Bound For Glory 2012: 10 Years Later

[chazraps]

The culmination of what many consider TNA's best week-to-week period: 6 months with Bruce Prichard on top and Impact was white hot can't miss television. The biggest show of the year with stories going into every single match - marred in retrospect with some downright cursed choices.

I'm making this thread as, since the tenth anniversary just passed, I'm watching and and was blown away by how great the first hour was.

Zema Ion vs RVD is a top-5 if not higher match that RVD had in the company.

Samoa Joe vs Magnus is excellent and really made both look like main eventers.

James Storm vs Bobby Roode in a Street Fight was a super satisfying conclusion to a one year feud with an actual worthwhile use of King Mo.

Was super enjoying it until immediately after the match we cut to...

a 4-5 minute Joey Ryan backstage promo, followed by Joey Ryan vs Al Snow where the conclusion is Matt Morgan saves Ryan and aligns with him. Just absolutely cursed.

I'm still mid-watching this show but wanted to bring it up as we were all very high on TNA at the time. What are your memories of this show?

[BorneAgain]

Overall a solid show and its a pity that Impact would not hit anything close to this quality for a long time.

Honestly AEW could do a lot worse than borrowing the BFG concept series for TV. the 2012 version had smart booking for the participants, made matches feel important, and gave people a reason to invest in paying attention week to week. Its the gold standard for any American company that's done a Round Robin Tournament.

[chazraps]

Chavo/Hernandez vs Angle/Styles vs Daniels/Kazarian was excellent. Crowd hated the winner, but ten years later in a vacuum this match is really good. Chavo's run would have been remembered really differently if the company didn't lean so hard into him being "a legend who is one of the greatest of all time" and instead just let Chavo be Chavo, one of the best of his generation.

Recap of the Tara vs Tessmacher feud is really strong too, looking forward to this match - and then they cut to the TNA British Bootcamp finalists in the front row and A PRE-VILLAIN MARTY SCURLL! THIS SHOW IS CURSED! CUUUUUUUURSED!

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

TNA was so f***ing good at this point

[chazraps]

So, I finished the show and there was so much good still left to go.

Tara won and brought out Jesse from Big Brother for the start of the "my celebrity boo" angle - I forgot just how awesome their chemistry was and how both leaned into the "he's hollywood's biggest star" delusion perfectly. Really entertaining stuff.

Then Sting & Bully Ray vs Aces and Eights - maybe the last super compelling twist in this was the reveal of D-Von as an Aces and Eights member as D-Von had "left the company" earlier that month to the point where Meltzer and all the sheets believed it was real, so him being revealed as part of Aces and Eights was a legit shock. People who weren't watching TNA at the time I recall being critical as on paper that doesn't seem like a big deal, but by all credible account D-Von was *gone*-gone.

Really good brawl too, Sting and Bully had surprising chemistry together. Only thing in retrospect that's weird about it is in the montage where the Aces and Eights leader was just a silhouette - you can tell it's Bully Ray by the ears. Maybe it's because we've seen what his ears look like in caps so much in the decade since, but the man has distinctly shaped ears.

Finally we come to Jeff Hardy vs Austin Aries. Knowing about Aries' numerous sexual assault allegations makes enjoying his matches not possible for me. The positive thing I'll say about this match though is that of all Jeff Hardy's redemption stories he's had across three or four major promotions now - this one really was the best. Aries still being a hot babyface played the tweener part just right without going too heelish, and Jeff stayed refreshingly humble but focused in the lead up.

Like I said, because of real life Aries I can't enjoy the match, but Hardy's celebration after felt really well deserved and satisfying. A believable feel-good story for the closing moment of the biggest show of the year. Were there a lot of, at best, debatable choices with Hardy's reign following this moment? Absolutely and they start just about immediately. However, in terms of just the moment itself, Hardy winning on top was absolutely the right call.

If someone could make a phantom edit of the event and cut out all the sex pests, it'd really stand as a classic you'd want to revisit. Overall glad I watched it as the majority of the show at least aged well and it's the best TNA ever was, as well as shows that a Bruce Prichard without Vince can make a pretty great few months of wrestling programming.

[A Platypus Rave]

Iremember a lot of people critical of the D-von reveal because most of the hype around it was based around revealing the leader of Aces and Eights! and then it was D-von...

maybe they changed the wording on the show.. but it was definitely advertised as the leader being shown. Regardless they quickly just made D-von a member instead of the leader which was a smart pivot.