BD’S TNA BFG 2015 On IP Week: Breaking Down The Card

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Hello. I’ve been solicited to recap TNA’s upcoming PPV “Bound For Glory” for Pulse Wrestling this coming weekend. I’ve not been writing too much this year, having transitioned more to podcasting with my partner Kue on “Trashy Ring Attire”, the sister podcast of “Classy Ring Attire”.

Probably most people reading this know my history covering TNA, so I won’t get into that – these days, Pulse can’t find anyone who wants to cover the TNA shows, and TNA eventually reached the point where there was nothing left to say about what they were doing or where they were going, so Pulse just stopped bothering to look. I covered TNA’s final Impact after they got kicked off Spike TV, as well as the first show Impact their current network, Destination America.

Just a disclaimer: I don’t want TNA to go out of business and I don’t hate TNA. But it’s not really too hard to see why they’re in a bad place, and it’s not really too hard to see why people (those that actually have convenient access to it, anyway) aren’t enjoying the show these days.

This is part of a series of articles I’m doing this week to preview TNA Bound For Glory 2015. You can find my previous entry, which is an ode to TNA’s remaining fanbase here.

This time let’s go with…

THE CARD

TNA World Heavyweight Championship Match
EC3 (c) .vs. Drew Galloway .vs. Matt Hardy
with Jeff Hardy as Special Guest Referee

I kind of already covered EC3 above. He sucks. Drew Galloway (Drew McIntyre for those not in the know) is maybe a little better than WWE gave him credit for, but not much. Definitely not World Title must. While having been added for a lame reason, Matt was never a bad wrestler, and is probably the most talented guy in the match. But Triple Threats are lame, and I’m not sure anyone is really clamouring to see Matt Hardy anymore.

The storyline here, as I understand it, is that Drew Galloway “stood up for TNA against GFW” and EC3, Dixie Carter’s nephew, didn’t. (That’s right… Dixie Carter is back on TNA TV.) Drew then won a Fatal 4-way to win the #1 Contendership, and here we are. Not much of a buildup, but then again, TNA was obviously focused on having a shareholder buyout play out by way of an angle on TV.

As for Matt Hardy… the event is being held in Charlotte, at the Cabarrus Arena in Concord, which holds 5000 people. TNA was having trouble with ticket sales, so when taking $5 off the price didn’t work, Matt Hardy was added as a last-minute addition to sell tickets because he’s from Charlotte.

Jeff Hardy is apparently over whatever injury he sustained, but for some reason is only the referee. Not sure of the logic there.

Finding 2 of the 3 guys about as much fun to watch as an air conditioner, I’m not expecting much. But hey, if my expectations are low, then with how awesome some people say these guys are, it should be easy to win me over. Right?

TNA King Of The Mountain Championship Match
Bobby Roode (c) .vs. Lashley

Roode is always good stuff in the ring… boring on the mic, but that’s okay because he’s not on the mic here. Lashley is a lot better than in his WWE days, believe it or not. Not entirely sure what to expect here, as I’m not totally sure of the buildup. But if both guys are decent, it should be decent… right?

The King Of The Mountain Championship is the belt they created for Jeff Jarrett to win on their last PPV. That’s right… it was created for Jeff Jarrett, and named after one of the worst match concepts to ever take place on a TV screen. Thank fuck this match isn’t a King Of The Mountain match.

TNA World Tag-Team Championship Match
The Wolves (c) .vs. Brian Myers & Trevor Lee

The Wolves are awesome. Trevor Lee is pretty good. Brian Myers (you probably know him as Curt Hawkins) isn’t great, but he’s okay I suppose, so I’d expect this would be good. Let’s be honest, 3 out of 4 talented performers in a single match is better than we normally get from TNA or WWE.

TNA X-Division Championship Match
Tigre Uno (c) .vs. Rockstar Spud .vs. DJ Z .vs. Manik

Uno and Manik are awesome, Spud is good and DJ Z is decent, so again, I’m expecting something pretty cool here.

TNA Knockouts Championship
Gail Kim (c) .vs. Awesome Kong

In both ladies’ previous run with TNA, it was easily the best series of matches from 2 women in TNA or WWE in over a decade, and on par with what WWE could give us from the Divas Revolution if they got the dead weight out of the way and let those ladies start doing what they can do. But, WWE isn’t really doing that, so I’d expect something better than I’ve seen from Divas or Knockouts in recent memory here.

Kurt Angle .vs. Eric Young

For a man who’s neck is now comprised mainly of sawdust and old newspapers, Kurt Angle can still kick an amazing amount of ass. Eric Young is… not as good. He’s not very good at all. The only thing he’s really got going for him is tenure. I would expect Angle will destroy him to set up some kind of retirement angle.

Bound For Glory Gauntlet – Winner Gets A TNA World Title Match
Ken Anderson .vs. Eli Drake .vs. Mahabali Shera .vs. Abyss .vs. Robbie E .vs. Aiden O’Shea .vs. Chris Melendez .vs. Jessie Godderz .vs. Tyrus

Most of these wrestlers are terrible aside from Eli Drake, Aiden O’Shea and Abyss. If the winner gets a World Title shot, literally the only good option here is Eli Drake. Shera is horrible and was only hired because TNA plans on touring India, Robbie E and Jessie Godderz are two of the worst in-ring wrestlers TNA has ever produced, Tyrus used to be Brodus Clay, and Ken Anderson is so terrible that even TNA fans don’t stick up for him anymore.

 

TNA fans often get defensive these days if you bring up the sheer amount of ex-WWE talent currently in the promotion and also often state that the guys in TNA now were wasted in WWE, and / or that the days of picking up ex-WWE talent are mostly gone. Looking at the card, you might think that’s the case…

… let me assure you that’s not the case. The only difference between now and before is that when they pick up talent formerly from WWE, they just change the names. I’ll go ahead and strike out all the wrestlers that were formerly with WWE for you.

TNA World Heavyweight Championship Match
EC3 (c) .vs. Drew Galloway .vs. Matt Hardy
with Jeff Hardy as Special Guest Referee

TNA King Of The Mountain Championship Match
Bobby Roode (c) .vs. Lashley

TNA World Tag-Team Championship Match
The Wolves (c) .vs. Brian Myers & Trevor Lee

Ultimate X Match For The TNA X-Division Championship
Tigre Uno (c) .vs. Rockstar Spud .vs. DJ Z .vs. Manik

TNA Knockouts Championship
Gail Kim (c) .vs. Awesome Kong

Bound For Glory Gauntlet – Winner Gets A TNA World Title Match
Ken Anderson .vs. Eli Drake .vs. Mahabali Shera .vs. Abyss .vs. Robbie E .vs. Aiden O’Shea .vs. Chris Melendez .vs. Jessie Godderz .vs. Tyrus

Kurt Angle .vs. Eric Young

So more than half (14 out of 27) participants on this PPV are ex-WWE guys, and it will be commentated by 2 ex-WWE announcers (Josh Matthews and The Pope) and a mystery third announcer, which, let’s face it, will probably be an ex-WWE guy too. As an aside… honestly, who keeps an announcer as a surprise reveal?

As you can see, without TNA bringing in former WWE talent, there’s no referee for the World Title match, which I guess is okay because there also aren’t any wrestlers in the match either. There’s also no Knockout match, Bobby Roode and Eric Young no longer have opponents, Trevor Lee has to fight The Wolves by himself, TNA has no World Heavyweight Champion or Knockouts Champion, and the Gauntlet is now composed entirely of horrible wrestlers.

Literally only the Ultimate X match is unaffected.

Don’t get me wrong, I can understand why TNA brings in ex-WWE guys. I legitimately do think WWE missed the boat on Eli Drake, and despite what most people think, I still think Kurt Angle has something to offer IF his health is still with him.

A lot of people on TNA Mecca call The Dudleys “The Dudleysaurs” now that they’re on WWE (odd how they didn’t do that when the Dudleys were in TNA), but seem to have no problem with “The Hardysaurs” being half of the main event on their premiere PPV, especially since there’s only 3 years difference between the elder guy in each team. And say what you will about WWE, but The Dudleys won’t be main-eventing WrestleMania anytime soon.

Anyway, jokes aside, and with anything else that’s wrong with or currently going on with TNA, I am legitimately looking forward to the Tag Title match, the Ultimate X match, and the Knockouts match, and I don’t anticipate Angle / Young or Roode / Lashley being bad either. That’s pretty good, all things considered.

But imagine how good the card would be if they still had AJ… or Joe… or Daniels… or Aries… or Homicide… or Shelley… or Sabin… or Kenny King… or… well, you get the idea.

BD

BD writes about professional wrestling on Inside Pulse until he has to stop because he's about to have a stroke. Any “errors” that are made on his part are, of course, intentional and represent an artistic choice. He acts as a kind of fly paper for the emotionally disturbed.