TNA Bound For Glory 2025 Review | Mike Santana WINS TNA GOLD, Hardys RETIRE The Dudleys! - Solomonster Sounds Off

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, what's going on, guys? It is a Sunday night,
a rare TNA pay per view recap. You know, I
kicked off the year with TNA Genesis, actually the very
beginning of the year, and we got to see Joe
Hendry win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship for the first time.
We thought he might win it last summer. They dragged

(00:21):
it out, and they dragged it out, and finally he
was able to win the big one. And then I
bought Slammiversary with the hope that we might see Mike
Santana do the same thing. They were at the UBS
Arena on Long Island here in New York, Mike Santana
in his home state, a lot of friends, a lot
of family there. They didn't do it. Trick Williams remains

(00:43):
the TNA World Heavyweight Champion. And so now we head
into what we had tonight, the biggest TNA show of
the year, traditionally bound for glory, their big event of
the year, Mike Santana one on one with Trick Williams
trying to not just win his first world champion in TNA,
but also bring the gold back home where it belongs,

(01:05):
not on an NXT Star. Right, he's trying to rescue
the championship. This was going to be his big moment.
And when I think of Mike Santana, there's just there's
so much there, because when I think of Mike Santana,
I think of someone who lost fourteen years or fourteen years,
fourteen months. I'm sure to him it felt like years,

(01:28):
fourteen months of his career to a torn acl that
he suffered in blooding guts. This is a man who
battled his demons. He went to rehab, right, he had
a lot of personal struggles in his life, and he
comes back and he doesn't want to settle, you know,
he wants to take a chance and bet on himself.

(01:49):
He wants to break out on his own because he
believes in his head and in his heart that he
can do things on his own that some people probably
told him would never be possible because you're a team wrestler, right,
You'll never be a world heavyweight champion. You can't be
a single champion. You're a tag team guy. And he
felt that he could do more than that. So he

(02:10):
had a sure thing and he said, I don't want
to do this anymore, and he left aw to bet
on himself and go out on his own. And I
could tell you that in House of Glory he had
the chance to be a world champion and show the
world what he can do. He had the chance to
go in there against big names that we would bring
in every single month. Right line him up, I'll knock

(02:33):
him down, and the resume the portfolio of work of
matches that he put together in that time that he
had that championship five hundred and fifty four days as
the House of Glory World Champion. Heard Tom Hanifin give
a shout out to Hog tonight. The history that he
has in that promotion and the work that he put
in as the world champion is what helped prepare him

(02:53):
for this moment tonight where he was in the main
event of this show, challenging for a champion for one
of the biggest companies in the entire country, a company
that currently has a partnership and an ongoing relationship going
with WWE, and he is now the TNA World Heavyweight Champion.
Mike Santana finally got his moment that maybe some people

(03:16):
thought he would never have, and it was a great moment.
His family was there, his daughter was in the front
row bringing his daughter into the ring and handing her
the championship. It was a great moment, and I am
glad that TNA did the right thing. I don't know
that there was ever any dabt. It always seemed as
if this was kind of foregone. This had to be

(03:36):
Santana's moment, because again Bound for Glory last year, they
didn't put the title on Joe Hendry. They dragged it
out until Genesis this year, so who's to say they
wouldn't have done the same thing. I'm glad they did.
The fans there in Lowell, Massachusetts, it might not have
been New York, but they were very happy to see
Mike Santana win that championship. I could have done without

(03:57):
the silliness there after the match, which we'll get into.
But that wasn't the only emotional moment on the show
seeing him win that championship. There was another match on
the show, and you know I talked about John Cena
and AJ Styles just yes, there's so much fucking wrestling.
I just did a review yesterday for Crown Jewel and
we had John Cena and AJ Styles, and I mentioned

(04:19):
that it felt like the end of an era in
many ways, because these two men came up around the
same time, and here we are now, you know, all
these twenty plus years later, and now Scene is retiring,
and AJ's retiring, and ton of Hashi's retiring in a
few months, and it really does feel like the passing
of the guard, and you know, the end of an era.

(04:39):
Tonight felt like the end of an era. We got
two of these moments in the same weekend, because tonight
we had the Hardys and we had the Dudleys and
what they called one Final Table where the Hardys were
putting all of their championships on the line, TNA Tag
Team titles, NXT te well not all of them, I guess,
but TNA Tag Team titles and the XT Tag Team

(05:01):
titles that they just won from Dark State on Tuesday Night.
And they went out there tonight. And there may be
some divided opinion about the match itself in terms of
the quality of the match or the way the match ended.
I can tell you the what I thought we got
tonight from these two teams was the best that they
had to offer, because these are two teams that ushered

(05:23):
in an era of wrestling, and maybe they have some
regrets about that era of wrestling. They ushered in the
era of the TLC match, the tables, the latters, the chairs,
the crazy bumps and all of the injuries in agony
that come with it. They were wearing them on their faces.
They were wearing you could see the battle scar just
in the way they were moving around. Tonight, I was

(05:45):
watching Devon Dudley, you know, wrestle his last match tonight.
That's what he has said before that this was going
to be it. And I'm watching Devon and just you
know how he was moving. He's had his health issues.
He almost lost his life, you know, a very serious
situation withvon in the last few years. He's lucky to
be alive, and he's in the ring and he's moving
very gingerly, but you know what, he's hitting all of

(06:06):
his high spots. He's giving everything he's got. Bully Ray
right doesn't move around the way he did ten twenty
thirty years ago, but he's in there giving everything he's got.
And the Hardy's right now are on this expedition of gold.
They have found this renewed success, winning championships all over
the place. One of the top attractions in TNA and

(06:26):
we'll see where they end up, because supposedly their contracts
are up next month and we don't know what their
future holds. But they went out there tonight and they
gave you everything they got. You know, they laid it
all on the line, or on the table, as it were.
I thought what we got from them tonight was a
good match. It was the best possible match that you

(06:47):
could have expected from these two teams. And then we
got a very emotional moment when the match was over
where the Dudleys unlaced their boots and removed their boots
and and them to Matt and Jeff Hardy, signifying the
end of the Dudley Boys. And what a more fitting
end to the Dudley Boys than to hand their boots

(07:08):
off to one of the teams that they had some
of their greatest matches and most memorable matches with, and
they all shared and embraced in the ring. If you
remember the end of an Era match at WrestleMania many
years ago, the Hug on the stage in Miami with
Undertaker and Triple H and Sean Michaels and they, you know,
they're all embracing and they're looking at at the crowd,

(07:29):
the Hardy's and the Dudley's had their own moment like
that tonight here of Bound for Glory, and I'm glad
that it was able to happen on a s I mean,
it may not have been WWE where they had all
those TLC matches, but you know, they had a lot
of fans in the building and a lot of eyes
on this show tonight, and I'm glad they were able
to do something like that on that kind of a stage.

(07:50):
Twenty five years later, twenty five years ago this year
is when we have the first TLC match, a very
appropriate ending, i think, to the career of the Dudley Boys.
We had an absolutely sensational X Division Championship match on
this show with Leon Slater and Javan Evans marred by

(08:13):
one of the worst finishes that you will ever see
to a match like this on supposedly this company's biggest
pay per view of the year. You would watch the
finish of this match and think that this match was
airing on an episode of Impact or NXT. It's hard
to reconcile just how great that match was and how

(08:33):
fucking god awful the finish of that match was. Here tonight.
But that being said, it was still an awesome match,
and as far as my overall thoughts of the show,
there were some mind boggling booking decisions in the Call
Your Shot Gauntlet that we'll talk about, and then what
I just mentioned in the X Division Championship match, and
even the silliness that came after the main event when

(08:56):
Nemath came out and Kazarian and it was just that
was completely necessary what they did there at the very
end of the show. That being said, they sent the
show home the right way with those last two matches.
They did the right thing. We got some big moments
out of it. When it was over, I felt like
it was thirty four to ninety five. For me, it
was thirty four to ninety five well spent on this show.

(09:17):
I enjoyed this show on the whole, despite some of
the silliness and some of the questionable decisions. We also
had a quick cameo by the returning Chris Bay. It
was great to see Chris Bay on the show. He
didn't get the kind of reaction I was kind of
expecting or hoping he might get when he walked out there,
but they sent him out there to announce that TNA

(09:37):
tonight set their new North American attendance record. They claimed
of seven thousand, seven hundred ninety four fans in Lowell,
Massachusetts for this show. I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to
see the turnstyle count on that before I can verify this.
That's what we need now in wrestley. We need to

(09:58):
see the turnstyle camp or else it doesn't count. It's
not official. This is your TNA Bound for Glory twenty
twenty five review. I am the Solemn Monster. Thank you
guys for hanging out with me. Aren't a rare TNA
Sunday night stream. This is TNA's biggest show of the year.
I had to see Mike Santana win that championship tonight,
and I really wanted to see that Javon Evans Leon

(10:21):
Slater match, and I'm excited to talk about that a
little bit later. On my second Leon Slater match of
the weekend, I got to call his match with the
Amazing Red on Friday Night. One of the great young
shining stars in wrestling today is Leon Slater and Javon
Evans too, so that's why I was looking forward to
that match. Like and subscribe super chats are open. If

(10:43):
we get any that come in, any questions comments about
the show, you will see them pop up on your
screen and I will be reading them a little bit
later on here in the stream. So let us not
waste any time. Let me do you just mention that
episode nine thirty three of the sound Off, all two
hours of it, dropped earlier this afternoon, So if you
have not yet had a chance to listen to the podcast,

(11:05):
I do hope that you will do so tomorrow morning.
It'll be there waiting for you in your Spotify, your
Apple Podcasts, or however you get your shows. But please
go ahead and check that out. And the Crown Jewel
review is up as well from yesterday. Tom Hannifin and
Matthew ray Wall as usual, they handled the commentary for

(11:26):
this show. I'll just mention real quick. They had a
pre show and on the pre show they had some
Hall of Fame inductions and they had a modest setup
for the Hall of Fame. It was in the arena.
They had a small podium in the back of the
arena with enough fans behind them that it kind of
looked filled in and Tommy Dreamer inducted the beautiful people

(11:48):
into the Hall of Fame, and they had Lisa Marie Verone,
the former Victoria or Tara in TNA, former Knockouts Champion,
who actually walked out with the original belt, the original
version of the Knockouts Championship. She did the induction for
Mickey James and Mickey's speech. I would say Mickey's speech

(12:10):
was probably around ten minutes or so. They were very
economical with the Hall of Fame speeches, probably because they
had a pre show match to get to. I would
have just in that case, I would have given a
little more time to the speeches and just you know,
ditch the pre show match. But in her speech, Mickey
James actually gave a shout out to one cm Punk

(12:31):
because Mickey in her early days in TNA was part
of the same faction with Cmpunk. They were part of
a little group called the Gathering, which was only together
for a few months back in two thousand and three.
Raven was a part of that group as well, so
she did give a shout out to them. That pre
show match, by the way, had the inspiration retaining their

(12:53):
Knockouts tag team titles over the Elegance brand. Today's episode
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(15:04):
we got into the main card and the main card
opened with Steve Macklin challenging Frankie Kazarian for Kazarians TNA
International Championship. Macklin came out first and he had a
moment with his mom, who was in the crowd at ringside,
and she would actually end up becoming a small part
of this match. A little bit later on. Kazarian's entrance followed,

(15:29):
and Macklin hit Kazarian with the suicide dive, then he
rolled him into the ring. The referee called for the bell.
Kazarian came back and hit a sunset bomb that pulled
Macklin from the apron hard to the floor, and there
was no Oh, let me hold on to the rope
for a few seconds and then I'll let go. No, no, no,
He just fucking took him down to the mat and

(15:49):
slammed him on the floor outside so again, Kazarian went
over to taunt Macklan's mother in the crowd, and Macklan's
mom stood up and she flipped him the double bird
right to the man's face. This woman had no fear
and she was proud of it too. She had a
smile on her face when she did it. I like this, lady,

(16:12):
I like this lady. We've moved on from Trent's mom
to Macklan's mom. That's the new thing now. So late
in the match, Kazarian paid tribute to AJ Styles with
a Pelle kick, as AJ did to him just yesterday
at Crown Jewel. AJ used the fade to black or

(16:34):
you know the Hangman page dead eye, but Kazarian did
it first, and so this was Kazarian, I guess paying
it back to Is this gonna be the new thing
now where wrestlers are just going to do each other's
moves and they're going to just pay tribute to each
other back and forth every week. So anyway, he paid
it back to AJ Styles. He also did the Christopher
Daniels Angels Wings as AJ did in his match with

(16:56):
John Cena yesterday. Kaz And set up for a fade
to black from the middle row, but Macklin avoided it.
Macklin got Kazarian in the Tree of Woe, hit a spear,
and then Macklin followed up with the Kia double Underhook
DDT the Drew MacIntyre future Shock for those who don't know,

(17:18):
and he won the championship and after the match, Carlos
Silva entered the ring. This was a This is a
pattern on all of these TNA shows. Carlos Silva will
always get into the ring to present the champion with
their title when the match is over, and so this
was the first of many times that we saw him
doing this on this show. He got into the ring,
he presented the belt to Macklin. Macklin went over and

(17:40):
kissed his mom at ringside, and they both flipped the
bird to the camera because why not. I know, if
I won the championship, that's the first thing I would do.
I would flip off everybody watching in TV land. Good
to know that he has that kind of relationship with
his mom where they have that in common. I thought
it was a solid opener. They opened with a title change.

(18:02):
I think the I just noticed as far as the arena,
the Songest Center in Lowell, Massachusetts is where they were.
I thought it looked good on TV. It looked good.
You can see, you know, empty seats in the crowd,
but you know it was mostly full. I just liked
the aesthetics. I just thought it looked nice and it looked,

(18:22):
you know, big time for a TNA pay per view.
I mean, they weren't in like a huge arena or
anything like a big dome or anything. But I liked it.
I liked the look of the show. I liked the
isleway they had. I think they put more seats in,
so they sort of they may have actually downsized the
staging in the aisleway a little bit to accommodate more fans.

(18:42):
But again they claimed that they set their new North
American attendance record. I know Wressell Ticks had mentioned they
were up around sixty three or sixty four hundred seats.
They ended up announcing seventy seven hundred, So maybe the
truth is somewhere in the middle. But for TNA, that's
a lot of people. Now, after this, we had Tessa
Blanchard with Victoria Crawford, the former Alicia Fox in her

(19:08):
corner against Ga Miller, who entered with Jody Threat in
her corner. The same Jody Threat who is likely going
to lose her championship in Winnipeg next weekend to one
Mercedes Monette when Mercedes wins title number eleven. But that's
next weekend, that's October nineteenth, So Jody Threat was in

(19:30):
her corner. Now, for those who don't know, gam Miller
has been an interviewer in TNA now for about five years.
She does wrestle independently, but I believe this was I
believe her first match in TNA, or at least one
of the few that she's had in the last five
or six years in this company. She's an interviewer. She's
an announcer and interviewer. This is not a spot that

(19:52):
you would usually find her in. But there was an
angle that they shot going back to Slammiversary with her
and Tessa Blanchard where she attacked Ga Miller and as
a result, Santino Morella suspended Tesla Blanchard, and remember it's Slammiversary,
she had to physically be removed. She was carried out
of the building and we had not seen her since. Now.

(20:16):
As far as the reason why Tessa disappeared for a
few months and has only just recently re emerged, we
got our answer today from one Tessa Blanchard herself on
her YouTube channel, because she posted a video letting everybody
know that the reason that she was missing for the
past three months is that she got a boob job.

(20:39):
Here you go. She said it was something that she
had been thinking about for a long time and she
decided to go ahead and do it. The new one,
improved Tessa Blanchard, Roderick says, eleven. When did she win
number ten? Roderick, you got to keep up with the
times man. Mercedes won her tenth championship and tied Ultimo

(21:01):
Dragon this past Friday in Denmark. So she is now
ten belts Monet, and next weekend she will be eleven
belts Monee, and after that she will be twelve belts Monee.
Because the train keeps going, the train is not going
to stop. It's the way it goes. You know. Indy

(21:25):
Hartwell is the reigning HG Women's World champion. Mercedes beat
Indy in House of Glory back in March. Don't tell
Mercedes this though. So Blanchard was very nonplus with Gia's
offense earlier. She clearly was not taking this woman seriously.

(21:47):
Blanchard offered her a headlock, which she took, but Tessa
quickly escaped. Blanchard turned her back and Gia got a
quick cradle for a near fall. And at that point
Tessa stopped screwing around and started taking things a little
more seriously. She supplexed her on the stairs outside, then
she beat her up in front of her family at ringside.

(22:09):
Back in the ring, Blanchard distracted the referee so that
Victoria Crawford could get a shot in, and Crawford interfered
right in front of the referee, who ejected her. So
security tried to escort Crawford away. She was being resistant
to this, and Tessa tried to intervene. So then Jody
Threat came off the top rope with a cannon ball
and took everybody out. Threat then chased Crawford to the

(22:32):
back and that was the last we saw of them
for this match. Miller made a comeback. She hit a
thees press and a monkey flip blanched. She monkey flip
Blanchard out of the corner. She went for a crossbody
and she missed pretty badly. She mostly got Tessa's legs

(22:52):
and Tessa sold it anyway, got a near fall. Miller
walked into a boot and blanched work her over with
right hands in the corner, and so then Miller countered
by locking up Blanchard's arms and hit her with a
straight head butt. Miller got Tessa up in a power
bomb position, but Blanchard pulled out a roll of quarters.

(23:14):
I did not see where the role of quarters came from.
I would imagine her expanded bust now that she's got
more room to kind of tuck things in there. Maybe
maybe that's why she got the boob job. I don't know.
But she pulled out a roll of cord. I mean
had to come from somewhere. She pulled out. She doesn't
exactly have pockets on her gear, so she pulled out
the role of quarters. The referee was fussing around with

(23:36):
the turnbuckle pad in the corner that Tessa had pulled
off earlier, so didn't see any of this, and Tessa
hit her in the head with a roll of quarters,
and then she pinned her to win the match. The
good news for Tessa is that I didn't hear any
of the usual chants that will often be heard during

(23:57):
Tessa Blanchard matches. So that's the good news if you're
Tessa blanche The bad news is the crowd did not
get behind Giam Miller as the underdog babyface here the
way that they probably wanted them to. The crowd just
mostly just fell flat. The crowd really didn't react in
any sort of major way. But then it was time

(24:21):
for the annual call your shot Gauntlet match. This was
their seventh year in a row doing this match. Here
abound for glory. Now keep in mind this is intergender,
so you have male participants, you have female participants. Two
wrestlers enter after two minutes, a new wrestler enters every

(24:42):
sixty seconds. Eliminations occurred by pinfall, submission, or over the
top rope with both feet touching the floor, and when
the final two wrestlers are left in the ring, it
then changes to a singles match, and the winner of
that singles match will then not only win a beautiful
tra that looks like it was probably ordered on Amazon
dot Com, but in addition to the Amazon trophy, you

(25:06):
also win a championship match anytime within the next year
for the championship of your choosing boy. I haven't heard
this stipulation before, so anyway, that those are the rules
for the Gallin match here. So Ley Ying Lee was
the first entrant. Mara Shade was the second entrant. The

(25:27):
former Jakara Jackson from NXT who was just part of
Team TNA in the NXT versus TNA Women's Survivor Series
match a showdown this past Tuesday, Ryan Nemmth was the
third entrant the knockouts double team Nemath, which I mean
maybe he wouldn't have minded that so much. And by
the way that was phrased, then we had the other

(25:48):
Netmath brother, Nick Nemoth. He was out next at number four.
Shady dropped Nick with a superkick. Lee and Shad Day
they tried to dump Nick out of the ring. Ryan,
though made the save, and then Nick took out both
late with a double clothesline. Cedric Alexander he entered at
number five. Alexander dropped the Nema brothers with the German suplexes.

(26:10):
Rich Swan was out next at number six. AJ Francis
was in at number seven. He eliminated Marishade and laying Lee,
so they're gone. Francis then chokes lamb rich Swan, his
own partner in first class and then he dumped him
to the floor. So then Sinner and Saint, the tag

(26:32):
team of Sinner and Saint, they made their way out together,
but then they had to do a coin flip to
determine which one of them, because only one of them
apparently is allowed here in this match, which one of
them was going to make their way down to the
ring and that person ended up being Travis Williams. He
entered at number eight. Then we had at number nine,

(26:52):
we had famous YouTuber No not solo Monster, I'm right here,
I'm not in Lowell massachuet. I didn't get my invitation
to be part of the Collier Shot Gauntlet. But we
had famous YouTuber bde who is a big wrestling fan.
He does he does have one point four million subscribers

(27:14):
on YouTube, so he's got that. I think he's got
like almost two hundred thousand followers on Instagram. Apparently he
makes WWE content on YouTube. So he started wrestling this year.
He's got a handful of matches under his belt, mostly
for Sammy Callahan's promotion Pro Wrestling Revolver, but this was

(27:35):
his TNA debut and he did a spot with AJ
Francis and then he ate a superkick from Nick Nemeath.
Number ten was all three members of the Rascals, maybe
soon to be four. There's another Rascal that actually just
got released by WWE. He'll be free in less than
thirty days, so the Rascals may well end up expanding.

(27:59):
But it was Trey Miguel Zachary Wentz and Myron Reid.
So all three of them entered this gauntlet, and I'm
watching this going, wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense.
And the announcers said that Santino Morella earlier in the
day said that they count as one entrant, so it's okay.

(28:23):
But we just saw Sinner and Saint come out, and
we were told that they had to flip a coin
because only one of them could be in the gauntlet. Now,
how is it possible that this tag team only one
member is allowed in the gauntlet, But then all three
of these men come out and they count as one.
This was never explained. I don't know. So then the

(28:45):
trio eliminated aj Francis once they got into the ring.
Danny Luna entered at number eleven. Eric Young was number twelve.
He went after his former partner Travis Williams. Williams almost
eliminated Young with a clothes line, so they fought onto
the apron and Young gave him a low blow and
then he dropped him with a pile driver on the
apron and that was the end of Travis Williams. He

(29:07):
got dumped for the elimination. Jake Something entered at number thirteen,
This man is an absolute unit. When he ran out
there to the ring, he should definitely be higher up
on the card. Eric Young smacked Bde and eliminated him,
So back to YouTube he goes. Rosemary was next at

(29:29):
number fourteen, Miguel and Alexander. They were eliminated by Eric Young.
And then we had the Hometown Man at number fifteen,
and he came out with the UMass mascot. Jake Something
tried to hold the hometown Man for the mist from Rosemary,
but Hometown Man ducked and Something got misted and eliminated.

(29:55):
You might even say he got something in his eyes.
So long, Jake Something. He is gone here from the
Gauntlet match. So Zach Clayton, Yes, these Zach Clayton, everybody.
I couldn't believe it myself. He was out at number sixteen,
escorted it out by Little Guido of the FBI. Not

(30:17):
the only ECW cameo that we would get here on
this show. Danny Luna eliminated Rosemary. Hometown Man eliminated Danny Luna.
Jody Threat was out at number seventeen, and she ran
around and around the ring on the outside until all
of a sudden, Frankie Kazarian floored her. I don't even
know where the fuck he came from, but Kazarian flored

(30:38):
her with a clothesline and she never got into the ring.
So what ended up happening here is that Kazarian took
her spot. Santina Morella was trying to argue with him,
and he gave Santino a shove. So, of course what
happened next. It's time for the next entrance, and when
the countdown ended, we heard Santia he knows music. He

(31:02):
entered at number eighteen, and Tom Hanafin tried to explain
it that, well, he must have communicated something, you know,
to the people in the back. I guess to tell
them to play his music. I mean, bless his heart,
he tried. He tried to explain the unexplainable here. So
Santino hit Kazarian with a cobra from the floor. I

(31:25):
don't remember why Kazarian was bent over with his head
through the fucking ropes, but he got caught by the cobra,
and then Santino entered the ring, and as soon as
he entered the ring, he was instantly close lined out
by Nick Nemeth. He wasn't ready yet he wasn't ready yet,
but it didn't matter because he was eliminated. And now, of

(31:45):
course he's the director of authority for TNA, so if
he wanted to, he could just reinstate himself into the match.
That's what I would do. Like if I had that
level of power, you know, I would be drunk on power, right,
why not just use it? If I was in the
match and I was eliminated, I've just put myself back
in the match. So Mac Cardona, you know who's always ready.

(32:08):
Santino may not have been ready, but Mack Cardona was ready.
He was out there at number nineteen, fresh off of
his loss to Killer Cross. On Friday Night, Cardona eliminated
Clayton and then he pulled Guido into the ring and
eliminated him too. Number twenty was the Southern psycho Mance Warner.

(32:30):
He was escorted out to the ring by his fiancee.
Is fiancee? I always think of that Seinfeld episode. I
have lost my fiancee. Have you seen my fiance I
have lost my fiancee. Yes. He came out to the
ring with his fiancee, Steph Delander. The other rascals were

(32:51):
eliminated while Warner made his entrance, so Delander gave Warner
a steel chair. Everyone let Warner kindly hit them with
the chair until Cardona caught him from behind. Eric Young
tried to toss the Hometown Man, he skinned the cat
stayed alive. They fought out to the apron and Young
eliminated the Hometown Man with a low blow to very

(33:12):
loud booze and Cardona then eliminated Eric Young to a
big pop, and then he tossed Man's Warner as well.
So this left Cardona all alone with both Nemth brothers.
They double teamed Cardona. He made a comeback, though Cardona
tossed Ryan over the top rope. He stayed out on
the apron though, and Ryan held Cardona for a super

(33:34):
kick from Nick, but Cardona ducked and Ryan was eliminated
by big brother. See you later, Ryan Nemeth. So it
looked like we were about to get a singles match here, right,
We're about to get a singles match with Matt Cardona
and Nick Nemeth. This is like something out of two
thousand and nine. Wwe Right, we got Zach Ryder, we

(33:55):
got Dolf Ziggler. These are your final two here in
the Gauntlet, or so thought Warner and Delander. They distracted
Cardono well, Nemuth dumped him over the top, and since
Frankie Kazarian was never actually eliminated, that meant that Kazarian
and Nick Nemeth were the final two. So they wrestled
for a little bit, and eventually they did a double

(34:18):
pin spot coming off of a superplex where they both
kind of hooked each other's legs and the shoulders were
down and we got a double pin. Now, Santina Morella
is already out there and the fans are obviously not
very happy with this, or hoping that they'll just restart
the match, because that would be the thing to do, right,
You restart the fucking match, But of course this is

(34:39):
TNA and we can't do that. So Santino says that
for the first time in the history of the Call
Your Shot Gauntlet match, we have co winners, and the
crowd booed the hell out of that announcement, and deservedly so.

(34:59):
What an hour, absolute dog shit finish to this match.
Here they did a comedy spot where both of them
had we're kind of holding on to the trophy as
they left down the aisle. This was just a total
comedy and the crowd just booed all of this. I
will say I had fun with parts of this match.

(35:22):
I did find it overall to be enjoyable. That finish
is inexcusable when you dedicate thirty minutes to a match
like this. Okay, this went half an hour. It was
a long match, and then you give people a finish
like that, you just do yourself a disserve, especially on
your biggest show of the year. Just absolutely atrocious booking

(35:42):
here at the very end. And I'm sure they have
an idea for where they want to go with it,
and they're going to have some more comedy on television
with these two. Find another way to do it. You know,
you don't end this match in the way that they
ended this match. So for all the fun moments that
there may have been, this finish almost negated the entire thing.
That finish was terrible. Now after this, we had the

(36:05):
NXT superstar Klonie Jordan right a lot of big things
in her future. Klonie Jordan is a former North American Champion,
but she is also the reigning TNA Knockouts Champion. She
just won the title at victory road. Was it like
two weeks ago? Maybe she was defending the TNA Knockouts
title here against Indy Heartwell, So Indy comes out again.

(36:29):
Indy is kind of in the same position that Mike
Santana was in, where she's trying to rescue the championship
away from NXT, bring the title home here to TNA.
Heartwell goes over and hugs her family in the front row. Now,
the announcer said that it took four flights for her

(36:50):
parents to get here to see her get an opportunity
at the Knockouts Championship. Oh four flights. Let's find out
if it was worth. Both women went for near falls
off cradles. They dodged each other's strikes early in the match.
Jordan hung up Heartwell in the ropes and came off
with a leg drop for a near fall. Heartwell caught

(37:12):
Jordan with a spinebuster after that, and then she stretched
Klanie's back across her knees. She was damn near bending
this woman in half. Jordan fought out of it. They
did the ya boo punches, with Heartwell getting the ya's
because she's the actual TNA talent in this match, Heartwell
went for a death valley driver. Colanie escaped and hit
a split jawbreaker for a near fall. Jordan locked in

(37:35):
a half crab and Heartwell escaped, so Jordan comes off
the top of the crossbody and Indy rolls through powers
her up. Jordan, though, turns that into a small package
for a two count. Heartwell and Jordan they struggled a
little bit on a power bomb spot, but eventually Heartwell
did hit the move and Indy went for a boot.
Calanie caught it, hit a spinning kick. Jordan hit a

(37:57):
frog splash only got a near fall, so Heartwell came
back with the top rope elbow for a near fall
of her own, and then she went for her Hurtz
doughnut spinning facebuster finish. Jordan, though countered with a cradle.
Heartwell tried it again. This time she caught Jordan with
her finish, but unfortunately for her, Calanie was too close

(38:18):
to the ropes and she was able to break the
count with her foot. So Heartwell went to the top again,
but Jordan followed her up there and Calanie tried for
a Spanish fly. Heartwell elbowed her down and then Heartwell
went for another top rope diving elbow, but nobody home
and she crashed and burned. Klanie then hit Heartwell with

(38:39):
her split legged moon salt in the corner. It did
not look great. She pretty much missed it for the
most part, but that was the finish and so she
covered her and she got the pin anyway to retain
the Knockouts Championship. Now, after the match was over, Heartwell
went over. She did shake Colanie put her hand out
and she shook her hand, and you know, Colannie raised

(39:02):
her arm and was being very very gracious here. And
Indy went outside and she went to the front row
so she could be comforted by her family. They flew
this woman's parents halfway around the world, four flights, they said,

(39:22):
just to watch their daughter fucking lose. Pat is brutal.
That is brutal. This was not a great match. It
had its moments, It had its clunkiness, but it had
its moments. But outside of that, I just thought it
was just very, you know, basic stuff. I didn't think

(39:46):
Heartwell was winning the championship. Like when I did my
predictions earlier, I had picked Kelanie to win because she
just won the title literally in the last few weeks
she won the championship at Victory Road, and I didn't
think that they were going to take it off of
her that quickly. But and then I saw Indy's family
at ringside. And when I saw her parents, and I
think she had her sister or sisters might have been

(40:07):
in the front row. I saw that and I thought, Oh,
she's got to be winning this match. Why else would
they or she, you know, fly her family out if
there wasn't some big moment planned. And then she went
in there and she lost, and I think it surprised
me a little bit. And I also thought after I

(40:29):
saw that that it voted well for Mike Santana winning
in the main event, because it's like, all right, they
had the NXT star go over and retain her championship.
There's no way, there's no way, on this their biggest
night of the year, that they are going to go
out there in the main event and do the exact
same thing and suck the life out of this crowd.

(40:50):
So I actually thought her winning made it even more
obvious and voted well for Mike Santana in the main event. Now,
after the match was over, we'll go backstage for a
quick segment, and we see the call your Shot trophy
is sitting on a table. The Nemath brothers are having
a conversation and they're arguing over how Nick is going

(41:12):
to use the trophy, and so Kazarian shows up and
he wants to know what is this we business that
I hear you guys talking about, and Nemets said, Nick
Nemeth says that he knows Frankie stats. Because Kazarian's going
through all of his accomplishments, goes, look, I know all
of your stats, and normally, any other time I would
agree with you, I would be on your side. But

(41:33):
I am a former TNA World heavyweight champion, which you
have never been. And Kazarian said, well, maybe I will
be by the time this night is over, and he leaves,
and then the Nemets have to pretend like, oh, they
have no idea what he's referring to. What could he
be talking about? Oh, gee, I don't know. He just
won a trophy for a title shot anytime he wants,
I don't know what could he possibly be teasing here.

(41:58):
After this, we had Order four, which is Mustafa Ali's
faction against the System, comprised of Moose, Eddie Edwards, Brian Myers, JDC,
and Alisha Edwards, Eddie's wife, in a hardcore war which
was basically a war games match without the cage and

(42:19):
without the two rings. You take those two elements out
of it, all the other rules apply, so it starts
one on one. There's a new member that enters every
I think minute or two, carrying a new weapon with them,
and the match cannot end until all of the participants
have made their way out. So it's like, okay, now
we can begin the war games. That's the basic gist

(42:40):
of it. Jason Hodch, I love that name. Jason started
out with a trash can against Eddie Edwards, who entered
with his family. He had Wally. Is he a beaver?
What is he? Is he the Boston Beaver? What is he?
Apparently he's the Red Sox mascot. We'll call Wally the

(43:04):
Boston Beaver. But he comes out with the mascot. Wally
distracts Hotch by thrusting his pelvis at him, which allows
Edwards to hit Hatch with a dive. To start the match.
Hotch hit Edwards with a dropkick. He went for a dive,
Edwards blocked that by throwing a trash can at his head.
So then John Skuyler was in next for order four

(43:27):
with a steel chair that was his weapon of choice.
JDC was in next with a New England Patriots helmet.
Edwards placed the chair over Skyler's crotch and JDC hit
the chair with the helmet. Skyler came up busted open
badly from a spot here, and JDC pulled the cheese

(43:48):
grater out from under the ring and he used it
to work over the cut to make him bleed even more.
Tasha Steeles came in wearing a New York Yankees jersey
and a bat is her weapon of choice. And so
after that John Skyler, are they show John Skyler here?
He's just a fucking bloody mess. This guy, Alicia Edwards

(44:12):
comes out with a Kendo stick and she cracks Tasha
Steels in the head with it. Eddie Edwards pulls out
a staple gun and he stapled Skyler in the face.
JDC stapled Hotch in the crotch and Alicia staple Steals
right in the ass. Agent zero was out next for

(44:33):
order four. I'm not too familiar with Agent zero. I
will tell you though. He looks like he has not
missed a single day at the gym. Every day is
Jim day for Agent four. And he pressed slam JDC.
He tossed Eddie Edwards into the ringside steps. He tossed
the top half of the stairs at Eddie's head. Brian

(44:54):
Myers came out next without a weapon. Come to think
of it, I don't think that Agent R Agent R
Agent zero. I don't think he can. I don't think
he came out with a weapon either. But I know
for a fact Myers did not come out with a weapon,
at least I don't think he did. So Myers tried
to use one of the trash cans around Ringsides. Zero
just put him down with a big boot, and Agent

(45:16):
zero dumped Myers with a hanging tree slam on the
trash can. So Alicia Edwards rolls into the ring and
finds herself surrounded by the members of Order four. As
Mustafa Ali now right, the leader, makes his way out
to the ring, he has a sledgehammer with him. Eddie

(45:37):
Edwards saved his wife momentarily from an attack. Moose entered
last for his team, and Moose stood one on one
with Agent zero after a pretty even face off. Here
Zero was able to dump Moose to the floor. All
the members of Order four and the System were brawling
on the floor. Agent Zero came flying over the top

(45:58):
rope with a big dive out onto the pile. So
back in the ring, Tasha Steels pulls out a Cando
stick wrapped in barbed wire and Alicia Edwards dump's thumb
tacks in the ring. I feel like we get thumb
tacks every single week now. Thumb tacks used to be
something that you would really every now and then it
would be like, oh my god, you know we got
thumb tacks, And now we get it every single week

(46:21):
pay per view television. It doesn't really seem to matter anymore.
You know, if you watch wrestling from different promotions, pretty
safe about that. If not every week, every other week,
you're gonna be able to find thumbtack somewhere on the show.
So Alicia hit Tasha with the Cando stick to get
rid of her, and then Alicia Edwards found herself alone

(46:43):
in the ring with Agent Zero, and Agent Zero gave
her a hanging tree slam right onto the thumb tacks,
which were littered all over the mat and sheets took
all of these thumbs. I mean, when when they showed
a shot of her back, I mean, it looked like

(47:05):
she had thumbtacks just stuck all over her bag. It
was a nasty bump. So Eddie tried to check on
his wife. Ali, though, hit him with a steel chair
and then dumped him. Ali dump more thumb tacks out
on top of Alicia, and she was very careful to
keep her her mouth closed so they wouldn't go in
her mouth. And now he's pouring thumb tacks on top
of her. She's got tax in her in her flesh,

(47:29):
and now he's dumping more on top of her. And
what is he going to do. He's gonna go up
to the top rope while she's laying there, and he's
going to set up for a four to fifty splash, which,
if you think about it, is a pretty fucking stupid
thing to do because you may land on her, but
you're also going to land on the thumb tacks that
are all over the ring, and you just put thumb
tacks on top of her. So he doesn't seem too bright.
He's even less bright because she moved out of the way.

(47:52):
And so when Ali hit the four fifty. He came
and splatted on top of the thumb Tax And I
think the thing that horrified me the most at this
if you go back and watch it, if you go
back and watch it, he got attack in his tit.
If you go back and watch it, look like he
had a thumb tack sticking out of his nipple. You

(48:13):
couldn't pay me enough money to take attack to the tit.
Of all the things we saw in this match, we
saw people bleeding, we saw people getting stapled and all
this bullshit, that might have been the thing that made
me WinCE the most. Honestly, when I saw that little
shiny projectile over there by his nipple, I go, oh,
that doesn't feel too good. So Eddie Edwards wrapped his

(48:35):
knee in barbed wire and he leveled Ali with the
Boston knee. Party wrapped up in the barbed wire, and
he pinned him to win the match for his team.
This was it, I mean, it was what it was called.
It was a hardcore war, that's for sure. I think
the Alicia Edwards spot with the Tax it was certainly
different seeing someone like Agent zero delivering a tree slam

(48:59):
to this woman onto the thumb tacks. That's not something
you would see all the time. Uh. But you know,
outside of that, what was this. This was the payoff
to an issue that has been brewing for months between
these two warring factions. And so if you were gonna
blow off a feud like this, then they did a
hell of a job of doing that. It certainly felt

(49:21):
like a blowoff to me. Now we get into the
match that I was looking forward to the most coming
into the show. We had Leon Slater against Javon Evans
javan Evans from NXT. This was an inter promotional match
for the TNA X Division Championship. They called this the

(49:42):
youngest X Division title match in TNA history, and they're
not lying about that. You've got two men here who
are younger than the title itself. Think about that. I
want you to do something. I want you to combine
the ages of these two men. They're both twenty one
years old. You combine their ages and they are still

(50:04):
not as old as the average age of the WWE
main events scene in most cases many of the people
who are on that WWE roster. That is scary, especially
when you consider how good these two men are at
the age that they are right now. So a lot
of youth here in this match. And I gotta say

(50:24):
hat tipped to Tom Hannifin on commentary for that House
of Glory shout out. During the match, they did mention
that Leon Slater just wrestled the amazing Red the other night.
Great match. Crowd was wild for this before they even
locked up. They could feel that this was going to
be something special, and they started, you know, this is awesome,

(50:45):
and both guys tease big strikes against the other and
then they would mock their opponent for, you know, covering up.
So they were playing cat and mouse. Slater caught Evans
with a small package for a near fall after like
six counters in reversals. Finally, Slater shoved Evans hard when
he was backed up against the ropes, and that's when
things started to get a little less friendly here between

(51:06):
these two men. So Slater caught Evans with a chop,
Evans fired back, and they were laying their shit in
pretty good here. It was something I kind of noticed
across the board here on this show. Evans sent Slater
to the floor, he followed him out with the topay.
Slater shoved Evans off the ropes when he went for
a springboard and then followed him out with a dive

(51:29):
back inside. Slater hit a cross body for a near fall.
Evans caught Slater with an over the ropes plancha and
then came back into the ring with a springboard clothesline
for a near fall. Evans hits a suplex and he
immediately kIPS up and then Evans ducks an inzigury. Slater, though,
hits a heel kick on the rebound, and Slater hit

(51:50):
a great slingshot cutter for a near fall. This looked great.
This looked great. Evans went to the top for something
not Jake Slater. Thy'll blocked it and they fought to
the apron. Evans tried a supplex, Slater escaped, and he
tried for the slingshot cutter again, but this time Evans
countered it into a spinning DDT that sent Slater across

(52:11):
the ring and Javan Evans, who is just an incredible athlete.
I mean, he's just super fun to watch when you
watch any of his matches, and he's been on a
tear these last few months with the matches that he's
been in. Javan Evans then hits After this, the out

(52:31):
of the ring springboard cutter. At this point here in
this match, out over the top rope, and this man
clipped the apron with his ass on the way down
and then he crashed into the floor. I mean he
took a hard landing on his tailbone, his thigh. There
is no way. I'm not saying he's There's a difference

(52:53):
between being hurt and being injured. I'm not saying he's injured,
but there is no way that he did not hurt
himself on this landing like this looked like it sucked.
I would not have wanted to be him when he
landed on that floor outside, so that was a crazy spot.
Evans struggled to get to his feet. Slater slid back

(53:14):
into the ring. Evans came off the top with a splash.
Javan then hit a second top rope splash from halfway
across the ringdue he cleared half the fucking ring on
this dive, only got a two count. Evans then hit
a rana with a cradle for a near fall. Evans
came off the ropes with a springboard right into a

(53:36):
flying hangman's neck breaker from Slater and the fans. At
this point here in this match, were losing their fucking minds.
These people were going crazy. They were eating everything up
that they were being served, Like, here's the main entree,
you know, let me know if you need anything with
the little salt, let me know. They were eating everything
up that these guys were serving. Both men struggled to

(53:57):
their feet. They were exchanging strikes along the way. Slater
wore out Evans with some chops and then Leon left
himself open to a chop. He goes, go ahead, right,
He's offering himself up for a chop. Evans rears back
like he's gonna chop him, but he fakes him out
and instead of chopping him, he drops him with a cutter,

(54:18):
which is fucking tremendous, And I can't believe that this
isn't something Randy Orton has never tried before. I don't
remember him ever trying to spot like that before. So
then he hits another springboard cutter flush Slater kicks out
it too. This was just insanity. Evans goes up to
the top, Slater catches him with an insiguri and follows

(54:40):
him up. They fought. Both guys jumped to the floor
on opposite sides. They basically they jumped off, but it's
almost like they kind of fell off. One guy on
one side tumble to the floor, the other guy tumbled
to the floor on the other side. So Slater tried
for a springboard off the barricade, Evans shoved him into
the crowd. Evans then hit a running dive over the
bar onto Slater in the crowd. Javon jumped the rail.

(55:04):
Slater followed and he hit his own dive over the
barricade as the bell suddenly sounded and they signified that
the twenty minute time limit had expired. And I said,
fucking hell, this better not be the way this match
is going to end. I was fuming, as were these fans.

(55:27):
By the way, these fans did not like hearing that bell.
I mean, the heat that this got was crazy. All
of a sudden, Santina Morella comes out over by the
entrance ramp and he announces that you don't normally on
these pay per views. We have to keep things tight.
We only have so much time, and people start booing,

(55:49):
and he goes, but I'll tell you what. We got
to give this five more minutes. He said, we got
to give it minutes I don't know about minutes, but
we got to give it five more minutes and the
place exploded. And I'm thinking, okay, they brought us down
and they got us really upset. But now they're hitting

(56:09):
us between the eyes and they're like, all right, five
more minutes, right, and this building is going nuts. These
people are losing their minds. And you got Leon Slater
backs up into one corner. You got Javon Evans. He
backs up into the other corner, and the referees like,
are you ready or you ready? And everyone's getting all
lamped up right, and they ring the bell and this
match resumes and everybody is just on their feet. So

(56:33):
Slater hits Evans with utopia. Evans slid to the floor.
Slater followed him with his over the post dive. We
see montes Ford do this on SmackDown almost every week. Also,
it's just a crazy move. Slater then went to the top.
Evans jumped up and pulled Slater down with a top
rope splant Spanish fly. Look at that, I combined the two.

(56:55):
He pulled them down with a top rope Spanish fly,
and Evan then went for the cover and at that
point the lights went out, and now I'm getting pissed
because we were in the middle of this great professional
wrestling match with these two great young stars, and you
want to do the false finish, you know what. It
pissed me off. But then just like five more minutes

(57:16):
and everybody went nuts, and I'm like, Okay, that's cool.
I can dig that, right, I can buy into that.
Now you're bringing all of this fuckery into this match,
and the fans are just on their feet, and now
you're messing with their heads here, and this is what
really pissed me off. So they do the lights out
gimmick and I don't know what's going on. I have

(57:37):
no idea now what these people are planning. Here, lights
go out, and who runs out from the crowd into
the ring to attack both of these men? Dark State.
They sent fucking dark State from NXT into the ring
to attack Slater and to attack Evans. The crowd begins

(57:59):
to and they're double team power bomb. I mean, they
laid these two kids out, and the crowd chance fuck
these guys. And you will have people, including probably in WWE,
who will look at this and will go, oh, well,
they're getting heat, right, this is great. This is what
we wanted. They're getting heat, only it didn't feel like

(58:20):
they were getting heat. It felt like the heat was
really more being projected onto the company for booking this
bullshit finish here to this match. Sure, I mean the
people hated Dark State, but I think the heat that
this got for being a terrible finish superseded that. And
that's the kind of heat that you really don't want

(58:40):
to get because you had a lot of people who
were very much looking forward to this match. I don't
want to say they didn't deliver. We got a great
match out of it, but my god, for a match
like this to end in this way was just horrendous,
just absolutely horrendous. And they're going to keep trying this
with these Dark State guys, and they're young and you
want to try to get them over. Fine, this was

(59:02):
not the place, in my opinion, to do something like this,
not in this way. What we saw here, this was
a TV finish. This was not a pay per view finish,
let alone a pay per view finish on what is
supposedly TNA's biggest pay per view of the year. I
don't really think WWE gives a shit about that, of course,
and it's very obvious. What happened here politics, That's what happened,

(59:22):
And this is what happens sometimes when you have two
promotions who are working together in some form or fashion.
WWE said, Okay, you want Javon Evans on your pay
per view, you want to put together this dream match,
We'll give you Javon Evans, but you're not beating Javon Evans.
And Leon Slater is the youngest TNAX Division champion of
all time. He won the title at Slammiversary. He got

(59:43):
a big win over Moose. They were not going to
let another NXT guy beat one of their guys and
take one of their championships, which they have done plenty
of these last few months. So I totally understand TNA saying, well,
we don't want Leon Slater to lose. So I guess
we're at an impass here. What do we do? The
reality is if either of these guys lost the match,

(01:00:04):
it doesn't hurt them. You have a match like this,
the fans are gonna love it no matter what. It's
not gonna kill either of them to lose. But the companies,
they don't look at it that way. It's like, this
is our guy, this is our commodity. We have big
plans for him. He's our big star on the rise,
and you're not gonna beat him. And so this is
what they compromised one and this is what they came
up with here, and maybe they run it back one

(01:00:26):
more time. I feel like if they were not willing
to budge, if one company was not willing to budge
and the other one was not willing to budge, then
I don't really see the point in even running this
back because you're just gonna end up in the same
situation anyway no matter what. Maybe they end up as
tag team partners. I think it's likely that we get
a tag team match, you know, where the two of
them end up on the same side against Dark State.

(01:00:48):
I think that's very possible. Again, I get why it
was done because this is what happens in these types
of situations, But I just look at this and go,
you did a time limit draw to tease a non finish, right,
You tease that, and then you end up giving people

(01:01:10):
five more minutes and giving them the impression that wow,
you're actually going to give them what they want, only
to them smack the smack them across the face and
kick them in the dick and say, well, you're getting
that non finish after all. I just thought that was terrible,
an absolutely terrible way for this match to end. And
I will say that even with the shit finish, this

(01:01:31):
is still a Match of the Year contender. I love
this match. It's one of my favorite matches that I've
seen all year. It was easily the match of the weekend,
easily the match of the month so far. We're not
even halfway through the month so far, but this was
fantastic and it was a small glimpse into what you
can expect to see from these two as the months

(01:01:51):
and years go on. And think about this youngest ex
Division champion of all time, Javon Evans, same thing, twenty
one years old. As young as they are, and is
great they are right now with this age, How great
are they going to be five years from now? How
great are they going to be three years from now,
ten years from now? Right, you keep working this style,
you're gonna have to adapt and adjust. Javon Evans is

(01:02:12):
fun to watch right the way he flies around the
ring and his just his agility and dexterity and all that.
But that's not going to last right ten years from now,
I don't know that he's going to be able to
wrestle the same way, so he'll have to adapt his
style as time goes on. But right now, man, he
is going out there just balls to the wall every
single time we see him in the ring, and he's

(01:02:33):
having killer matches. And Leon Slayter's same thing. Super talented,
goes out there, has great, exciting, fast paced matches. So
of course you put these two together and it just
they blend together so well because they have similar styles
and they want to go out there and steal the show.
That's what they did tonight. They absolutely stole the show.

(01:02:54):
They deserved to better finish than the one that they
booked here for this match. That was the only real
shameful part about this. But as young as they are
and as great as they are now, scary to think
well where they're going to be five years from now.
So this delivered finish. Aside, I had very high expectations
for this match, and even still this match delivered. This

(01:03:17):
was great. Then after this, it was time for one
Final Table. That is how they dubbed this match One
Final Table match for the TNA and NXT Tag team
Championships with the Hardys defending against the Dudley Boys. We

(01:03:37):
got a Spike Dudley cameo. I mentioned Little Guido earlier.
We got a Spike Dudley cameo here on this show.
The Dudley's came out and Bully then Bubba Bully, whatever
you want to call him. He looks to the aisle
and he starts waving right, he's waving someone to come out,
and here comes Spike Dudley. It threw me off a
little bit at first because he's bald now, but then

(01:04:00):
I remembered him from the Chris van Vlieter. I said,
of course he's bald. But he comes out and there's
little Spike. Everyone cheers and all three men embrace, and
then Spike hands Divon his Dudley glasses, and then he
hands Bubba his Dudley glasses and that he waves to
the crowd and he goes to the back, and I said,

(01:04:20):
good for him, Good for Spike. He doesn't have to
take a bump tonight, because for a moment there I
thought he was coming out for the match with them,
and that they were going to use him to take
the bumps that they can't take poor Spike. They were
going to god knows what they were going to do
this poor guys if he hasn't taken enough abuse in
his career. But they spared him and he went to
the back and we didn't see him again. So as

(01:04:42):
they're coming out, the Dudleys went and set two tables
up in the aisle. The Hardys were out next. They
brought a ladder out with them and a steel chair,
and they set the ladder up in front of those tables.
So you knew what was coming like before the match
even began, before the bell even rang, you knew that.
You know, chaos was about to ensue here. And the

(01:05:03):
object of the match, the rules, you had to put
each member of the opposing team through a table in
order to win the match and walk out as the champions.
So and it didn't matter in what order or Yeah,
it's not like a strap match where they had that
old rule where you had to top, you know, touch
all four turn buckles and if there's an interruption you

(01:05:24):
got to start over. None of that bullshit. Just put
both members through tables at different points in the match,
you win the match. So the Dudley's immediately dumped Jeff
to the floor and the Dudley's I will say they
were wearing their old Camo gear. You know, Divon obviously
he's moving around a lot slower. He's had a lot

(01:05:44):
of health issues in recent years. Was it a heart
attack or a stroke? I think he might have had
multiple strokes. But he's doing well now. I know. He's
got his podcast and he has talked about how this
this is it. Like for him, I don't know about
Bubba him, this is it. If he was going to
do one more match, that was going to be it.

(01:06:04):
So he was waiting for the right opportunity and the
right opportunity came along when TNA wanted to put this
match together and he was like, all right, so I
do believe that this is it for Devon. And just
watching him out there, I mean cosmetically, you know, he
looks fine, but just the way he was moving you
could tell that his days in the ring are behind him.

(01:06:25):
But immediately they dumb Jeff to the floor and they
hit Matt with a three D. Jeff tried for a
whisper in the wind. The Dudleys did their best Samoa
Joe impression and just casually noped and just walked away
and he crashed and burned. So then Devon gave Jeff
the wazap headbutt off the ropes. The crowd called for

(01:06:49):
Devon to get the tables. Bully led the countdown, and
the entire building at the end of the countdown yelled
get the tables. So Devon went to the floor and
he slid two tables into the ring. The bully set
one of the tables up and they hit three d on.
Jeff through the table just like that, and the announcers
explained that they were halfway there. All they had to

(01:07:10):
do now was put Matt Hardy through a table and
we have got new TNA and NXT Tag Team Champions.
Can you imagine the Dudley's as the new NXT Tag
Team Champions. So Matt came back in with a steel
chair and Matt was able to send Bubba to the floor.
On a miscommunication Matt and Devon, they brawled on the floor.
Divon took too long setting up a table and Matt

(01:07:33):
caught Devon with the twist of fate. So Matt sets
up Devon for an elbow through the table. Divon, though,
rolls out of the way and Matt comes flying off
the apron with a diving elbow, drop through the table,
and the table disintegrates upon impact. But the announcers explained
that Matt was not eliminated because you have to be

(01:07:54):
offensively put through a table. You can't just put yourself
through a table. Someone has to, I guess, grab you
and either put you through the table or set you
up and then crashed through a table. And that's not
what happened here. So Jeff came back. He took out
Bubba on the floor with a clothesline from the apron.
Back inside, Bubba set a table up in the corner,

(01:08:15):
and Matt dodged a charge from Bully. Bully bounced into
the table. I don't believe he broke it, so that
did not count. Elsewhere, Devon slammed the chair across Jeff's back.
He placed him on one of the two tables that
I mentioned more set up in the aisleway where that
ladder is. So he lays Jeff on the table. Divon

(01:08:36):
now begins to climb the ladder and Matt makes his
way over and Matt cuts him off, and then both
men drop from the ladder safely. Because I was just
thinking like I know Devon Dudley, for those who don't know,
is terrified of heights. He's been terrified of heights his
entire life, which is insane to think about when you

(01:08:58):
think this guy is part of some of the most
iconic ladder matches in the history of wrestling, the first
TLC match at SummerSlam twenty five years ago. There is
a spot in that match where he climbs the ladder,
he grabs the championships, and the ladder gets removed from
underneath his feet and he's hanging from the fucking ceiling.
And he has talked about this spot and he has

(01:09:19):
said that he, you know, basically almost shit himself, like
he's just terrified. So I cannot imagine that Divon is
climbing that ladder to any great height and doing any
kind of big bump like that. Not at this age.
He's not fucked that. So I figured he was going
to get cut off and they weren't going to force
this poor guy to do some kind of big spot
off the top of the ladder. So the Hardy's they

(01:09:41):
roughed up Devon. They placed him on top of the
two tables, right a safer place for him to be
I'll just lay here, you do all the work. Ray
Walt on commentary said that he was getting deja vu
as Jeff pulled his top off and began to ascend
the ladder and he climbed to the very top of

(01:10:02):
the ladder and Matt was holding it steady so that
his brother would not fall to his doom. And Jeff
Hardy comes flying off the top with a swanton bomb
off the top of the ladder and he puts Devon
through a table and Jeff took our rough landing on
this swanton bomb. Yeah, they showed a few replays of it,

(01:10:23):
and he did get the rotation, because at first it
almost looked like he didn't rotate enough. I talk about
this a lot when I see Tiffany Stratt and wrestle.
Every single time Tiffany Stratton does a swanton bomb in
her match, she waits until the very last second to
tuck her head on the landing, and one of these days,
this poor girl's gonna spike herself on the mat and
hurt herself like to a tee every single time she

(01:10:46):
did it in the match with Stephanie at Crown Jewel yesterday,
So that's kind of what this looked like. Where at
first it looked like Jeff maybe didn't get the full rotation.
He went like, not head first down, but almost kind
of like that. On the replay, it didn't look as bad,
but still when he landed, it looked like he may
have smacked the back of his head on the bottom
rung of the ladder, and he was even feeling behind

(01:11:07):
his head like maybe he knew he smacked his head
and was just checking to make sure there was no blood.
I didn't see any blood when he came up. I
think he was fine. He may have, you know, I mean,
he may have banged his head, but he seemed to
be okay. And basically this was the WrestleMania sixteen spot recreated,
only instead of Bubba on the table, it was Devon.

(01:11:28):
So Jeff gets up and he lets out this primal
scream to let everybody know. I guess that he's okay.
Back inside the ring, the Hardy's hit Bully with a
pair of twist the Fates. Jeff went to the apron,
he headed up top, and he hit the Swanton bomb
to Bully. Ray and the Hardys then picked up chairs

(01:11:49):
and they took turns slamming them over Bullies back, so
Bully used the table in the ring to kind of
help himself slowly get back up to his feet, and
it's as if he knew what lied behind him because
Bully's back was turned. The Hardies are standing there with

(01:12:10):
chairs in their hands, and Bully is just he's standing there,
and he had just had this look on his face.
Right he turns around, he sees the Hardies. The Hardy's
dumped the chairs, They tossed the chairs aside, and Bully
is staring at them, and he has this look on
his face like he's resigned to his fate, and he
just sort of nods at them. He's not going to

(01:12:32):
fight back, and why not, because Bully Ray is fifty
something years old and he's been in this match for
the last you know, ten or twelve minutes, however long
it's been going on, and he is spent. He has
been battered, he has been bruised, and not just tonight,
but for the last twenty five years and the wars
that these two teams have had. And he's outnumbered because

(01:12:55):
his partner is laying in the rubble in the aisleway.
He's all by himself. He knows that he's fighting a
losing battle here, so he's resigned to his fate, and
it's basically like, just put me out of my misery, right.
He's waiting for the kill shot, and so Matt and
Jeff they grab a hold of him and they slam
him double Urinagi slam through the table to end the match,

(01:13:20):
and they call for the bell they play the Hardies music.
I know what they were going for here. It's everything
that I just explained. I don't know that everybody in
the crowd necessarily, or even everybody watching at home. I
don't know that a lot of fans necessarily picked up
on what this finish was supposed to be. I feel
like people are going to look at this in some
cases and say, boy, that was an anti climactic finish,

(01:13:43):
And I could see where people might think it came
off that way. But I knew what they were going for.
You know. In many ways, it was like Wrestle Minnie
A twenty four and that Rick Flair in the match
with Sean Michaels. It was the same thing where Flair
is just struggling to his feet, got those fists up, like,
you know, come on, give me your best shot, right,

(01:14:03):
But at the same time it's like he knows and
Sean Michael says, you know, I'm sorry, I love you,
and then he super kicks him and puts him down.
You know the same thing. I mean, didn't we have
something like that in that match on Dynamite last year?
There was a match I think with it might have
been Malachi Black's last match. I don't even remember at
this point with Adam Cole, and I think he just

(01:14:27):
let him, you know, hit him with the boom. It
was like, just just do it, man, Just put me
out of my misery. That's what they were going for here,
That's the story they were trying to tell. So as usual,
Carlos Silva he enters the ring, He's got the titles
to hands of the Hardys, Matt and Jeff. They pulled

(01:14:49):
Bully to his feet and they hugged him. Devon got
back into the ring at this point and all four
men shared a very emotional group hug. The final hug,
and the fans chanted thank you Dudley's. The Hardy's held
up their titles while standing face to face with the Dudleys.
Then they started to leave the ring. Bully and Devon

(01:15:10):
then reached over and grabbed them and stopped them from leaving.
And at that point, Bully and Devon they reached down
and they begin to untie their boots, and the Hardys
can pick up on what's going on here, the fans
can pick up on what's going on here, and they
take their boots off and they hand their boots to

(01:15:31):
the Hardies. Because when your career is over, that is
what you do. You take your boots off and you
leave them in the ring and you leave, and that
signals that your career is over. That's what Triple H did.
When Triple H's career was over, he did that. Whatever
WrestleMania that was might have been Wrestledmania at thirty eight.
I think he took his boots off and he left

(01:15:53):
them in the ring. And so it was a very
you know, emotional moment, and you could tell the Hardys
were kind of crying and they were very emotional. I mean,
I would imagine that was all planned out, but maybe
it wasn't. Maybe they didn't know, you know, who knows,
But it came off, you know, in the way that
they wanted it to. It came off as a very
emotional thing. It was the final match for the Dudley's.

(01:16:17):
You know, you will not see the Dudley Boys back
in the ring after this. Devon is done. I don't
know if that signified that Bully is done, because Bully
is still working independence, not necessarily every week. So I
don't know if this was the end of the Dudley's,
if that's what this was meant to signify, or if
we got some news here and Bully is also done.

(01:16:40):
That I'm not sure of. But as a unit, you know,
as a tag team, that's it. Team three D, the Dudley's,
that's it. They're done. All the championships they've won, all
the promotions. You know, when Mackenzie Mitchell was introducing them
at the beginning of the match, and she went through
all the different tag team championships that they've held from
East and WWE. Yeah, and they mentioned WCW, but it's

(01:17:04):
kind of bullshit, honestly, Like it wasn't really WCW at
that point, but ECWWWE, WCW, TNA, NWA IWGP. She didn't
mention Hog. You could put them in there as well now,
but it's like all the different championships that these guys
have held and I think it's like twenty something tag

(01:17:28):
team titles over the course of their career. They will
go down as one of the all time great tag teams.
You know, where they rank on your list is a
subjective thing. You know, they're not the greatest tag team
on my list. You know, they're not even in my
top three. But that's not it's not meant to be
a negative against them. Everyone has their teams that they

(01:17:48):
look at. For some people it's the Road Warriors, you know,
for some people, it might be the heart foundation. For
some people it might be the Rock and Roll Express
or the Midnight Express, right, or maybe a more modern
team like the Hardy Boys or the Dudley Boys or
the Young Bucks. And yes, there are people who would
say the Young Bucks. Like it depends also how old

(01:18:10):
you are, what generation you came up in. It's a
subjective thing. You know, Road Warriors is going to be
on a lot of people's lists, but they're they're in
the upper echelon of you know, Hall of Fame legendary
tag teams. You know, they've had a very incredible run,
which is crazy. If you think about the Dudley gimmick
in ECW and how that whole thing started. It was

(01:18:31):
just it was comedy. Yeah, it was an emotional moment here,
and the team's hugged again. They all, you know, all
four men raised their arms. The Hardy's music played, Bully
and Devon. They exited the ring and they kind of
put their arm around each other as they slowly made
their way toward the entrance, and they had this great
sort of panned out shot of them as they're walking

(01:18:54):
down the aisle to the stage, and they stopped and
they looked back and they acknowledged the fans. The production
team missed it. But while this was going on, because
we could hear something happened in the ring, like you
heard a bump, and the fans reacted, they cheered, and
then they cut back to the ring. So we missed it.
But I think what happened is that Jeff put himself

(01:19:15):
through the table. I think there was a table propped
up in the corner, and I think that Jeff, he
was so excited, I think he actually took a table bump,
a voluntary table bump. So anyway, it's a very Jeff
Hardy thing to do. I enjoyed the match. I already
saw some people just before I went live. They were,
you know, in the comments, shitting on the match. But

(01:19:36):
the post match was good. I enjoyed all of this.
I liked the match. I thought the post match was fantastic.
The post match, it was really all about that, right,
It was about that moment. It was about twenty five
years twenty five years later, you got two of the
three teams that were involved in that legendary match, that
legendary series of matches back in the ring one last time.

(01:19:58):
And I thought, that can, considering how much older they
are and how beat up they are, they gave you
everything they could, and what they gave you was actually
pretty good, all things considered. I don't really think they
embarrassed themselves, you know, beyond the point that they're obviously
not moving in the way that they would have moved
twenty five years ago. Hey, guess what, twenty five years

(01:20:19):
from now, I'm not going to be moving the same
way I'm moving now. Either. I may not even be
here the sleep schedule that I have, I may not
even be here anymore. So, yes, twenty five years later,
I thought, all things considered, they did fine. And somebody
and I forgot who it was shout out to that person.
But they were in my mentions on X and they

(01:20:40):
asked me to address the fact that Jeff Hardy was
doing most of the work in this match and why
was that. The answer is very simple, and it's kind
of weird to say this, but of all the people
in that match, Jeff Hardy, I think physically is the
one who held up the best. Jeff Hardy physically is
probably in the best physical condition or shape of anybody

(01:21:04):
in this match, because Matt's you know, his body is
beaten to hell, right, I mean, he could still go,
but not the way he used to. And then the
Dudley's right, their bodies are beaten to shit and they
don't move around the way they used to. So if
it felt like Jeff was the one who has taken
all the big bumps, yeah, there's a reason for that,
because for all of the crazy shit that this guy
has done in his career, shockingly enough, physically he was

(01:21:26):
in the best shape of all four men in this match.
It's not really a surprise. So that's why it felt
that way. But I thought that this was a very
fitting homage to the TLC era and in a weekend
where it really did feel like the end of an
era on Saturday, and it felt more like the end
of an era here on Sunday. You know, John cnn,

(01:21:48):
AJ styles the chapter of their careers is coming to
a close. But this, this really was like an era
that these guys were a part of. And this this
felt more like like that WrestleMania twenty eight moment right
on a smaller scale. But this was more like that
than seen AJ was. But there's just a lot of

(01:22:09):
this going around, man, a lot of these guys that
we grew up watching and that have been around for
so long and you could always rely on them to
come back and get the big pop and do a
match here and there. Not anymore. You know, their time
is coming to an end, whether it's Sina or AJ
or Tanahashi or the Dudley's, the Hardy's. Eventually the Hardys
will have their moment as well. You know, we keep

(01:22:30):
talking about Jericho and he's going to probably be back
in WWE next year. But Jericho's getting up there too,
and at some point Jericho's gonna step away undertaker. Right.
You don't have those Undertaker Wrestlemnia matches anymore, right, these
guys are getting old and they're retiring, and that era
is slowly but surely coming to a close, you know,

(01:22:51):
and it's a hard thing to accept. But I I
look at it and I say, you know what, I'm
just glad a lot of these guys are still around
because there were a lot of wrestlers from not only
their era, but the era right before where they're not
even here anymore. You know, a lot of those guys
didn't even make it to the age of fifty. The
fact that these guys are still around and all things considered,

(01:23:14):
are in fairly good shape is a plus. You know.
I look at that as a positive that we have
so many of those guys that are still around and
can enjoy moments like this where they get their flowers,
when so many before them didn't have their their shot.
They didn't have that opportunity unfortunately. But after this we

(01:23:35):
had the main event, Trick Williams. I didn't envy these
two guys, by the way, having to follow the last
two matches, that's a tough thing to do, but they
were going to try because it was all about the
moment at the end. With Mike Santana, we had Trick
Williams defending the TNA World Heavyweight Championship against Mike Santana,

(01:23:59):
who of course was flying the TNA flag against mister
NXT over here trying to bring the championship back home.
Santana comes out through the crowd and through all the
chaos and all the fans and all the people. Who
does he find. He finds Conan And I laughed, because
if you know the history of Conan and TNA, you

(01:24:21):
just can't help but laugh. Right. There was a lot
of animists there, there were lawsuits, there was all kinds
of just bad blood there. But there he was. He
had the bandana around his face, he pulled it down,
and there he is. There's Conan. Conan's everywhere these days. Man,
He's popping up in Triple A on those shows with WWE,
and now here he is in TNA. So the crowd

(01:24:41):
was into both of these entrances in such a way
where it really did have that big fight feel to
it when they came out. Santana got some booze when
they announced him from the Bronx New York, because of course,
I mean they were in Massachusetts, so what do you expect,
Trick william grabbed the mic from Mackenzie Mitchell before she

(01:25:02):
could intro him, and then told Santana that he would
beat his ass like the Boston Red Sox so that
way they could put the heat on him. And so
now the fans booed him, and then he did his
own in ring intro. Santana cut him off with a
right hand and they brawled to the floor where they
fought into the crowd. So we got started here. There

(01:25:23):
was no bell. Still no bell yet, we're not officially underway.
Williams tried to use a trash can on Santana, but
that backfired and he wound up covered in trash. They
brawled back to ringside. Santana dumped a Trick onto the
apron with the back suplex. Santana took a minute to
celebrate with a fan, and doing so gave Trick the
opening to hit Santana with the TNA title. Then the

(01:25:46):
bell rang. Let's reward this bad behavior by ringing the
bell here. Ginger says, Conan came back to TNA in
twenty seventeen. Yes, there was a lot of bad blood
and a lot of history there with Conan and TNA.
That's really what I'm referring to so when I see

(01:26:08):
him in TNA, it just makes me laugh. But you
are correct. I do believe that there was, at least
for a period of time, there was a return there.
So Williams hit his trick shot finished back in the
ring and immediately covered Santana got a close near fall.
I wouldn't say it was a very believable near fall

(01:26:29):
because the idea of the match would be over at
that point is just, I mean, hilarious. Williams followed that
with a death valley driver for another near fall, and
then Trick hit a spin kick and a jumping neck breaker.
He just could not put this man away. Santana charged
it Trick and got backdropped to the floor Outside. Williams
used a slingshot to send Santana into the ring post

(01:26:51):
head first, and they cut away for a while to
show Trick he was playing to the fans. He got
to give Santana some time to do his business. When
they put the camera back on Santana, he was a
bloody mess. He was busted open like the radio. So
Williams back dropped Santana onto the steel steps. The flat

(01:27:11):
part of the steel steps Williams whipped Santana into the
barricade and then took Santana over to his daughter, because
Mike had his daughter there in the front row and
he wanted to make sure that she was going to
watch her father take a beating here from the champion.
Williams asked Santana's daughter who her daddy was, and she

(01:27:33):
slapped him, and he sold the shit out of that slap,
and he stumbled into a topey from Santana, who came
flying out of the ring. Back inside, Santana caught Williams
with a power bomb. He went to the top again,
Santana hit a four fifty splash, only for a near fall.
So at this point, Trick's lawyer comes down to the ring.

(01:27:54):
I should mention that earlier in the night there was
a backstage segment I don't remember. It might have been
on the pre show, I don't remember, but it could
have been during the pay per view, and he had
his lawyer with him, some guy I had never seen before.
So he came out here and I don't know who

(01:28:15):
this man is. My guess is it's probably someone from
developmental And five years from now, seven eight years from now,
we're going to look back. This guy's going to be
on the WrestleMania card somewhere, and it's going to be
a trivia note that one day, many years ago, he
played Trick Williams, lawyer on a TNA pay per view.

(01:28:36):
It's like Tomasso Champa many years ago on SmackDown, he
played a lawyer and he got his ass kicked by
the undertaker, right, and look at him now, look at
all the success he's ad. So I don't know who
this person was. But Santana went for his discus lariet. Williams, though,
ducked it and he hit a pair of urinagis. Williams
went to the top, Santana caught him and climbed up
with him. Williams was able to drive Santana to the

(01:28:58):
mat though with an avalanche urinagi, but it only netted
him a two count. So Williams grabbed his belt and
he went for a wild swing. Santana ducked and rolled
him up for a two count. After some more counter
Santana hits the spin the Block lariot, but it only
got two tricks. Lawyer got up on the apron again

(01:29:20):
and this time Santana pulled him into the ring. He
gave him a discus lariot, but then Williams catches Santana
with this great looking trick shot, and Santana sold the
shit out of it, and that got a great near fall. Okay,
unlike the one at the very beginning of the match,
this was a great believable near fall. Here Santana and
now was crawling and he's looking at his daughter, who's

(01:29:42):
over there in the front row. Right. He says, great
shot of him. He's just got, you know, blood all
over his face, and Williams charges in for another trick shot.
Santana ducks it. Santana blocks another urinagi, hits a flying lariat,
and finally finally hits the discus lariot and he covers

(01:30:04):
trick Williams for the one two three to bring home
the gold. He wins the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. So
as Carlos Silva is doing his thing and he's walking
up the stairs with the title to present the championship
to Santana. He doesn't even get into the ring yet
before we hear Nick Nemitt's music. Because I'm waiting for

(01:30:27):
this big emotional moment right where Silva hands in the championship.
I mean, he's been waiting for so long to get
this moment, and now they're playing Dolv Ziggler's music and
I'm like, what the fuck? So Nemith comes out and
he's got that stupid trophy and I'm like, are you
fucking kidding me with this nonsense? Like I'm not expecting
him to successfully cash in, but like, why are you

(01:30:48):
interrupting this moment? Like what? You better have something real
good planned here. So he comes out in the aisle
and he's got the trophy and at that point, the
lights go out. So when they come back on, we
see again with the lights out, gimmick by the way,

(01:31:08):
pulling their best Tony Kahan here, let's come back on.
And who is in the aisle behind Nemeath, Elias or Elijah.
He's in TNA mode. Now I gotta say, I gotta
say his TNA name. We see Elijah and he takes
out Nemath with a guitar, a guitar shot to the skull.

(01:31:28):
He shatters this white guitar over Nemet's head and then
he looks up at Santana in the ring because he's
got his hat on right his cowboy hat and he
tips the hat to Santana in the ring. This was
the first time I do believe that we have seen
Elijah since he tore his triceps in that six man
tag match on NXT back in June. I believe it

(01:31:51):
was I guess this was his return. But we're not
done yet because in the ring is Frankie Kazarian, the
other winner of the Call Your Shot gauntlet from earlier
in the show, the co holder of the dumb trophy
that is currently sitting in the aisle and he realizes, evidently,
you are not allowed to cash in for your championship

(01:32:12):
shot unless you have physical possession of the trophy. Apparently
these are the dumb rules that have been set up here.
The trophy is over there, though, so he can't cash
in because Santana at this point seas him and he's like,
fuck right, because the trophy is over there in the
aisleway and he can't cash in now, very stupid, So

(01:32:33):
Santana wipes him out with the lariat. I thought all
of this was completely unnecessary. Having now seen what they did,
I feel exactly the same way I did when I
first heard Nemetz music hit all of this should have
been cut out. None of this was necessary. None of
this added anything here. If anything, it nearly ruined the
fucking moment. It didn't serve any significant purpose. You want

(01:32:56):
to bring Elijah back. Elijah is not that big of
a deal that he should even be involved in this moment.
This was an angle that could have been done on
impact in the opening segment this coming Thursday. Okay, so
that's my only gripe about all of this, All of
this silly nonsense was just that it was silly. It
was stupid, and it should not have been It should
not have been approved of here for this postmatch angle.

(01:33:17):
It was completely unnecessary. So, after all this bullshit is
over with, Carlos Silva does present the TNA World Heavyweight
Championship to Santana. He's very emotional. He brings his daughter
into the ring, he hugs her, he's got blood again
pouring down his face, and he drops down to his
knees to like basically bow to her, and he holds

(01:33:39):
the championship belt out and he presents the championship to
his daughter. It's a very cool moment, you know, very
emotional moment there, and a great moment to end the show.
I thought the match was very good in terms of
how they built to that finish. It did feel like
the crowd was lukewarm in the middle of it, and

(01:34:01):
I think that had just more to do, honestly, with
the fact that they had just been treated to too.
There were two very different matches in terms of the
X Division match and the Tables match, but they were
really two of the big attractions on the show, and
the crowd really did invest a lot in those two matches,
and then you followed that up with this, and it
just it did hurt the match a little bit, but

(01:34:22):
at least they were able to bring them up for
the closing moments, you know that, which is the most
important part. They were able to bring them up for
the finish and Santana winning the championship and everybody cheered
and everybody was very happy. And I don't know if
the reaction in New York would have been better or
if it would have been comparable, but you know, he
got a good reaction here for the finish. So I

(01:34:42):
enjoyed the match. It was not my favorite match on
the show, but I enjoyed the match. I liked the
moment even more and to go back to what I
said here at the beginning of the review. You know,
I had the chance to watch Mike Santana put together
a very impressive body of work because I'm in a
unique position where I have a very cool job where
I could be there to be able to call these

(01:35:05):
great matches that he was having, and I'm watching him
have these matches that I never saw him have in
aw because for the most part, he was a tag
team guy, but he never had the opportunity to really
show people what he can do. So when he was
in there with someone like the amazing writer, when he
was in there with any number of people that we
would bring in for him to wrestle, he was killing
it every single time. And it was just a matter

(01:35:28):
of getting the word out there about it and showing people, Hey,
look at what's going on here. This guy is he's
rebuilding himself. You know, it's this career revival that he's
having here, and we could see it right in New York,
but soon enough, the entire world will be able to
see it. And it's only a matter of time. You know.
When Joe Hendry was the TNA World Heavyweight Champion, it

(01:35:48):
just seemed obvious that the next babyface to follow him
was going to be Mike Santana. The only question was
who would they put the belt on in between to
be the transitional champion effectively, because I didn't think they
were going to have Santana have to beat Henri. You
got two guys that people like, right, that doesn't really
make sense. So this moment was a long time coming,

(01:36:09):
and it was a lot of injury, it was a
lot of bullshit, it was a lot of just unhappiness
with the position that he was in. He took a
chance on himself, and it's very cool to see someone
who does that that it pays off for them and
it results in good things for them. You know. I
like when good things happen to good people, and Mike
Santana is good people and I was very happy to

(01:36:31):
see him get this moment. Long may he reign. I
hope that he will have a very successful championship run.
Where the future leads him, we'll see. You know, he's
made a lot of appearances this year on NXT. I
am sure he is not done making appearances on NXT,
and one day we should see him on Raw, or

(01:36:51):
we should see him on SmackDown, but that's for later on.
There's no reason for him to worry about that right now.
I think he's in a very good spot. I think
he knows that there are on him from WWE, among
other places, and right now the focus should be just
going out there and flying the flag for TNA. TNA
is going to be announcing a new television deal any
week now, heading into twenty twenty six. Who knows, maybe

(01:37:14):
on the CW network they may have more eyeballs on
that show than they've had since the Spike TV days.
Mike Santana now is going to be the poster boy
for that. He's going to have his face plastered on
all of that. He will be the face of that
television show. And that's a damn good spot for him
to be in. So I enjoyed this show. I had
a lot of fun watching it. There was some very

(01:37:35):
head scratching booking decisions here, and some stuff I didn't
agree with. We went through all of that, but on
the whole, I thought the show was fun and I
really enjoyed it. Let's take a look at the Twitter
pol see if you guys agree. What did you think
of Bound for Glory twenty twenty five eighty percent thumbs
up and just shy of twenty percent thumbs down for
this show. So it seems like you guys are in

(01:37:58):
agreement with me on that. And we got some good
wrestling this weekend. We got that John Cena AJ Styles match,
which was excellent. We had that X Division title match
tonight's which was excellent. Finish aside, we got some good
wrestling this weekend. All right, let's take a look at

(01:38:22):
your messages and get you guys out of here. Don't
forget that RAW begins at about what seven hours. I
will not be up at eight o'clock in the morning
to watch Raw. Raw will be waiting for me when
I'm getting ready to watch Raw, and then I will
have to let you guys know when I plan to
go live tomorrow, because I will go live. I just
I'm not exactly sure when. At this point, today's episode

(01:38:46):
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(01:39:06):
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(01:41:17):
renewing subscription purchase. A shout out to Tommy Kollela with
the twenty dollars super chat or are we I didn't
check the likes? By the way, Ricky says, three fifty five,
all right, so we may have to skip be the
booker tonight. We don't hit four hundred, that's all right. Uh,

(01:41:38):
Tommy says, So I was thinking, Sinceina is going to
face Dom at Survivor Series, well, we assume that he's
going to face Dom at Survivor Series. That's what Meltzer
is reporting. Uh. Do you think there is a chance
in hell that he's going to win the IC title
and since he's facing Gunther in his final match, that

(01:41:59):
Gunther would take the title? Do I think there's a chance, Yes,
there's a chance. I don't want to see it. Absolutely,
there's a chance that Johnsena will win the Grand Slam
and win the Intercontinental Championship. I just would rather not
see that. I don't I don't see what's gained. If
Gunther wins the Intercontinental title, it's a step down for

(01:42:21):
him unless they just want to keep this whole thing
going where it's like, you know, eighty five percent of
his run he's been holding a championship. Has to be
holding a championship of some kind, like who cares like
he's above that. I don't think he needs the Intercontinental
title back Retro koleh Herd fans say they wanted Edge,

(01:42:44):
so we had the WWE Vault upload him beating Edge
for the world title in two thousand and five. Hashtag
lol triple h. Yep, they did upload that match to
the Vault channel earlier. I did notice. That's funny how
that works, isn't it. Boots says When Bubba slowly turned

(01:43:06):
around and accepted his fate, I shed a little tear
as he went through the table. Only thing missing was
Edge and Christian Wrestling News co again. Thank you very much.
My friends love your show, they say, love the site.
Keep up the good work. Cory Blake with The Ten says,

(01:43:29):
congrats to Mike Santana. His story proves that perseverance, hard work,
and dedication pays off. AW dropped the ball on him,
but he bet on himself and now he is a
world champion. Man, where where's Ortiz? I know he was hurt,
but I think he's not hurt anymore. And you don't

(01:43:51):
really hear about Ortiz. Tony Kahan does not appear to
be doing anything with Ortiz. Now you know why Mike
Santana probably left. I think that says it all. Bobby
Means says Javon Evans is definitely the future of WWE
in my opinion, I believe there is a strong possibility
and he becomes the new NXT champion, Come stand and deliver.

(01:44:14):
We are officially in the youth movement of WWE. Well,
I'll tell you what. The youth movement of WWE is
something that they're going to have to embrace because they're
aging out. They're aging out. You see all these legends
again that are winding down their careers either fully or
they're just not going to be full time anymore because
they just can't do it anymore. You've got to invest

(01:44:36):
in youth, and Javon Evans is definitely going to be
a major star for them. I see there were people
who believe that he should be called up to the
main roster right now, and you could do that. I'm
all for shaking up the rosters and calling people up
from NXT. Javon Evans would not be one of them,
not yet. Javan Evans is twenty one years old. Let

(01:44:56):
him continue to run in NXT. Give him the opportu
unity to hold the NXT championship and be the face
of a brand, and let him run with that for
a year, year and a half, two years, however long
it may be, and he'll be in a much better
position I think, to bring value to the main roster
once you're ready to call him up to RAR SmackDown,

(01:45:18):
because it's not as if they have this lack of talent.
There's plenty of talent. It's about what you do with
that talent. Javon is going to be there, but you
don't need to rush him to the main roster just
yet now. I kind of I think about that, Like,
he's twenty one years old. If you bring him up
to the main roster now and give him a big push,
I mean, it'll be nine years before he turns thirty. Like,

(01:45:40):
you really do run the risk of burning some of
these stars out a little too soon. You really got
to You've got to take great care with some of
these people and not rush them and not you know,
too much too soon. That's like I talked about that
with Stephanie vakaher and all the championships and all the
goal all the success that she's had so far and
the main roster, and I just really hope they have

(01:46:02):
a good plan to follow up on all of this
great success that she's had, because if not, you'll see
within a matter of months people will start complaining about,
you know, stale, her run is stale. I like her,
but her run sucks or on bored of her. All
she does is the Devil's kiss. It's coming. Oh, it's coming.

(01:46:25):
You've got to make sure you've got a good plan
for these people. Anyway, if you didn't hear the podcast
earlier today, go back and check it out. It's a
good show. Talked about a lot of WWE and AW stuff,
some NXT as well, some other news and notes, Raji Jackson,
the Little Paul Hayman, braun stroman Beef, dark Side of

(01:46:46):
the Ring news, a lot of good stuff on the
show today. I will be live tomorrow. I don't know
what time. It will not be ten thirty or eleven
o'clock at night. It may be in the evening, maybe
eight o'clock. I'll try to earlier if I can. I
may not be able to, so I will keep you
guys posted on X or just you know, make sure

(01:47:07):
your notification bell is on, and once the page goes up,
you should get some kind of a notification, and then
hopefully I will see you there and we get to
start the week all over again. We've got a full
week of shows coming up, so be well, stay safe,
have yourselves a good night, and I will see you
back here for more sound off in less than twenty

(01:47:30):
four hours. I guess I'll see you back here soon.
Until then, take care, guys,

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TNA Bound For Glory 2025 Review | Mike Santana WINS TNA GOLD, Hardys RETIRE The Dudleys!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}TNA Bound For Glory 2025 Review | Mike Santana WINS TNA GOLD, Hardys RETIRE The Dudleys!