TNA Bound For Glory 2016

I recorded this on my Sky+ Box back in November and, because I've got to make room for the 100+ unwatched episodes of Corrie I need to catch up on, I thought it best to get it watched.

Trevor Lee vs DJZ

This is for DJZ’s X Division title and does a pretty solid job of being a hot opener without being blowaway great. Lots of nice little touches, like Lee buying time by positioning himself behind the ref, preventing DJZ springboarding into the ring and allowing Lee to hit a big kick on the apron. They start slowly, but the pace starts to quicken and they take it in turns to hit some big dives in a fun spot; DJZ winning in the spectacular stakes. I did like the little underlying story of Lee constantly avoiding DJZ’s attempt at a rolling DDT, until DJZ is able to hit him with an insane Canadian Destroyer variant, leaving Lee loopy for the DDT and the DJZ victory.

10 Man Gauntlet

Winner of this gets a TNA World title shot whenever they want it. This was better than the previous years effort, which featured too much comedy and too many old guys running riot. Here, there were a few good underlying stories – Rockstar Spud trying his best to survive, scurrying around the ring and trying to strike up partnerships until his attempt to befriend Tyrus backfires. The Bromans have a fun brief face-off with the Tribunal and even a comedy spot of Grado getting thrown out right away makes sense as the heels spend too long mocking him, giving the faces time to recover. Jessie Godderz seems to hurt his hamstring, but still hits a boss springboard punch on Tyrus. Eli Drake picks up the win. This was fine.

Moose vs Mike Bennett

Wasn’t hugely taken with this. The omens are bad when Bennett looks to be falling short on a big flip dive, requiring Moose to hurry to catch him. I did enjoy Moose catching a Bennett crossbody and flinging him into a ringpost. There’s a brief moment where Bennett works the knee, but this lasts for a minute and is never referred to again. The end sequence just sees them taking it in turns to hit moves, before a rolling elbow wins it for Moose. Not great.

Eddie Edwards vs Aron Rex

This is the final of TNA’s tournament to crown their first Grand champion. The rules of the match are that there are 3 rounds of 5 minutes, with judges scoring each round. If there isn’t a winner after the three rounds, the judges scorecards will determine the winner.

So basically, we’re getting a 15 minute Damien Sandow match here, because you know the first title match is going to go to the limit to put over the gimmick. But you know what? This wasn’t bad. I had my doubts early on when Rex does a flip bump after Edwards hits an enzuigiri to the shoulder, but there was a fun little story running through this. Edwards takes the first round quite comfortably, showing more aggression, hitting a pair of nice dives and being in solid control when the round ends. The second round sees Rex having to up his game, knowing he’s a round down. Rex shows some nice aggression of his own here, hitting some vicious blows whilst holding Edwards in a headlock. Rex also goes after the knee of Edwards, which slows him down the rest of the match. At one point there’s a lighting issue, meaning TNA have to quickly put spotlights on both guys so the match can continue. When the light comes back, Edwards actually seems staggered for a few seconds, giving Rex the opening to avoid a top rope move. Don’t know if that was an audible, but it worked really well.

The scorecard is tied going into the final round, and Edwards is shown to have more guts than brains, hitting a top rope codebreaker with the bad knee, and jarring it when landing on his feet from the top. I did also like Edwards seeing a rolling elbow coming so, as soon as Rex completes his 360, Edwards levels him with a clothesline. As predicted, this goes the full 15, and Rex wins on the scorecards. This was a lot better than I’d have guessed.

The Broken Hardys (Matt, Jeff & Reby) vs Decay (Abyss, Crazzy Steve & Rosemary)

Aw man, I really feel like I’m going to get exposed as a grumpy old cynic, but this really was a load of old shit. Decay hitting a triple mist on Reby to take her out of the match both made sense (because she’s not a very good wrestler) and didn’t make sense (why wouldn’t they eliminate one of the actual threats to start?). This basically felt like a meaningless hardcore spotfest which everyone would shit over if it didn’t feature the Hardy Boys putting a terrible art-school level movie in the middle of it. I mean, Rosemary hits a coast-to-coast dropkick to send a dustbin into Matt’s face 3 minutes in, and it’s barely mentioned. There’s a long backstage film, where Abyss and Matt have a badly-lit, badly-shot brawl where Abyss’ punches still look like shit, whilst Jeff turns into some unbearable character after getting dowsed in water from the lake of rejuvenation. Things improve slightly back at the ring – liked Steve hitting a big cannonball into the steps on Jeff and Abyss chokeslamming his partner onto Matt looked good – but this was basically an average XPW match with some big stars pratting about, and it goes on and on for twenty minutes. By the time Jeff hits a swanton from a ladder to put Steve through a table to win, I was barely hanging on. This was rubbish.

Gail Kim vs Maria

This was only 5 minutes, but also felt like it went on too long. The story is that Maria is trying to get out of the match due to an injured arm, but her assistant Allie outs her by revealing the doctor had cleared her to compete. Maria instead blindsides Gail to start, but this feels like it should have been Gail making a comeback right away and pinning Maria for the belt. “Cowardly boss wins title and tries to avoid defending it” storylines should be paid off by the boss getting squashed, but here we get a few minutes of crap Maria offence (cracking spinebuster though, it has to be said), and then a messy finish involving Mike Bennett and Maria’s arm brace. Gail earns the win with Eat Defeat, but this wasn’t much fun.

Lashley vs EC3

In maybe the best moment of the show, Lashley spears EC3 out of the ring during his ring introduction, then stands in the middle of the ring posing whilst Jeremy Borash does HIS introduction. What a man. The story here is that EC3 has injured ribs already going into the match, but I actually wish they’d not mentioned that, as it makes his inconsistent selling feel more problematic. Liked EC3 getting the advantage outside the ring following a suicide dive, but Lashley hits a huge spinebuster on the ramp, then justs hurls EC3 up it towards the entrance. Both moves looked great. I like EC3, but he wasn’t great here – a few moves just came across as sloppy, especially a TKO on the stairs, and his rib selling becomes quite annoying when he does things like hit a frog splash – that would really hurt – and doesn’t acknowledge it. Lashley though, he’s a beast and looks like it, whilst at the same time being convincing enough in his selling to put EC3 over as a viable threat. That’s not always easy, but Lashley did that here. The end was pretty good, as EC3 tries to hit the 1%er off the top, but gets shoved down and bulldozed by a second rope spear to keep the TNA title on Lashley.