TNA Bound for Glory: What TNA did well and what they did poorly leading into the most important PPV in their history

Saturday, October 11 - 7:09 PM (CT)

-With tomorrow's TNA Bound for Glory pay-per-view on deck, I wanted to take this opportunity to point out the positives and negatives leading into the big show. Bound for Glory is the TNA version of Wrestlemania. They even number the event and this is the fourth installment of Bound for Glory. The World Wrestling Federation was coming off of their recording breaking event of Wrestlemania III and featured a 14 man tournament for their vacant heavyweight championship. Of course, Randy Savage won that tournament and held the title until Wrestlemania V.

-Beginning with the positive, TNA has done a fantastic job building the top two matches of this show. Samoa Joe vs. Sting and Jeff Jarrett vs. Kurt Angle with Mick Foley as the special enforcer, are two very intriguing matches. I cannot remember a time when I was more excited about seeing a TNA event and these two matches, especially Jarrett vs. Angle, are the reason why.

The buildup to Jarrett vs. Angle has been fantastic. Angles (no pun intended) often work best when there are elements of personal and emotional characteristics in the feud. This feud is very personal and at the same time, the in ring action should be beyond solid as well. Jason Powell and I discussed in our Dot Net Weekly show that Jarrett should lose this match and there should be some logical ring rust behind his two year layoff.

If done correctly, this feud could run for months and turn into something very positive for TNA and their creative team. Like Jason said, if Jarrett loses to Angle and keeps getting closer with each match, fans will clamor to see him finally get over the hump and defeat Angle. If Jarrett wins the match, it will add to the long list of wrestlers who come back after long layoffs only to win their first match. That is not realistic.

-Joe vs. Sting for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship will be an interesting match, in my opinion. However, I am not thrilled to see Sting in this main event. I would not mind seeing him in certain main events, but not in this one. Imagine someone headlining Wrestlemania who did little to no wrestling leading up to the event. Imagine that person being a part time talent.

I mentioned last week that I think Sting will win the title. Now, with the stipulation that there will be no rematch regardless of who wins, I think Sting will definitely win the title. The stipulation will give TNA an on screen excuse to keep Joe out of the title picture. Sting does not go on the road and TNA needs their world title to do so. I hope they go for twenty plus minutes with Joe going over emphatically. That would make me wrong in my prediction and I would be thrilled to admit being wrong in this case.

-The huge problem(s) I have with this show is the abrupt way the undercard was put together. This is the flagship event in TNA. Yes, they promoted the top two matches very well. However, they did not do a great job making this an overall strong show. Three of the top stars in the company, AJ Styles, Booker T, and Christian Cage were put into a match on the go home Impact show. That is ridiculous. WWE has done this in the past but that was the exception and not the rule.

TNA also added two other matches on Thursday's Impact. The matches on this show should be meaningful and borderline epic. Throwing matches together at the last minute makes the show seem like just any other pay-per-view or even an episode of Impact. I would really like to see TNA create a distinct booking plan a few months leading into Bound for Glory. That way, the buildup and actual show will look more planned and polished, thus making it seem more special.

-In conclusion today, Vince Russo should be ashamed of himself. I am also an old school Italian and while my parents and grandparents may have had defined gender roles, times have changed. On top of that, Italian men are very protective and respectful of their women. A professional Italian man would never make a comment like that about a woman in their life. Russo attributing his comments to being an old school Italian is offensive to me as an Italian and probably to most Italian people as well.