TNA Bound for Glory Results: 10 Things We Have Learned

As we emerge from Bound For Glory, TNA Wrestling's biggest pay-per-view of the year, and gaze at the carnage, wrestling fans will undoubtedly wonder just where America's No. 2 promotion goes from here.

Indeed, this lively, newsworthy event gave us plenty of indications about the creative direction in the upcoming months. We also have a fair idea of which stars have fallen out of favour with the booking team and which wrestlers will likely be the recipients of huge pushes. 

With this in mind, here are the top 10 things we've learned from action-packed event, which took place in Philadelphia... 

There's a New Knockout in Town

With her towering mohawk, edgy punk clothes, and bewildering array of tattoos and piercings, former Shimmer wrestler Christina Von Eerie looks like she just wandered out of a Stieg Larsson novel and is about a million miles away from the ultra-feminine Barbie-doll divas that make up the women's roster in WWE.

She's guaranteed to stand out amongst the knockouts too. While the KOs used to be celebrated for being a diverse, eclectic group (ODB, Daffney, Awesome Kong, etc) in recent years they've turned into a group of girls almost as generic as the divas (are Traci and Velvet having a contest to see who can get the most ridiculously large fake boobs or something?)

On tonight's event, the newly signed Von Eerie who, per Tazz on commentary, is now going by the name "Toxine" in TNA, played the role of manager to babyface tandem Ink Inc. as they took on the tag team champions of Hernandez and Anarquia (Mexican America) in a heated, grudge-fueled title match that the promotion has been building for several weeks.

Ultimately, Shannon Moore and Jesse Neal (who is Von Eerie's real-life boyfriend, by the way) came up short and lost after Hernandez caught Neal with a cheeky school boy roll up. Nonetheless Von Eerie (who made her TNA debut on last Thursday's iMPACT ) managed to make quite the impression, even with her limited screen time. 

The aggressive valet attacked Team America's villainous female manager, Sarita, and dramatically unmasked her, before brutally slamming her. In a hilarious moment, she also pantsed Anarquia. 

Granted her new name is awful (did the same team who were behind NXT season 2's names come up with that? Toxine!? It sounds something geeky teenagers use to cure their acne problem). But this girl has spunk. In fact, we reckon this feisty, highly unconventional knockout is just what TNA's stagnant KO division needs right now. 

TNA Are Getting Fully Behind Austin Aries

The charismatic, talented Austin Aries has been on fire since returning the TNA as part of the promotion's attempt to rejuvenate their flagging X division over the summer. After winning a contract at Destination X, Aries became the coolest heel in TNA (sorry, Ric) and had fans eating out the palm of his hand wherever he went. Indeed, he was even heavily cheered at this event, going against babyface Kendrick.

However, TNA seemed almost reluctant to use the indie veteran to his fullest potential. Perhaps it was his lack of size or WWE experience (really, other than his WWE experience, why is the dreadful Brian Kendrick getting such a big push?) no one is quite sure.

Regardless of the reason, it appears TNA's booking team have finally laid their doubts to rest about Aries, rewarding the reigning champ with a clean victory (thanks to a brilliantly executed brainbuster superplex) over perennial foe Kendrick in their very-good opening match. 

TNA Are Still Determined to Push Crimson

He's not over, lacks personality, can't really wrestle, gets into embarrassing Twitter squabbles with wrestling journalists and these days is resembling WWE's spoof character Gillberg rather than the actual Goldberg (who his gimmick and winning streak angle was obviously patterned after); but nonetheless, the push of the achingly generic Crimson (real name: Tommy Mercer) continues unabashed, as evidenced by his victory in his triple threat match with Matt Morgan and Samoa Jobber, sorry, I mean Samoa Joe.

To make matters worse, the supposed babyface Crimson (who won after hitting the spear on Joe) was booed heavily by the fans in attendance after his victory, Oh, dear.   

The Knockouts Division Is Still All About Karen Jarrett

Oh, come on: you didn't think TNA would focus on their actual (GASP!) female wrestlers in their four way  match for the Knockouts Championship, did you? What nonsense! 

Indeed, as soon as the bitchy Karen confronted long-suffering assistant Traci in a backstage segment early in the show, and dramatically announced that she would be the special guest referee for the women's bout later on the evening, any hopes of the KOs in TNA finally managing to move out of Karen's shadow were dashed. 

Sure enough, Velvet Sky emotional KO title win (her first run with the belt) was overshadowed by the Karen-related shenanigans in the bout, as Karen bitched and moaned at the babyfaces before getting taken out of commission courtesy of some of Winter's ridiculous fake blood (everyone's favourite ghost lesbian vampire had been aiming for Mickie, but ended up squirting it in Karen's eyes instead).

Oh, and then Traci ran in and counted the three after Velvet pinned Madison Rayne, awarding her the belt.

Are we sure Russo still isn't in charge of creative?

Judging by Karen's threatening words to Traci beforehand (she warned her assistant not to get involved which, this being TNA, meant she got involved) no doubt this will be a focal point of this week's iMPACT as the utterly awful, soul-sapping Traci-Karen feud continues and eclipses anything new champion Velvet will do.     

While the photogenic Karen is a lively, heat-garnering performer, her performance as VP of the Knockouts has only hindered the already struggling division. She berates the women, degrades them, bosses them around horribly and the end result of all this is supposed to be...well, what, exactly? 

Let us not forget: Karen is a non-wrestler and can barely take any bumps. There are a limited number of things you can do with her. She's not going to wrestle or be able to take her comeuppance in the form of a beatdown from one of the babyface women. Making her such a focal point of the division is clearly a mistake, and, certainly, her overwhelming presence did not help this match.    

We think, for the good of U.S women's wrestling, it might be time for Daddy Jeff to put his foot down and send Karen back to the ranch in Tennessee. Or wherever they live ("TNAfounderville?").

Mr Anderson May Get over as a Babyface After All

Despite loud complaints from fans and critics that Anderson has been a whiny, annoying babyface on iMPACT in recent months, his gusty, compelling performance against Bully Ray in tonight's Falls Count Anywhere match may have gotten him back on the right track.

An extremely physical match, full of high risks and jaw-droppingly dangerous bumps, this was one of the highlights of the inconsistent undercard. Anderson bravely took a ton of punishment, including being smashed into the guardrail, taking a terrifying-looking piledriver onto the floor and getting Bubba bombed through a table.

By the looks of his face at the end of his match, he likely broke his nose, too. Man, TNA should hope Chris Nowinski never sees this match. Nonetheless, he emerged triumphant thanks to a last-minute Mic Check on Bubba through the table. 

Notably, the fans, who had been heavily booing the Green Bay native when the match began, turned a corner on him by the end and were loudly cheering him, appreciating his effort. On this night, at least, he got the fan approval he must have been craving.  

Now, if only he could stop being so whiny and annoying...

Jeff Hardy Still Has a Lot of Work to Do to Repair His Image

In the middle of Bound For Glory, an enraged Jeff Jarrett, TNA founder, came to ring and called out Jeff Hardy. Lambasting Hardy for his reckless, irresponsible behaviour, the veteran wrestler claimed no-one in TNA wanted the troubled wrestler back in the company. Let's face it, this probably true.

But because Hardy is booked as the face now, we're supposed to forget that heels Bischoff and Jarrett are actually making extremely valid points when they tell Hardy he is unfit for a main event role in any major promotion, and boo them for having the nerve to call out his outrageous behaviour. 

Well, never one to turn down a challenge, Hardy stormed to the ring to answer Jarrett and defend his God-given right to act as crazy and stupid as he wants.

Notably, "The Charismatic Enigma" debuted his new theme here, too. The theme, which is performed by the musically-challenged Hardy and apparently called "Resurrection," was maliciously unleashed on innocent fans in the arena (for God's sake, there were children there!) 

Somehow, the "song" (and I use that term loosely) managed the near impossible task of being even worse than his previous ear-bleeding self-performed themes "Modest" and "Another Me." Jeff is lucky that making terrible music is not a crime, otherwise his ass would be right back in the slammer.

As soon as he got to the ring, he engaged in brawl with Jarrett which saw the two bitter foes brawl through the crowd (at one point, a sign saying "Hardy Get Us High!" was spotted).

This was supposed to be deeply heated no-holds-barred brawl, but regrettably went on for far too long and the fans weren't terribly bothered about it, either. Hilariously, when road agent (and former WWF wrestler) D'Lo Brown emerged from the backstage area to separate the two , he got a very loud "D'Lo" chant from the fans in the arena, who were extremely excited to see him.

In fact it was more of a reaction than either Hardy or Jarrett had gotten up to that point. D'Lo hasn't been a regular on television now for almost 10 years, by the way.  

Judging by this lukewarm segment and the decidedly tepid fan reaction to him, Hardy has a lot of work to do before he is an established, respected TNA star again.

The "I Quit" Stipulation for Christopher Daniels vs. AJ Styles Was a Bad Idea

While the hard-working Daniels and Styles managed to churn out a decent "I Quit" match at Bound For Glory, the bout did not come close to living up to expectations. Possibly because a garbage, weapon-filled match does not play to either man's strengths, this match came off as rather messy and over-scripted.

Indeed, any attempts the two made to come off as more brutal and realistic failed horribly and veered into eye-rolling melodrama. Daniels addressing AJ's wife, by manically screaming"Wendy! Wendy!" and then instructing her to take her kids out of the room because "Daddy was about to get murdered" was a low point. 

Besides, Daniels making the (probably incorrect) assumption that someone had actually bought and was watching a TNA pay-per-view, Daniels melodramatic claim that he was going to commit actual murder were so cheesy and silly they ruined what was supposed to be a serious match.  

While Styles emerged victorious from the brawl, he was brutally attacked by an enraged Daniels right afterwards, indicating this program isn't over. If it is to continue, hopefully the stipulations will be kept to a minimum.

Hulk Hogan Still Has a Tremendous Amount of Star Power

Despite his advancing years and deeply messed up back, wrestling icon Hulk  Hogan still managed to deliver in his match with Sting at the pay-per-view. 

While the match wasn't good by any technical standards (and, certainly, no one was expecting worn-down, physically wrecked wrestlers like Sting and Hogan to churn out a competent grappling bout) Hogan's charisma and star power shone like a beacon in the match, more than making up for his flaws, as he took on his perennial foe Sting.

The match was smartly booked to compensate for both men's shortcomings and Hogan impressed many by taking what must have been three hugely painful bumps during the duration.  

Despite going into the bout a weaselly heel and losing to the scorpion deathlock, Hogan still emerged as a hero after turning face and helping save Sting from a post-match beatdown by Immortal. Indeed the highlight of the show may have been the fans in attendance vociferously cheering as Hulk ripped off his shirt and rushed to Sting's aid. It was almost like the '80s again.

While Hogan is still greatly limited in what he can, and is certainly not someone TNA can build their promotion around (although they'll probably still try), his performance here was fantastic and a reminder of how good he was...and still is.  

Russo's Influence Still Hangs over TNA

Seriously; with Bruce Prichard's promotion to head of the TNA creative team, you didn't think the days of nonsensical storylines and counterproductive booking were over...did you? 

Oh, you naive fools. 

Like a monster out of a bad B movie horror, Russo will not be stopped. He will keep coming and coming. He cannot be bargained or reasoned with. He does not feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until he has driven away every single TNA fan. 

With news of his recent demotion, many long-frustrated TNA fans were filled were hope that TNA booking would do a drastic turnaround and start, you know, actually making sense.

Certainly, TNA's flagship show Impact was being booked a lot better these past weeks, and there was good reason to hope things would change permanently.

Unfortunately, many of those hopes may have been dashed at the pay-per-view. While Bound For Glory was a good wrestling pay-per-view by any standard, it was also an event marred by run-ins, ref bumps, fake blood, insider storylines,women screaming at each other, long brawls in the crowd and people turning left and right.

Heck, in what may have been a first for wrestling, we even saw a referee turn face!

While it is only one pay-per-view, and who knows what direction iMPACT will go in come Thursday, it's becoming increasingly difficult to shake off the feeling we were clinging to false hope and that nothing much has actually changed in TNA.

Indeed, to play the conspiracy theorist (sorry, R-Truth) is it possible that Russo's "demotion" was simply Dixie's way to take the heat off her good friend, and that company man Prichard was instilled as head of creative with the understanding that he would have an extremely laid-back approach to being head of the writing team and continue to let Russo (who still writes the show every week) generally do what he wants? 

Yes, in true Russo tradition, it is very possible we have all been swerved.

TNA May Lack Faith in Bobby Roode

Despite strong fan support, a great build up (with some outstanding video work from the TNA production team) and deeply impressive in-ring performances, Beer Money member Bobby Roode still came up short in his attempts to relieve Kurt Angle of his TNA Title after being hit with an Olympic Slam out of nowhere.

Is this building for a rematch? Possibly. Although going by the rumors than Kurt was fighting real-life injuries going into the match, and looked like he probably hurt himself worse here, it is far from certain that will ever happen.

The ending was also a let down for many fans who were heavily expecting Roode to emerge victorious after one of the greatest build ups for a title challenger in recent memory. For all intents and purposes, this was Roode's time. 

For them, the shady and abrupt ending, was puzzling and a huge anti-climax and makes them wonder why TNA were reluctant to pull the trigger on the up-and-coming star.

But, hey, it is easy to see why TNA would have second thoughts about Roode.

He was never in WCW. He was never in WWE. He's not over 50. He's not a complete physical wreck. He doesn't phone it in and earn millions of dollars for doing virtually nothing.  He's never been arrested and had a stint in jail. He behaves himself backstage. 

He doesn't make embarrassing YouTube videos of himself tasering women. He's never come to the ring impaired. He doesn't collect DWIs like Pokemon cards. He churns out terrific wrestling performances on a consist basis.

Man, no wonder TNA didn't think they could build the company around him!