TNA Bound For Glory 2011
TNA Bound For Glory (10/16/2011)- Philadelphia, PA
TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Austin Aries(c) vs. Brian Kendrick- 7/10. GREAT opener. Nice of Taz to acknowledge Aries’ time in ROH.
KAREN & TRACI BACKSTAGE- the stuff with the kids was dumb but at least it was short. The rest of this segment was good, though.
FULL METAL MAYHEM: Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn- 7.25/10. Great build up to everything in this match, with the violence slowly escalating. I was really only thinking 7.5 until the finish. It just came off so well, to the point where it looked like Jerry was legit knocked out, so I gave it a 7.75... then Jerry got up and he and RVD were all buddy-buddy again… despite the fact that NOTHING WAS SOLVED. Lynn lost! He didn’t get to prove that he was better than RVD like he said he would. As a result (and the way this took away from Jerry’s awesome selling of the finish, I bumped it back down. Another factor that contributed to me lowering the rating was the way that the match meshed with the angle they are doing (or, rather, the fact that it didn’t). This feud was about Jerry Lynn being angry that RVD has always overshadowed him, and that promoters only hire him to put him in the ring with RVD so that RVD can have a good match. Jerry is angry that the focus is all on Rob. The problem is that this match, too was all about Rob. It was mostly Jerry countering RVD’s signature spots or RVD hitting his signature spots. I don’t think that Jerry got any of his signature spots in (or even teases for them) other than the Tornado DDT and the Sunset Flip Powerbomb. Where were the Cradle Pildedrivers? Where were the Senton Body Blocks off of the apron? Where were the TKOs? They didn’t really even do any of the signature sequences that make you think of RVD vs. Jerry Lynn... they only did the RVD spots.
MATT MORGAN vs. SAMOA JOE vs. CRIMSON- 5.25/10.
BULLY RAY PROMO- very good
FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE MATCH: Bully Ray vs. Mr. Anderson- 8.25/10. Great stuff here. Very brutal. Taz was also extremely good here, using his changes in tone and volume to help signify importance, and covering up the botch at the end.
BISCHOFF AND HIS SON BACKSTAGE- GREAT! Props to them for doing this segment, as it retroactively makes Jackson James a heel, rather than an incompetent, and eliminates a major logical hole over the past year.
I do, however, have a problem with this “secret camera” style. Why are we cutting back to this guy in the first place? He’s not getting an interview or anything… so why are we cutting to this camera?
TNA KNOCKOUTS’ TITLE MATCH WITH KAREN JARRETT AS THE SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Winter(c) (w/Angelina Love) vs. Mickie James vs. Velvet Sky vs. Madison Rayne- 4.25/10. Not too good. The finish was good, the angle wasn’t well developed at all, and thus, the finish didn’t have the feel that TNA wanted it to (something like Frightmare vs. Lince Dorado from CHIKARA’s Young Lions Cup VIII: Night 3).
I QUIT MATCH: AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels- 7.5/10. I really enjoyed this as a No-DQ’s match, but the finish felt very flat (although it does leave you with the impression that maybe this isn’t over)… well… that was quick. Good aftermath!
JEFF JARRETT & JEFF HARDY SEGMENT- belonged on Impact. Nice to hear D’Lo get cheers, though.
NO DQ’S CAREER VS. CONTROL OF TNA MATCH: Sting vs. Hulk Hogan (w/Ric Flair)- DUD! (initially… for my final rating, see below)
Before I give you my reasoning for the rating, I am going to go out and say this: With the way this whole angle has been written, this match should have been the main event. They spent months and months talking about how important the World Title is because of the power it gives you within the company. Sting and Kurt Angle both wanted the World Title because of the power it gave them. It has been portrayed as just one piece in the larger struggle for control of the company. For that reason, the match for the World Title should have gone on before the match for control of the company.
To start off with, this match wasn’t well worked (which we knew it wouldn’t be) and it wasn’t exciting at all (which all held out some hope it might me). If you can’t work well, you should put all of your focus on the storytelling/crowd-working aspect of the match. Can we get a false finish in here, please? If this is Hogan’s last match, there is absolutely no reason why we can’t have Sting kick out after a leg drop! It’s a No DQ’s match with a biased referee… have the referee try to fast-count the babyface and slow-count when the heel is getting pinned. Then, once the babyface has had enough, have him punch the referee out! Guaranteed to get a pop. I’m sure everyone would have liked to see Bischoff eat a Scorpion Death Drop, or Sting use his baseball bat or just… SOMETHING! There was very little drama here, and nothing to pop for.
Then we get to the things that either didn’t make sense or didn’t work. First of all, Hogan and Flair kept trying to hide their cheating… why? It’s a No DQ’s match! Sting didn’t hide it when he used the weapon. And if this match is No DQ’s and is so important… why not have the rest of Immortal interfere?
Finally, we come to the giant pink and black elephant in the room. We have a heel who desperately wants to not only get out of this match without taking punishment, but who also needs to win it… and we have a biased referee: You would think that the answer would be obvious here to heels as devious as Hogan, Bischoff, and Flair. The first thing that happened in the match was that Hogan locked Sting in a submission… why not just have the ref ring the bell and screw Sting?
And now, the stuff that didn’t work: Most importantly, the atmosphere was not there. TNA was hoping for Rock vs. Hogan or Rock vs. Cena. They wanted the kind of atmosphere where you have two LEGENDS facing off, and each person cheers for their favorite… which was, in part, the atmosphere we got. The problem is that doesn’t make sense given the angle! This needed to be Hogan vs. Sting from Starrcade 97. That Evil Dastardly Jackass Heel Hulk Hogan vs. Sting The Super Babyface Who Is Going To Save The Company On Behalf Of All Of The Great Fans Who Love And Support It. This wasn’t a clash of the titans: This was Good vs. Evil… and the atmosphere didn’t reflect that at all.
Another major thing that was missing was Eric Bischoff. Sting’s thought process all summer seems to have been “If I can get Hulk back in the ring, I can get him to remember how awesome it feels to be cheered, and I can get him to remember how much the fans love him and how much he loves them, and then I can get him away from Bischoff who takes the good nice man that is Hulk Hogan and is an enabler for Hulk to do mean things and turn into the evil Hollywood Hogan.” Because of this, Bischoff should have been out here for this match.
Then, of course, there is how crappy this whole angle has been in the first place. A court of law determined that there was no wrongdoing on Hogan’s part, and the fault for losing control of TNA rests solely on the shoulders of Dixie Carter for being an idiot. If a court of law (as well as most viewers sitting and watching at home) have determined that Dixie doesn’t deserve the company back and has no right to it… then I’m not going to care about Sting’s crusade to give her control of the company back!
Ohh… COME ON! I T\thought it was over! But now it just gets WORSE!
AFTERMATH- ONCE THE SUPER-IMPORTANT NO-DQ’S MATCH IS OVER, only then does the rest of Immortal decide to come out with steel chairs, and they and Flair beat Sting down. Then, the heel referee whom we didn’t care about until about an hour ago randomly decides to turn babyface AFTER THE MATCH (rather than, you know, during it, when he was helping the heels cheat).
Then Hogan predictably turns face, and the 58-year-old man who has just been through a slightly violent match which ended when he was put into a submission that does a lot of damage to his back, which he has had numerous surgeries on over the past few years... beats up a bunch of younger, stronger, healthier, larger men who have had a lot more experience fighting in the past few years that Hogan has! And to make this even stupider from a booking and production POV… this all happens AFTER we get a camera shot of one of the babyfaces most-likely to want to fight Immortal (Abyss) just standing there doing nothing!
So, all of these things considered, then adding in the fact that this was the semi-main event at TNA’s biggest PPV of the year… Stupidity, bad working, bad storytelling, a bad atmosphere, bad booking, and all of the predictable things in this match were just plain disappointing, combined with equally bad aftermath all add up to give this match a rating of -10! Utter sh*t. Throw-garbage-in-the-ring quality bad!
TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Kurt Angle(c) vs. Bobby Roode- 8.75/10. I would have given it a 9, but the finish pissed me off SO MUCH. During this match, I was actually thinking to myself “wow, we have only had one dirty finish all night, and that was done in such a way that it was obviously going to be very important to multiple angles in Knockouts’ Division. Maybe TNA is turning over a new leaf.” Then we got THIS.
Overall, the show was actually very good, but Sting-Hogan disaster combined with the finish to the main event leaving a bad taste in my mouth hurt it. It was definitely worth seeing though, and probably worth buying. Also, this show is rare in that Taz was definitely on tonight. His few jokes were almost all actually funny, and he was extremely insightful.
Stupid Announcer Quotes:
1. Tenay couldn’t identify the weapon Hogan used on Sting (neither could I. I’m not faulting Tenay for this). What I am faulting him for is the following: Hogan then went over to the referee (for some reason) and said quite audibly and clearly “you tell him the next time he messes with me, I’ll knock his damn teeth out.” Then Tenay says “He said he used a spike to the head of Sting.” Never mind the fact that this was quite clearly NOT what Hogan said… but he and Flair were trying to HIDE the foreign object from the referee (although I’m really not sure why, since this is a NO DQ’s match). Why the hell would Hogan go over and TELL THE REFEREE THAT HE USED A WEAPON?!
TNA X-DIVISION TITLE MATCH: Austin Aries(c) vs. Brian Kendrick- 7/10. GREAT opener. Nice of Taz to acknowledge Aries’ time in ROH.
KAREN & TRACI BACKSTAGE- the stuff with the kids was dumb but at least it was short. The rest of this segment was good, though.
FULL METAL MAYHEM: Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn- 7.25/10. Great build up to everything in this match, with the violence slowly escalating. I was really only thinking 7.5 until the finish. It just came off so well, to the point where it looked like Jerry was legit knocked out, so I gave it a 7.75... then Jerry got up and he and RVD were all buddy-buddy again… despite the fact that NOTHING WAS SOLVED. Lynn lost! He didn’t get to prove that he was better than RVD like he said he would. As a result (and the way this took away from Jerry’s awesome selling of the finish, I bumped it back down. Another factor that contributed to me lowering the rating was the way that the match meshed with the angle they are doing (or, rather, the fact that it didn’t). This feud was about Jerry Lynn being angry that RVD has always overshadowed him, and that promoters only hire him to put him in the ring with RVD so that RVD can have a good match. Jerry is angry that the focus is all on Rob. The problem is that this match, too was all about Rob. It was mostly Jerry countering RVD’s signature spots or RVD hitting his signature spots. I don’t think that Jerry got any of his signature spots in (or even teases for them) other than the Tornado DDT and the Sunset Flip Powerbomb. Where were the Cradle Pildedrivers? Where were the Senton Body Blocks off of the apron? Where were the TKOs? They didn’t really even do any of the signature sequences that make you think of RVD vs. Jerry Lynn... they only did the RVD spots.
MATT MORGAN vs. SAMOA JOE vs. CRIMSON- 5.25/10.
BULLY RAY PROMO- very good
FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE MATCH: Bully Ray vs. Mr. Anderson- 8.25/10. Great stuff here. Very brutal. Taz was also extremely good here, using his changes in tone and volume to help signify importance, and covering up the botch at the end.
BISCHOFF AND HIS SON BACKSTAGE- GREAT! Props to them for doing this segment, as it retroactively makes Jackson James a heel, rather than an incompetent, and eliminates a major logical hole over the past year.
I do, however, have a problem with this “secret camera” style. Why are we cutting back to this guy in the first place? He’s not getting an interview or anything… so why are we cutting to this camera?
TNA KNOCKOUTS’ TITLE MATCH WITH KAREN JARRETT AS THE SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Winter(c) (w/Angelina Love) vs. Mickie James vs. Velvet Sky vs. Madison Rayne- 4.25/10. Not too good. The finish was good, the angle wasn’t well developed at all, and thus, the finish didn’t have the feel that TNA wanted it to (something like Frightmare vs. Lince Dorado from CHIKARA’s Young Lions Cup VIII: Night 3).
I QUIT MATCH: AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels- 7.5/10. I really enjoyed this as a No-DQ’s match, but the finish felt very flat (although it does leave you with the impression that maybe this isn’t over)… well… that was quick. Good aftermath!
JEFF JARRETT & JEFF HARDY SEGMENT- belonged on Impact. Nice to hear D’Lo get cheers, though.
NO DQ’S CAREER VS. CONTROL OF TNA MATCH: Sting vs. Hulk Hogan (w/Ric Flair)- DUD! (initially… for my final rating, see below)
Before I give you my reasoning for the rating, I am going to go out and say this: With the way this whole angle has been written, this match should have been the main event. They spent months and months talking about how important the World Title is because of the power it gives you within the company. Sting and Kurt Angle both wanted the World Title because of the power it gave them. It has been portrayed as just one piece in the larger struggle for control of the company. For that reason, the match for the World Title should have gone on before the match for control of the company.
To start off with, this match wasn’t well worked (which we knew it wouldn’t be) and it wasn’t exciting at all (which all held out some hope it might me). If you can’t work well, you should put all of your focus on the storytelling/crowd-working aspect of the match. Can we get a false finish in here, please? If this is Hogan’s last match, there is absolutely no reason why we can’t have Sting kick out after a leg drop! It’s a No DQ’s match with a biased referee… have the referee try to fast-count the babyface and slow-count when the heel is getting pinned. Then, once the babyface has had enough, have him punch the referee out! Guaranteed to get a pop. I’m sure everyone would have liked to see Bischoff eat a Scorpion Death Drop, or Sting use his baseball bat or just… SOMETHING! There was very little drama here, and nothing to pop for.
Then we get to the things that either didn’t make sense or didn’t work. First of all, Hogan and Flair kept trying to hide their cheating… why? It’s a No DQ’s match! Sting didn’t hide it when he used the weapon. And if this match is No DQ’s and is so important… why not have the rest of Immortal interfere?
Finally, we come to the giant pink and black elephant in the room. We have a heel who desperately wants to not only get out of this match without taking punishment, but who also needs to win it… and we have a biased referee: You would think that the answer would be obvious here to heels as devious as Hogan, Bischoff, and Flair. The first thing that happened in the match was that Hogan locked Sting in a submission… why not just have the ref ring the bell and screw Sting?
And now, the stuff that didn’t work: Most importantly, the atmosphere was not there. TNA was hoping for Rock vs. Hogan or Rock vs. Cena. They wanted the kind of atmosphere where you have two LEGENDS facing off, and each person cheers for their favorite… which was, in part, the atmosphere we got. The problem is that doesn’t make sense given the angle! This needed to be Hogan vs. Sting from Starrcade 97. That Evil Dastardly Jackass Heel Hulk Hogan vs. Sting The Super Babyface Who Is Going To Save The Company On Behalf Of All Of The Great Fans Who Love And Support It. This wasn’t a clash of the titans: This was Good vs. Evil… and the atmosphere didn’t reflect that at all.
Another major thing that was missing was Eric Bischoff. Sting’s thought process all summer seems to have been “If I can get Hulk back in the ring, I can get him to remember how awesome it feels to be cheered, and I can get him to remember how much the fans love him and how much he loves them, and then I can get him away from Bischoff who takes the good nice man that is Hulk Hogan and is an enabler for Hulk to do mean things and turn into the evil Hollywood Hogan.” Because of this, Bischoff should have been out here for this match.
Then, of course, there is how crappy this whole angle has been in the first place. A court of law determined that there was no wrongdoing on Hogan’s part, and the fault for losing control of TNA rests solely on the shoulders of Dixie Carter for being an idiot. If a court of law (as well as most viewers sitting and watching at home) have determined that Dixie doesn’t deserve the company back and has no right to it… then I’m not going to care about Sting’s crusade to give her control of the company back!
Ohh… COME ON! I T\thought it was over! But now it just gets WORSE!
AFTERMATH- ONCE THE SUPER-IMPORTANT NO-DQ’S MATCH IS OVER, only then does the rest of Immortal decide to come out with steel chairs, and they and Flair beat Sting down. Then, the heel referee whom we didn’t care about until about an hour ago randomly decides to turn babyface AFTER THE MATCH (rather than, you know, during it, when he was helping the heels cheat).
Then Hogan predictably turns face, and the 58-year-old man who has just been through a slightly violent match which ended when he was put into a submission that does a lot of damage to his back, which he has had numerous surgeries on over the past few years... beats up a bunch of younger, stronger, healthier, larger men who have had a lot more experience fighting in the past few years that Hogan has! And to make this even stupider from a booking and production POV… this all happens AFTER we get a camera shot of one of the babyfaces most-likely to want to fight Immortal (Abyss) just standing there doing nothing!
So, all of these things considered, then adding in the fact that this was the semi-main event at TNA’s biggest PPV of the year… Stupidity, bad working, bad storytelling, a bad atmosphere, bad booking, and all of the predictable things in this match were just plain disappointing, combined with equally bad aftermath all add up to give this match a rating of -10! Utter sh*t. Throw-garbage-in-the-ring quality bad!
TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Kurt Angle(c) vs. Bobby Roode- 8.75/10. I would have given it a 9, but the finish pissed me off SO MUCH. During this match, I was actually thinking to myself “wow, we have only had one dirty finish all night, and that was done in such a way that it was obviously going to be very important to multiple angles in Knockouts’ Division. Maybe TNA is turning over a new leaf.” Then we got THIS.
Overall, the show was actually very good, but Sting-Hogan disaster combined with the finish to the main event leaving a bad taste in my mouth hurt it. It was definitely worth seeing though, and probably worth buying. Also, this show is rare in that Taz was definitely on tonight. His few jokes were almost all actually funny, and he was extremely insightful.
Stupid Announcer Quotes:
1. Tenay couldn’t identify the weapon Hogan used on Sting (neither could I. I’m not faulting Tenay for this). What I am faulting him for is the following: Hogan then went over to the referee (for some reason) and said quite audibly and clearly “you tell him the next time he messes with me, I’ll knock his damn teeth out.” Then Tenay says “He said he used a spike to the head of Sting.” Never mind the fact that this was quite clearly NOT what Hogan said… but he and Flair were trying to HIDE the foreign object from the referee (although I’m really not sure why, since this is a NO DQ’s match). Why the hell would Hogan go over and TELL THE REFEREE THAT HE USED A WEAPON?!