt’s counters the pounce that this starts picking up. Hoyt can’t find the right combo to keep Monty down, even the big boot and moonsault only get a near fall. Monty realizes that he’s going to need the Pounce to win when the Alpha bomb doesn’t finish him, and Hoyt knows the same thing and he keeps finding counters for the Pounce. But eventually Hoyt runs out of counters, and he makes the time invested in building up the Pounce pay off by taking a huge bump. It’s still not on the level of what Abyss did with Hoyt, but it’s not a total waste.

BG JAMES/KONNAN/RON KILLINGS vs. A-1/BOBBY ROODE/ERIC YOUNG

There’s nothing here that hasn’t been seen in any of the other matches that the various combinations of these factions have had before on PPV. Team Canada stooges left, right, and center while 3LK runs through their usual spots. When the heels are on offense they show next to nothing other than punching and kicking. 3LK makes the comeback and the Canadians steal the win with the hockey stick. Been there, done that.

CHRIS SABIN vs. PETEY WILLIAMS vs. MATT BENTLEY (Ultimate X Match - #1 contender’s match to X-Division Title)

The finish is stupid, with Petey simply catching the X as it falls. Not only because it negates the whole concept of the match, but because when the X fell five minutes before that, the ref stopped the match to hang it back up. Other than that, this was more or less what you’d expect from these three in this sort of match. They’ve got some good spots and fun moments, Traci’s distraction of Petey was rather amusing and Sabin’s powerbomb to Bentley while they were both hanging was impressive, but that’s all they’ve got to offer at the core. There was a chance for something smart, when Bentley pushed Petey to the floor while he was singing, and then Sabin did the same to Bentley. But, instead of trying to win the match, Sabin just dives to the floor along with them. This is just another case of the X-Division reenforcing the stereotype. There’s nothing as far as any storytelling or structure. It’s just a collection of spots with a bad finish.

CHRIS HARRIS/JAMES STORM © vs. CHASE STEVENS/ANDY DOUGLAS (NWA World Tag Team Titles)

It’s no surprise that this winds up mostly being a big brawl. This is supposed to be something full of seething hatred, even more so since these two teams have quite a bit of history. But, aside from the Naturals charging the ring and being ready to throw down, this doesn’t feel very hateful. The big positive is that Harris and Storm were both willing to take some big bumps. Storm takes a powerbomb onto the guardrail and sells it for five minutes, and Harris splats himself on the ramp after a lariat and takes several rail rides.

Once the match tries to settle down into a regular match the hate is long gone. AMW are amusing with antics like Harris sneaking in the powder and having it backfire on him, causing Harris to blindly give Storm the Catatonic. The Naturals try to one-up them by using the Death Sentence for a decent near fall and seem to have the titles won until Gail Kim breaks up the Natural Disaster. The finish with Douglas being handcuffed on the floor and unable to save Stevens is good for giving AMW heat beyond them being Jarrett’s lackeys, although it’d have been nice to see a few near falls before Stevens fell to the Death Sentence.

ABYSS vs. SABU vs. RHINO vs. JEFF HARDY (Monster’s Ball Match)

Structure wise, this is more or less the same sort of match as both of the previous X-Division matches, only with a boatload of weapons involved. The only real storytelling involved is how Rhino gets the win, he takes the opening and Gores Abyss through a table before he can spread the tacks, and then quickly counters Hardy into the piledriver to get the win. And Sabu (who Abyss had press slammed through a table on the floor) almost mucked that up by trying to break it up. The match itself is just a big mess of brawling, weapon shots, and table bumps. There’s not even any good selling to be found other than Abyss’ putting over the Gore so well. Hell, Hardy tries to top his WrestleMania XVI dive, by diving off the top of the entrance way and putting Abyss through a table, and both of them wind up recovering fairly quickly. It’s easy to sit back and marvel at what they’re willing to go through, but this is in no way a good wrestling match, it’s just a fun spectacle.

Like most draws or iron man matches, this has its usual issue of the primary goal of the workers being to kill time. Of course, with this only going for thirty minutes, instead of the usual sixty, a lot of their time-eating work winds up being OK, especially the early headlock from AJ that kick-started the early story of AJ having Daniels’ number. It also helps that these two have plenty of history together and have worked together tons of times, which means their exchanges are smooth more often than not. They manage to pepper the match with some nods to their previous matches. Daniels kicks off his long control segment by using the Koji clutch to bleed AJ dry like he had done in their previous iron man match, and one of their best near falls toward the end was Styles using the same Angel’s Wings counter that won him the title the month before.

The early parts of the match (after they toss out some high spots, culminating in AJ diving into the crowd) surrounds AJ being one step ahead of Daniels. Daniels’ inability to break the headlock is a highlight of the first half of the match, and watching AJ almost effortlessly step aside and counter Daniels makes AJ look miles ahead, especially when Daniels drops down, and AJ puts on the breaks and punts him in the gut. Daniels gets a quick breath when AJ dives right into an overhead suplex, and Daniels finally gets something going after the Koji clutch. As fun as it was to see AJ ahead in the game, it’s even more fun to see him behind the proverbial eight-ball. After Daniels lets him out of the hold, he tries to quickly put him away, starting small and graduating up to bigger moves. For his part, AJ is almost perfect, he’s great at selling and getting over how much Daniels is taking out of him, but he simply refuses to drop a fall. The final stretch also has some great moments, especially the Angel’s Wings counter near fall, and it was impressive to see AJ go for the jackknife cradle first before doing the Styles Clash that gets him the fall.

Even though this is a good effort from these two, it’s not without problems. One of their best spots was Daniels catching Styles handspring and planting him with a German suplex, but AJ mucked it up by blowing it off to hit a discuss lariat and then dropping back down. There was also a great opening to tease AJ getting counted out when he took a spill to the floor and hit his knee on the stairs, but AJ didn’t bother selling it, and it led to Daniels diving out after him, and then AJ crawling back into the ring and doing his own dive. The buildup to this match (and feud for that matter) was Daniels having an inflated ego, so it’d have made perfect sense for him to take the cheap way out and get a fall. Luckily, this is case where they have a rather short list of things that needed improvement. It’s remarkable that this match has so much smart work to it, while the pre show four-way and Ultimate X matches were spot exhibitions. ***1/4

GAUNTLET FOR THE GOLD

Kip James (who enters last) is the only one who hadn’t worked already, combined with the fact that this was probably just thrown together the day of the show, and it’s no surprise that this is relatively dull. It’s probably too much to expect something memorable on the level of a Royal Rumble in terms of eliminations, teasing future feuds, or rivals pairing off, and we certainly don’t get any of that. Several of the wrestlers seem to be fired up when they enter, but it never leads to anything. It looks like things will finally pick up when Monty Brown enters and quickly gives the Pounce to Jeff Hardy, but they’re both quickly eliminated. Kip entering last should have led to a quick run of him tossing several people, but it doesn’t. In fact, the only real storyline contribution to this is that Kip tries to save Killings from elimination, and even eliminates himself to keep Killings involved. There’s some fun teasing of Joe vs. Abyss, but that’s about the extent of the fun. Rhino winning isn’t the worst idea out there, Sabu, Hardy, and Styles looked like they had no business out there, but there were better choices to both put into the match and to put over.

It’s nice that TNA wanted to send the fans home happy with a title change, especially after doing the Raven/Jarrett title change and subsequent AMW heel turn in another promotion, but the actual execution of it leaves a lot to be desired. It’s fine that Jarrett controls most of this, he is fresh after all, but he doesn’t do anything especially engaging. All he brings are a bunch of punches, the axe handle from the top, ramming Rhino’s head into the casket that he’d wheeled to the ring, and sneaking in the guitar. He needed to bring a whole lot more, not just because he’s the fresh man but because he’s supposed to be the champion. The axe handle triggers the dog and pony show in the form of Gail Kim and AMW interfering, and Rhino hits the Gore during all the chaos for the upset.

Again, it makes sense that Jarrett controls most of this (not that it’s terribly long anyway), but the main event (not to mention the title match) really ought to have had more, and better, wrestling than this. TNA would have been just as well served to slot Raven into the match, he already had the storyline feud with Jarrett and it’s not like this was a long term title change anyway, Jarrett got the title right back rather quickly. I think the real travesty in this was that the aftermath featured the new champion getting destroyed by Jarrett, AMW, and Team Canada so that Team 3D could make their return.

Conclusion: Joe, Daniels, and Styles steal the show, just like at the last PPV. This is more consistent overall, with the craziness of Monster’s Ball, the tag titles match, and the title change. But it’s lacking in something really mind-blowing. The X-Division Title match was as close as it came, and that was far from the level of Joe/Styles from Sacrifice or the three-way from Unbreakable.