Cero Reviews Impact Wrestling Bound For Glory 2021

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Cero Reviews Impact Wrestling Bound For Glory 2021

Post by cero2k » Oct 24th, '21, 23:15

Impact Wrestling Bound For Glory 2021
October 23, 2021
Sam's Town, Las Vegas, NV

** Countdown To Glory **

Awesome Kong Hall of Fame Induction - Nice. They showed a good video about Kong's time on Impact, with the KOs roster talking about her importance to wrestling. Gail Kim inducted her, she had a nice short speech about her personal relationship with Kong. Finally, Kong came out, thanked a lot of people and told us to follow our dreams. This was short, but it was nice.

Impact Digital Media Championship Tournament Final Match
Fallah Bahh vs. Madison Rayne (w/Kaleb With A K) vs. Crazzy Steve (w/Black Taurus) vs. John Skyler vs. Jordynne Grace (w/Rachael Ellering) vs. Chelsea Green - 4.5/10
This wasn't bad, but it was really short, and when you have 5 minutes for 6 people, there's not gonna be a lot happening. The one thing that the match did well was to establish Grace as the deserving winner, while coming in and out, she manhandled most opponents, showed her power, and took a strong win with a Grace Driver.

** Main Show **

Impact Knockouts Tag Team Championship Match
Decay (Havok & Rosemary) (c) vs. The IInspiration (Cassie Lee & Jessie McKay) - 5.5/10
The IInspiration had their own special entrance with a lady singing their theme, they cut a promo prior to the match to introduce themselves and tell us they're going to be an inspiration to us.

The match wasn't super smooth, there were many spots that looked a bit mistimed, you can tell that Lee and McKay are still dragging some of the WWE stink, but at least they had their character work on point, and it worked really good against someone like Decay. All the roughness aside, I did think the match delivered some intensity towards the end and it really established that Lee and McKay's tag work is far above the rest of the division now that Fire 'n Flava are done.

The one thing I wasn't so sure about was giving the IInspiration the title on the first night. I think as heels there is no need to have a long chase, but I just know they're going to get super over and sooner or later, they're going to be super babyfaces. I also think that Decay as champions was working.

Impact X-Division Championship Tournament Final Match
El Phantasmo vs. Trey Miguel vs. Steve Maclin - 8/10
This was really good, and it really helped that all men had a credible built to a championship reign, even if ELP's is as simple as taking the title to a BOSJ tournament that I don't even know if he's going to work.

The match was all back and forth, changing from pair up to pair up and the occasional 3-person spot. Everyone got a chance to get their thing in, but I honestly think that Maclin stole the show, stuff like his spear to Trey mid-Lethal Injection was crazy. At the end, Trey won the title, which I think it's a good decision, after Josh Alexander, we needed a strong champion and I think Trey finally getting that good reign will work.

Heath & Rhino vs. Violent By Design (Deaner & Joe Doering) (w/Eric Young) - Dud, but a good angle.
There was a match, but it was about 6 minutes and it was 90% a handicap match. Story here was that Rhino is just coming out of being part of Violent By Design, so he's still a bit brainwashed and Heath hadn't fully convinced him to join and take on VBD. What we got was Heath taking on Deaner and Doring and managing to survive for a bit, but eventually the handicap was too much, Doering by himself is enough handicap, so it wasn't that odd for him to get overpowered in less than 4 minutes. When everything seemed lost, Rhino finally came out, ran wild, hit a Gore on Deaner, and got the win for the team.

So the Rhino babyface turn is complete and we have a new tag team on Impact. I'm ok with this, but I also don't really think Rhino and Heath are a tag title type of team really. We'll have to wait and see if Impact can build them into something, or if they'll remain midcard tag division guys.

Call Your Shot Gauntlet Match
Rocky Romero vs. Chris Sabin vs. The Demon vs. Johnny Swinger vs. Melina vs. Eddie Edwards vs. Brian Myers vs. Matt Cardona vs. Sam Beale vs. Laredo Kid vs. Alisha vs. Rich Swann vs. W. Morrissey vs. Madman Fulton vs. Rohit Raju vs. Moose vs. Savannah Evans vs. Ace Austin vs. Rachael Ellering vs. Tasha Steelz - 6.5/10
Overall, the match was well structured. I think they got a couple of names in early for reasons and got them out too. With the idea that the final four had to include Morrissey and Moose, they really needed to have a couple of strong names left at the end, and thus it was best to use people like Steelz, The Demon, Fulton, Evans, and even Ace earlier on. I thought that for the most part, all participants had their thing going on, they got their shit in, and some even had some escalation on their personal storylines, like Beale eliminating Myers after Myers kicked him out of the Learning Tree. I thought for instance that Steelz' performance was really strong, it felt like she's being built and molded into something like Tessa Blanchard was before she started chasing the men's title.

Final four were Morrissey, Moose, Swann, and Cardona. Moose betrayed Morrissey to eliminate him and Swann, but it had been established that these two were going to work together as far as it helped them, but they straight up told each other, I'm gonna take you out. Cardona at the end seemed over, I think his GCW schtick helped him get some following, so he had a good couple of spots before Moose hit Lights Out for the win after dodging a big Radio Silence.

Impact World Tag Team Championship Match
The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) (c) vs. FinJuice (David Finlay & Juice Robinson) vs. BULLET CLUB (Chris Bey & Hikuleo) - 7/10
This was painting out to be a good match, Bullet Club had done a good job at cutting off Finlay, keeping the Good Brothers at bay, and built a good Juice hot tag, but just as they were about to hit second gear, Anderson simply stole the pin during Juice's hot tag and that was it. We've reached a point were I don't know where the division is going, I don't feel like anyone is worthy for the titles right now, FinJuice has already been there, Hikuleo and Bey are not exactly the best Bullet Club combo, and while the Brothers are good, they just don't have good competition.

The out of nowhere finish doesn't make the match bad, but I think it could had been better. I'm thinking this may had been cut down for timing reasons, which can always happen when you book a rumble type match.

Impact Knockouts Championship Match
Deonna Purrazzo (c) vs. Mickie James - 8/10
Really good match, with good pacing, good escalation, and a lot of good drama. Everything started before the bell when James attacked Purrazzo. They had been under a 'No Touch' rule for the last couple of weeks after Purrazzo attacked James in her home and James retaliated, things escalated and D'Amore had to set up the rule; therefore, James was boiling to attack Purrazzo and finally get her revenge for the home invasion incident.

The match first had the brawl outside the ring when James jumped Purrazzo, but once the match officially started, we had a good back and forth match. Purrazzo worked over James' back and later the arm, while James mostly kept going for the head. Purrazzo at one point kicked out of the Mickie-DT, which according to commentary had never been kicked out of. James kicked out of the Queen's Gambit, which we can confirm had never been kicked out of. At the end, James won with a tornado DDT.

Half of the crowd seemed somewhat upset after the finish, I wasn't upset, but I kinda disagree with giving the title to Mickie James here. Deonna Purrazzo's reign had been huge, she had been incredibly dominant, and if there is someone who doesn't benefit the slightest of beating her is Mickie James. Not to mention we actually have a really incredible and worthy challenger already lined up in Mercedes Martinez, who should really take the title.

Impact World Championship Match
Christian Cage (c) vs. Josh Alexander - 8.5/10
Match of the night, it was intense, hard hitting, and perfectly climax the story between these two. Impact built Alexander as a huge babyface finally reaching this point of his career, so Cage kinda had to heel it up a bit on the way here and during the match.

The match was about each guy working towards their signature move. Cage focused on the midsection, while Alexander initially focused on the head, but would later on switch to the leg. The match was well paced and escalated exactly to the point that Alexander locked in the final Ankle Lock, kept it throughout Cage's reversal attempts, then Alexander stepped on Cage's left hand, leaving only the right one for the tap out.

Post-match - Cage himself gave the title to Alexander before embracing. Alexander's family came up to the ring to celebrate with him, it was a really nice moment, but suddenly, Moose snuck up behind them and cashed in his Call Your Shot trophy, and so out of nowhere, we have.

Impact World Championship Match
Josh Alexander (c) vs. Moose - No rating.
No rating since this was really just a one move 'match', if we can even call it that. I liked the execution of this, they left a little open door to think that Alexander would had been able to take on a full match, but Alexander was making sure his family was safe when he got hit with Lights Out.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Good show overall, I didn't think any match was 'go out of your way to see' worthy, but the whole of the show itself delivered on all accounts. We had a lot of title changes, some new faces, some happy endings, and some surprises. This show also kinda marks the start of a new season for Impact, where they will not be in Nashville anymore, we'll get a new set of fresh fans and with that, we sometimes see new wrestlers rise, and I'm looking forward to that.
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