TNA Impact preview (October 1, 2014): Bound for Something

Previously on Impact Wrestling

If you're a fan of self-contained episodes of pro wrestling shows, last week's Impact was probably a pretty satisfying experience.  Despite some weird mixed signals in how it was promoted by the company and Spike, Kurt Angle's set-up was straight-forward: five one-on-one matches.  The winners of each contest would advance to a five-man, one fall to a finish bout contested under tag rules.  The winner of that would have a shot at any TNA title, whenever he wanted it.

The longest and probably best of the preliminaries was the opener, which saw MVP outlast Low Ki in order to back-up his pre-match bravado about being the baddest man in New York City.  Robbie E got a lot of time to hype his role on the Emmy Award-winning reality competition The Amazing Race with his real-life girlfriend Brooke "Ms. Tessmacher" Adams, but he was able to prove himself Inter-BRO-national, falling to Tajiri via pinfall.

We were reminded about ongoing storylines outside of the Gold Rush tournament, such as The Wolves victory in their World's Best Tag Team series, Bobby Roode's failure to win the World title from Bobby Lashley, Gail Kim's ongoing issues with HAVOK and Ethan Carter III' turning on Spud, in between matches.

Rebel, Crazzy Steve and The Freak reminded us that The Menagerie is still a thing, as the accompanied Knux to his match with Austin Aries.  Their support wasn't enough to get the big man over the hump though, and A-Double advanced via Brain-Busta.

Their matches didn't get quite as much in terms of build or video packages, but that didn't stop Mr. Anderson and Abyss from re-asserting themselves on the scene - the Asshole with a victory over former World champ Magnus, and the Monster with one over rising star Samuel Shaw.

And then is was all down to Anderson, Abyss, Aries, Tajiri and Montell Vontavious Porter.  They made the most of the fifteen or so minutes they had left, and after some green mist took care of the Monster, the remaining players traded moves until the Greatest Man Who Ever Lived was able to duck MVP's shining wizard and roll him up for a future title shot.

TONIGHT

I will confess to being really confused about what was taped when, and where.  I think tonight is still coming from New York, but will once again have to point you to the internet search engine of choice for actual spoilers.

Aries is no stranger to cashing in title shots, and he won't keep us in suspense about his latest one.  A-Double will announce who he's challenging with as a result of his Gold Rush victory tonight.  I still think it'll be weird if it's anyone other than Lashley, but I'd forgive that for a matchup against X-Division champ Samoa Joe, I suppose.

Knockouts champ Gail Kim will finally deal with the threat of newcomer HAVOK in an official bout, when she defends her title tonight against the woman who defeated every other female on the TNA roster for the opportunity.

The other wrestling match confirmed for tonight sees Army veteran Anderson challenging MVP for his disrespect of Chris Melendez a few weeks back.  Other than that, they've announced more announcements.  Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards will reveal the stipulation for the last match in their series against Team 3D and the Hardys, and Bobby Roode will address the TNA Universe as to where he goes after his loss to Lashley at No Surrender.

Expect to pop for:

Gail Kim is no stranger to this section of our Preview, and this match should be sick:

The heat is on:

Bound for Glory. Keith Harris has provided us with the somewhat underwhelming news that what was once TNA's WrestleMania will this year be a Wrestle-1 show with some TNA talent on it.

I try to stay off of both the LOLTNA and "this company is doomed" bandwagons, but this is a bad look.  Having a One Night Only indy supercard type-show, or a packed Impact that's subtitled with the name of a former pay-per-view (PPV) is one thing.  Turning what is most likely to be the last chance to hype the promotion before it lands on a new network into something that feels like nothing better than either of those things is another all together.

The more TNA tries to hype BFG like it's anything like what it was in the past, they more they draw attention to their current state, too.

Can they do anything on Impact to get us excited for Bound for Glory?

Tune in tonight for what will hopefully be a good-to-great Knockouts match and see what they're building to beyong that with your fellow Cagesiders in our open thread for the show!