Bound for Glory Series Finals
Bully Ray vs. Jeff Hardy
The feeling going into this match was incredible. Bully Ray cut what was, in my opinion, the single greatest 
promo of his long, decorated wrestling career. Everything he said about respect, re-inventing himself and what he has accomplished in the industry rang true, and he delivered it with such conviction that you could see what looked like tears welling up in his eyes as he talked about becoming World Heavyweight Champion. And then to step out onto the ramp and say “now or never” to his long-time friend Taz, the whole moment was a picture-perfect set-up what could have been.
Unfortunately, what “could have been” turned into “what never was”, as Jeff Hardy fought his way into an unlikely victory. Don’t misunderstand me though. My disappointment comes from a personal preference for what I wanted to happen, not as any mark against the story TNA told tonight. Hardy winning, after all of Bully’s hard work and apparent 180-degree personality change, maybe have seemed anti-climactic. But the bait-and-switch by Hogan, throwing Bully’s character into question and asking to postpone the match until Impact was brilliant. Having Hardy man up and compete, despite his major injury, was brilliant. For the first time all night the crowd was incredibly hot for easily the most over man on the TNA roster. And that’s really the bottom line…
Jeff Hardy, love him or hate him, draws money for TNA. The fans love him everywhere they go, and headlining their biggest PPV of the year with Hardy vs. Aries is incredibly good business sense. Bully Ray, despite the loss, will still be featured prominently on the card. If anything he has more ability to lead (or fight) the Aces & Eights, being removed from the World Title picture. And if Jeff Hardy manages to win the Championship at Bound for Glory, the inevitable rematch between these two will have a great story already in the books.
Now, moving away from the “big picture” and back to the actual match. Hardy didn’t sell the effects of his injury near as much as I’d hoped. He spent a lot of time on the ground, getting “respect” beaten into him by Bully Ray, but there were few times I thought he adequately sold the specific injury to the shoulder in question. With so little range of motion available to the high flyer, I also found the match pretty repetitive. That’s why I’m actually hoping to get “round 2” in the future; these two could have put on such a better quality match.
Rating: 3/5
FINAL THOUGHTS
It’s easy to hate on the final match. It’s easy to say that Hardy winning took the meaning out of the Bound for Glory series, or that all TNA did building up Bully Ray was for nothing. It’s easy, much like the Impact Zone 
fans showed us tonight, to take a big poop on a great product, because it doesn’t meet our ridiculous expectations and pre-conceived notions of how the product “should” unravel.
Rise above the Impact Zone. Don’t be that terrible brand of wrestling fans that can’t get their head out of their rear ends long enough to enjoy something that was, when all is said and done, a really solid event. Above and beyond anything, TNA told a fantastic story at No Surrender. And for those just tuning into the Impact product, that maybe don’t follow the long-term story development, there was plenty of great wrestling to appease your ridiculous appetites.
Bound for Glory is just one month away. While we were in the dark on a lot of the major angles going into TNA’s biggest annual pay-per-view, we now know so much more. The Knockouts started their story towards a potential Championship match. I still figure Samoa Joe and Magnus will finally get to fight it out. James Storm and Bobby Roode will get one last bloody and brutal confrontation. Austin Aries will defend the World Championship against Jeff Hardy.
And the best part…? There’s still the entire Aces & Eights controversy to clear up. There’s still heat between AJ Styles and the World Tag Team Champions (of the World). So even though No Surrender may not have unfolded exactly as predicted, or even exactly as you wanted it to, TNA gave us a huge amount of story tonight to build up Bound for Glory. And they kept just enough on the table to make me tune into Impact Wrestling this Thursday night.
FINAL RATING: 8/10
The #1 wrestling company in the industry right now rolls into Phoenix next month, and it should be one hell of a show. How’s that for “Wrestlezone’s pro-WWE propaganda,” haters?
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