After a Untouchables-inspired video package highlighting TNA's main event scene, the show kicks off with an escape-the-cage X-Division Asylum match to determine the number one contender for Abdul Bashir's X-Division Championship. The participants included Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, Curry Man (Christopher Daniels), Jimmy Rave, Jay Lethal (still in his Black Machismo gimmick), Shark Boy, Sonjay Dutt, Johnny Devine, and Petey Williams. I was irritated before the bell even rang when Dutt and Lethal made their way to the ring and didn't immediately go at it. I mean, a month earlier, Dutt had stolen Lethal's fiancee. Seems like after a months-long feud, they wouldn't be able to even be within 100 yards of each other without coming to blows, but that was not the case. There were a few cool moments in this match - Curry Man press-slamming Sonjay into the corner, the Motor City Machine Guns getting to deliver some tandem offense, an excellent Tower of Doom spot, even Johnny Devine nearly paralyzing Jimmy Rave - but it was hard to really keep track of and, at times, felt like everyone was just standing around doing nothing and not actively trying to climb the cage to win the match. Action-packed but hard to follow at times and generally "substance-less," a bit like one of those Transformer movies. Lethal's victory didn't feel particularly earned, it was more like he just happened to escape before anyone else could or did. (2.5/5)
Backstage, Mick Foley does a segment with Jim Cornette and then The Beautiful People. Foley had arrived in TNA sometime between the last pay-per-view and this one and would be the Special Enforcer for one of tonight's main events later on.
Back to the ring we go for a 6-person tag: Angelina Love, Velvet Skye, and Kip James taking on the team of Rhyno, Rhaka Khan, and ODB. Traci Brooks is the guest referee for this match, though its unclear why beyond her just "looking hot" in a ref uniform. I was surprised how much man-on-woman violence we saw in this. It wasn't a whole ton or anything, but even just Rhyno applying an arm bar onto Velvet Skye and then hiptossing her is more than you would often get in the WWE back then or even today (though, to be fair, Chyna did actively compete against men in the late 90s). Rhyno eventually won by countering a Fameasser into a Gore, which was a neat finish. This felt like it belonged on TV, not a PPV. I'm also becoming increasingly less impressed with ODB and her shtick as I've seen more of her work. Seems kinda one-note. I'm not surprised Rhaka Khan's career didn't really go anywhere as she was really green here and did not show much promise. (1.5/5)
Things improve slightly with the next match as Consequences Creed challenged Sheik Abdul Bashir (Daivari) for the X-Division Championship. Bashir was absolutely jacked at this point, clearly on the gas. The jingoism is laid on super thick for this match as Creed is welcomed to the ring by a military officer/veteran. Creed (aka Xavier Woods) shows flashes of the energy and excitement he brought to the New Day, but his gimmick is paper thin and feels like something you'd see on an indie show at the state fair. The best spot of the match was Creed delivering a guerilla press slam-into-double knees and I wish they would've just finished things there as the crowd would've popped huge for it. When Bashir rolls up Creed and uses the ropes for leverage, it doesn't happen at the climax of the match and doesn't feel like its been "worked towards" at all. Not terrible, but not good. (2/5)
We get another backstage segment with Foley because, well, TNA had seemingly given him a nice fat contract and needed to justify it by using him at every possible moment on this show...
Taylor Wilde defended her Knockouts Championship against Awesome Kong and Roxxi in the next bout. The pre-match video had me hyped for this, but then they didn't get nearly enough time to actually tell the story that they had just talked about. Roxxi was billed as somewhat of a "hardcore" underdog but because this was inexplicably fought under traditional rules, we don't get to see what makes her special or what would conceivably make her a threat to the champion. Awesome Kong got in one incredible move (a huge crossbody), but didn't the spotlight she deserved and was taken out of the match after just 5 minutes in very unconvincing fashion. Wilde got a clean pin on Roxxi with a nice german suplex. They simply didn't have enough time to build a real story here, which made everyone, especially Roxxi, come across as weak. A real shame. (1/5)
AJ and Foley are backstage but Styles gets interrupted by Team 3D, who then cut a promo on Foley all about their 20 title reigns. These segments would've been more interesting, to me at least, if they actually went somewhere and weren't just an excuse for guys to do their usual shtick.
Time for tonight's TNA Tag Team Championship Match - Beer Money defending the gold against Abyss and Matt Morgan, LAX, and Team 3D in a Monster's Ball match. This style of match is something of an "Abyss Special" as he had participated in all 5 of the previous editions and would participate or at least appear in every Monster's Ball match for the next decade plus (as far as I know, he did not have any role in the Rosemary/Jade Monster's Ball match in 2017). Anyway...Mongo McMichael is the special guest referee and he not only looks awful here, but he might be the worst special guest referee in the history of the business. It is almost comical how out-of-position he is for every single pin attempt and when he does make his way down to the mat, his count is about twice as long as it should be (to the point that even the commentators can't really cover for him and the wrestlers look genuinely pissed). There are some wild hardcore bits in this match - Devon blades early, Abyss goes through a flaming table - but we see absolutely none of the action going on around the ring or in the crowd, the cameras really only focusing on one part of the action at a time. This makes it feel less like a war and more like a coordinated stunt show where various participants are essentially taking water breaks while the other guys perform some crazy move. The fire spot is tremendous and Abyss deserves a ton of credit for taking it, but the match loses steam afterwards because nothing can really top it, even LAX and Beer Money performing some strong old school tag team wrestling in the center of the ring. There's a slight hiccup when Hernandez can't get the bag of tacks to open and Mongo has to help him out. Whoops. This leads to the final bump, which is really lackluster, as Hernandez gets Death Dropped through a table with tacks spread on it and Beer Money steal the victory. The combatants worked very hard to overcome Mongo's poor reffing and an overall bad layout, but there were enough cool moments - including Matt Morgan planting his foot in one of his opponent's faces, Beer Money and Mongo doing a fun football act in the middle of the match, and, ofcourse, the fire - to make it at least slightly above-average. (3/5)
The next match was a triple threat between AJ Styles, Christian, and Booker T. This match was a prelude to the swiftly approaching Main Event Mafia storyline (if I'm not totally off) with the story being that Christian was caught in the middle between factions of ex-WWE guys and TNA's homegrown talent. In any match from around this time, AJ Styles is going to bust out an incredible move and, in this one, it is a ridiculous backflip over Christian into a dropkick that is so beautifully done you can see people in the crowd literally pop out of their seats to cheer it. Unfortunately, the rest of the match is just okay, only really good when its Christian and AJ in the ring. The finish is a little sloppy-looking and the crowd could not give less of a care about the winner as he was easily the least impressive and least over guy in the match. Styles pushed this is into passable territory practically single-handedly. (2.5/5)
Jeff Jarrett vs. Kurt Angle followed. This was a really hot angle because of how much reality there was to it and we hadn't even yet come to the part where Jarrett started dating Karen Angle, which, based on what I could dig up online, had not yet started by this point. Still, Angle brings Jarrett's daughter into things and Jarrett paints Angle as desperate to return to WWE when his contract runs out. This was also Jarrett's return to the ring after a "two-year hiatus" (really just short of a year-and-a-half) caused by his wife's battle with cancer. Anyway, I really liked how this started out as a straight-up wrestling match even if the crowd was underwhelmed by it. Both guys "got their shit in" without anything being too contrived to my eye. I did not like how they milked every nearfall, though, and the crowd didn't bite on any of them, likely because, as Mick Foley was special guest ring enforcer, you knew that there was going to be some sort of controversial finish or ref bump, which is exactly what happened. I didn't like that Angle blasted Foley dead-on with a chairshot to the head but then Foley basically recovered in under a minute. By this point, because the WWE had mainly stopped with chairshots to the head and TNA had also stopped doing as many, it looked genuinely vicious and should've been sold for longer. Foley survives it, though, and comes into the ring to help Jarrett get the win after blasting Angle with a guitar. I liked the action when it was just a straight-up battle between Angle's strength and Olympic-style wrestling versus Jarrett's crafty pro-'rasslin style, but then this went off the rails with the overdramatic nearfalls and the overbooked finish. (2.5/5)
Main event time - Samoa Joe defending the TNA World Championship against Sting. Mike Tenay notes that Sting has won the TNA World Championship at two previous Bound for Glory PPVs, though I'm not sure if he was actually undefeated at these events. Much of the crowd is behind Samoa Joe, which is interesting because he sorta works the match on the somewhat heelish side as he dominates most of the action. I'm not a huge fan of the "WWE main event style" they went with for this match, though it is obvious that Sting was already fairly limited in what he could in the ring and brawling around the arena does usually keep the live crowd engaged. This is the match where Samoa Joe takes a ridiculous bump by performing a dropkick down the concrete arena stairs. Joe pulls the move off - I think the camera work makes it seem like he lands back-first directly on a stair but it seems that he actually lands on something of a "landing" space, though it is still straight-up concrete - but that doesn't mean it was a wise one to perform or that it makes any sense. Sure, it shows how far he is willing to go to beat Sting, but, by that point, he was in full control anyway. When they do get back in the ring, we get both guys no-selling each other's finisher theft, another element of this match that rubbed me the wrong way. Then we get the finish and the predictable Kevin Nash "swerve." At the time, reviewers were much kinder to this match than I'm going to be. (2/5)
With an overall Kwang Score of 2.13-out-of-5, the 2008 edition of Bound for Glory is not a recommendable show. The main event isn't very good, Jarrett and Angle is decent but suffers from a weak finish, and only the tag team match is above average.
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver
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