TNA Bound for Glory Review - October 10, 2010

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

TNA World Tag TEam Champions The Motor City Machine Guns def. Generation Me

There is always talk about how underutilized The Young Bucks were during their tenure in TNA as Generation Me, and while that is true, I did love their series of matches with The Motor City Machine Guns over the tag titles in the second half of 2010. This was the perfect opener to the show as it was all action and the crowd ate up all of it. There wasn't much of a semblance of a story told throughout, mind you, but as a match, it was a ton of fun.

Tara def. Angelina Love, Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne in a Four Corners Match to Win the Knockouts Championship (Mickie James Served as Special Guest Referee)

By today's women's wrestling standards, this match would be considered trash, and although this wasn't very good at several points, it was a bit better than most of the matches we were seeing from the women at that time. It was weird that it was a four-way given Love and Sky were allies as well as Rayne and Tara, but Tara winning was seen as a surprise because she was supposed to help Rayne capture the championship. Mickie James, who had just debuted in the company, didn't make her presence felt until afterward when she laid out Rayne.

Ink Inc. def. Orlando Jordan and Eric Young

On the go-home edition of Impact before Bound for Glory, Jordan and Young beat Ink Inc. in tag team action before Young had the decision reversed because he witnessed Orlando cheat (he was seemingly doing a mentally challenged gimmick at the time). Thus, that was why this match happened. It was fine for what it was and served as comic relief coming off the first two matches. Needless to say, the right team won.

X-Division Champion Jay Lethal def. Douglas Williams

Lethal and Douglas had a handful of matches over the X-Division Championship that fall and this was easily the best of the bunch. It's a shame this program wasn't given a ton of time to develop on TV because it could have been great for the X-Division, but I enjoyed this for as long as it lasted and the final few minutes were especially excellent. Afterward, Lethal was attacked by Robbie E, who was fresh off his debut on Impact days earlier, so that was a pretty notable first feud for him in the company.

Rob Van Dam def. Abyss in a Monster's Ball Match

I remember a majority of this feud being pretty lame, but RVD and Abyss definitely delivered when it mattered most with this matchup. They made awesome use of the extreme stipulation by going all out with weapons and beating the living hell out of each other. Abyss hasn't had many matches that were memorable for the right reasons over the years, but this was a real treat. It was weird for Abyss to lose after all of the "They" talk, but that reveal would be saved for later in the show.

Kevin Nash, Sting and D'Angelo Dinero def. Samoa Joe and Jeff Jarrett in a 3-on-2 Handicap Match

This was originally supposed to be a six-man tag team match with Hulk Hogan teaming with Joe and Jarrett, but in typical Hogan fashion, he had to pull out at the last minute due to back surgery. The match likely would have been throwaway anyway, but this was even worse because the crowd couldn't have cared less and the heels (Nash, Sting and Dinero) ended up being babyfaces by the end once Jarrett walked out on Joe. Let the record show that Nash and Sting emerged victorious despite no longer being under contract to the company following this event.

Team 3D Challenged TNA World Tag Team Champions The Motor City Machine Guns

It was strange that Team 3D were left off TNA's biggest card of the year, but at least they left an impact (no pun intended) by announcing their retirement as a team. It should be noted that while Team 3D would retire the next month, Brother Ray and Devon went on to do their own thing in singles competition. The crowd was behind them during this announcement and this set up a marquee match with them taking on The Motor City Machine Guns at No Surrender.

Ev 2.0 def. Fortune in a Lethal Lockdown Match

Almost every member of EV 2.0 (a.k.a. the ECW Originals) was past their prime by this point, so I was pleasantly surprised by how solid of a match this was. I credit most of that to Fortune, who were fantastic together and all had strong performances. The Lethal Lockdown concept has never been my favorite, but it was well executed here. I could have done without the old-timers winning, but they had lost so much in the build-up to this that they were due a big victory eventually.

Jeff Hardy def. Mr. Anderson and Kurt Angle in a Three-Way Match to Win the TNA World Heavyweght Championship

Everyone knew that "They" would play a factor in the finish to this match, so from the get-go, fans in attendance had their guard up for interference. They still bought into some of the nearfalls during the bout, and all three men contributed to this being a quality championship main event, but it went downhill as soon as Eric Bischoff emerged. Hogan followed suit, paving the way for Hardy going heel and winning the title. It was a swerve no one saw coming, sure, but what was the logic in turning the company's biggest babyface heel? It also closed yet another Bound for Glory pay-per-view on a sour note, though it did make viewers want to tune in on Thursday to see what would happen next.

Overall Show

This was the first TNA pay-per-view I ever watched live, so it was nice to relive it in its entirety on the new Global Wrestling Network. By and large, it was an above-average event from an in-ring standpoint with a healthy undercard and two titles changing hands, as well as a few cliffhangers, but some of the same old TNA booking decisions were made and this might have been the peak of it. I recommend checking out the event, but be prepared to say "LOL TNA" to yourself while watching.