TNA Bound for Glory 2009

1) Amazing Red vs. Homicide vs. Suicide vs. Daniels vs. Chris Sabin vs. Alex Shelley – Ultimate X Match – 5
2) Taylor Wilde & Sarita vs. Madison Rayne & Velvet Sky – 1
3) Kevin Nash vs. Eric Young vs. Hernandez – 3
4) Booker T & Scott Steiner vs. The British Invasion vs. Team 3-D vs. Beer Money – Full Metal Mayhem Match – 5
5) Awesome Kong vs. Tara vs. O.D.B. – 3
6) Samoa Joe vs. Bobby Lashley – Submission Match – 4
7) Abyss vs. Mick Foley – Monster’s Ball Match (Special ref: Dr. Stevie) – 5
8) Kurt Angle vs. Matt Morgan – 5
9) Sting vs. A.J. Styles – 4

Unlike last month’s TNA pay-per-view, I wasn’t too thrilled with this show. While it looked good on paper, the marquee matches didn’t really deliver on a number of issues that I will discuss later on. Right out of the gate we get the Ultimate X Match. This seemed pretty much like every other Ultimate X Match that there’s been, lots of jumpy and flippy spots without really and rhyme or reason to them. Red did deliver a hurracanrana to the outside but cracked his head against Suicide’s shin on the landing. Homicide also attempted a very dangerous Koji Cutter type move off the cables on Suicide which ended with Homicide taking an ass first bump and Suicide taking a face plant. Daniels looked the best out of all the participants. When he wasn’t participating in a spot, he was selling the moves in the corner or on the floor, unlike the others who seemed like they just laid on the mat not doing anything while a spot was happening. Did I mention the fact that Red had to call Daniels over for a spot at one point? Sabin and Shelley did their usual double team offense but ended up being an afterthough as the match progressed. End saw Daniels, Suicide, and Red climbing on the giant truss when Suicide and Daniels had a serious crash and burn while standing on the cables which left Red open to grab the title. The women’s tag match was beyond terrible. It started off fine but took a serious nosedive when Rayne tagged in and the first move she delivered was a shitty dropkick. Velvet was very vocal in the ring but the Beautiful People tandem is still suffering from the loss of Angelina Love. Sarita delivered a terrible tornado DDT and tagged out. Taylor came in, threw some forearms, and Sarita perched herself on the top rope and had to motion for Velvet to come over so she could do her spot. Sarita accidentally kicked Taylor in the face on the fin. Terrible, just terrible. Thus far, the women’s tag titles are an awful idea.

Eric Young still takes wild bumps, as evidenced in the first 90 seconds of the three way match with Nash and Hernandez. Hernandez bull rushed him and he took and crazy ass bump over the top rope and all the way to the foot of the ramp, which ended up cutting the back of his head open. Nash looked in pretty rough shape and was barely mobile but still managed to throw some decent punches. Hernandez took a wild dive over the top rope onto Young while Nash just stood in the ring and gazed on. Young dropped a really crisp elbow from the top and pulled Nash’s straps down to tease the powerbomb. Young double crossed Nash by using Hernandez’s head as a nut-busting battering ram and then pinning him. Nash really had no business being in the match to begin with but I suppose he just had to get that pay-per-view payday. Before the full metal mayhem match, Doug Williams was talking backstage to all the other teams during a brawl and mentioned that Team 3-D competed in a full metal mayhem match at WrestleMania. Wait, what? I don’t remember one of these at a ‘Mania. Oh, wait, I think it was a TLC match he was referencing. Anyway, Booker did a stretcher job early on after Beer Money gave him the DWI and Storm stuffed him on the follow-up. See you on Smackdown, Book! After that Steiner goes on a crazy suplex barrage just throwing people around the ring without any care. Damn, he even busted out a frankensteiner on poor Doug Williams. Team 3-D was doing their usual stuff … you know, the “WAZZZUP” headbutt and the standard table spots but took some wild chair shots from Steiner. Steiner blatantly set up a table spot that even Stevie Wonder could’ve seen. Beer Money hit a nice double suplex spot and then Storm his a sunset flip off a ladder. The ladders were way too short to reach the belts as the Brits had to have help from their accomplice Rob Terry to retrieve the belts that were hanging off the Ultimate X structure. It should be noted here that by this point it was halfway through the show and TNA was forced to cram five matches into the remaining 90 minutes.

The women’s three way match was going at a good clip until the totally random bullshit with Tara and MMA fighter Kim Couture. Basically, the showed a quick clip of the brawl and then showed Tara walking to the back while Kong and O.D.B. just stood in the ring completely clueless as to what was happening. Once Tara returned, Kong knocked the shit out of her with a punch to the temple and a stiff powerbomb. O.D.B. showed some strength and actually lifted Kong for a samoan drop. Raisha Saieed came out and slid a chair into Kong who slid it back. This continued until O.D.B. dropped Kong face first on the chair. Good match until the Tara/Couture junk and the fin with Raisha. Now getting into the so-called “feature” bouts, where, because the show was running so late, each one of them was handcuffed by the time restraints that were mentioned above. Joe and Lashley meshed really well, even though the crowd was the complete opposite of what TNA tried to present. I’m not really sure as to why this was changed to a submission match the week before the show. I guess to coincide with the TNA vs. MMA theme they were trying to promote with the match. Joe had to wait on an elbow suicida since Lashley’s timing was way off as Joe was ready to bound off the far ropes. The match ended rather abruptly with the referee calling the match without even checking Joe, who was locked in a submission hold. Decent match and Joe seemed motivated in front of his hometown crowd. Lashley didn’t look too bad either.

Ton of issues with the monster’s ball. First, why do the giant bump through the stage during the first 90 seconds? Shouldn’t you work up to that spot? Next, Mike Tenay didn’t know the stipulations of the match on commentary because when Foley poured the thumbtacks out Tenay thought they were banned from the match. Taz had to correct him by saying that only Abyss was banned from using the tacks. Daffney ran down and there was a stupid tazer spot that failed because the tazer didn’t go off at the exact second Foley put it on Abyss. Taz quipped from ringside about the tazer being a pair of clippers. Huh? That doesn’t make any sense. Stevie takes a ref bump and a second ref runs down. Major screw-up here where Abyss was supposed to kick out but didn’t so the ref counted three and he kicked out anyway. Foley was taking barbed wire bumps that he really shouldn’t take anymore. The interference from Daffney continued until she was tossed off the top rop through a barbed wire board in a very sick bump. The finish was trademark Russo as Stevie took a tack bump courtesy of Abyss, who then dragged him over and made the count himself with Stevie’s hand. I enjoyed this match because of the chaotic nature and the barbed wire bumps but this wasn’t either man’s best match. Foley should stick to doing bad comedy on interviews and writing children’s books. Abyss should never speak again. And to think, this whole match was because Abyss messed up Foley’s prized cartoon drawing of him and Borash. That’s almost as dumb as Edge and Booker fighting over who got a shampoo commercial deal at WrestleMania 18.

Last two bouts were decent but nowhere really enough to recommend seeing. Angle and Morgan had a really good match with Angle bumping all around to make Morgan look good. Despite how much TNA has been pushing Morgan, I’m still note sold on him. He’s just a generic looking big dude with generic moveset. Plus, why is he called “the blueprint”? Is somebody building something based off of how he looks? Angle attempted a throw off the top but it ended up being all Morgan on the bump. These two worked really well together, much like Joe and Lashley, but didn’t take the match up to the recommendable level, even though it was the best match on the show. Crowd was totally pro-Angle, even though he was built up as the heel on television. Angle hit a really bad frogsplash off the top. Cool victory roll for Angle to take surprise win. Again, this was constrained by time because once this ended, there were only twenty minutes left in the show. Sting and A.J. had a main event feel during the ring intros but once the match got going, it lost its luster. Both guys hit their usual offense with A.J. taking a hard corner bump on a whip. Sting dented the guardrail when he went chest first into it. A.J.’s selling of the scorpion death lock was one of the best things of the whole match. His facials and vocals alone in the hold were great. Finish was very flat with a pele kick and a springboard splash? Wait, isn’t A.J.’s finished the springboard 450? If so, why wouldn’t he do it on TNA’s biggest show of the year? Overall, TNA promoted this as the biggest show in company history. Yes, you read that right … company history! Looking at it from that aspect, it failed miserably. Not too much memorable stuff from this year’s editiion, so you’d be safe to take a pass on this.