A busy weekend in televised wrestling

Two shows graced television and computer screens this weekend from the folks at both WWE and TNA. I previewed both Live from MSG and Bound For Glory to end last week, but both shows put on some great matches but with somewhat underwhelming results.

Live From Madison Square Garden started its life as a house show with Brock Lesnar announced for it. Like the last house show in Tokyo that featured Lesnar, it became a WWE special and the Lesnar / Show match didn't disappoint. Big Show was allowed to look like a massive giant, manhandling Lesnar for several minutes and even delivering three chokeslams. But it wasn't enough to lay out "The Beast Incarnate" who responded with a trip to Suplex City for Big Show. One more F5 put Show away for the day.

Big Show visits Suplex City. Image credit: WWE.com.

The rest of the card was filled with solid matches but very little story progression. The two interminable singles feuds were turned into a solid tag match as Randy Orton and Dolph Ziggler beat Rusev and Sheamus. Neville got another singles win over Stardust as their feud continued, while roles were reversed in a Raw rematch of Team PCB vs. Team Bella. This time Charlotte and Becky Lynch abandoned Paige to her fate. Becky was kind enough to explain their reasons in a superb post-match promo.

Will a new TNA take shape at Bound For Glory?

I don't watch much TNA anymore. When it was on Spike, replays would appear on the site and be easily viewable by yours truly. Destination America does not do the same, nor do they offer the show on content partner Hulu, so I am left to follow most of TNA's storylines through recaps. Sometimes that leaves folks with a more negative view of a program if a reviewer personally doesn't like a segment (or vice versa.) But I have to say that while it doesn't have the depth of name talent previous TNA pay-per-views had, the upcoming Bound For Glory sounds incredibly solid.

The BFG poster is not helped by the large
image of the currently suspended Bram.

The show is headlined by a triple threat match for the TNA World Heavyweight title as champion Ethan Carter III defends against Matt Hardy and Drew Galloway with Jeff Hardy as special guest referee. I personally think this sounds like one of the weakest matches on the card not because the talent involved isn't great, but because the booking clearly implies typical TNA shenanigan booking to end the show. The big pay-per-view should have a decisive finish and it just seems doubtful that with his enemy EC3 and his brother Matt in the ring that Jeff will call it down the middle.