Impact Wrestling Bound for Glory live results: Aries vs. Johnny Impact

What is traditionally Impact Wrestling’s biggest event of the year takes place tonight as the Melrose Ballroom in Queens, New York hosts Bound for Glory 2018.

We’re looking for your thoughts on this show, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

An Impact World Championship match will headline the pay-per-view, with Austin Aries defending his title against Johnny Impact. Aries has been aligned with Killer Kross and Moose (who turned heel during the build to the PPV), and Moose will face Eddie Edwards tonight.

The Knockouts Championship will be on the line as Tessa Blanchard defends against Taya Valkyrie, LAX will face the OGz in a Concrete Jungle Death Match, Pentagon Jr. & Fenix team with Brian Cage against Sami Callihan & oVe, and Rich Swann & Willie Mack take on Matt Sydal & Ethan Page.

Eli Drake issuing a New York open challenge and Allie going to Su Yung’s “Undead Realm” are also advertised for tonight. Our live coverage begins at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

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By Dave Meltzer

RICH SWANN & WILLIE MACK VS. ETHAN PAGE & MATT SYDAL

This match was great.  Mack was phenomenal, Page was a great base for soem spots.  The finish saw Swann do a springboard cutter on Sydal and then pinned him after a middle rope Phoenix splash.  The crowd loved this.  The ring is really small and the guard rails are close to dives are problematic and they didn’t do any of them in this match.  They didn’t need them.  There was a ridiculous spot wehre Sydal did jump to the top rope huracanrana on Swann, who while taking the move off the top then did a huracanrana onto Page.  Everything was crisp and explosive. 

Mack wanted to cut  a promo.  The first two mic’s didn’t work.  Mack just told the fans to make some noise.  Mack said that whoever makes the most noise will get moved to the front row.  They haveily plugged their sponsor.comda.com

They are pushing all the Johnny Impact vs. Austin Aries stuff from TMZ and last night now.  TMZ was pushing like the angle was a shoot and discussed if Impact would go off the script.  I still hate that stuff in the middle of the show.

Fans are chanting Y2J.  

Konnan’s been hurt backstage.  He said King did it and you guys handle business.

ELI DRAKE’S OPEN CHALLENGE

He insulted the New York Giants and asked how’s that 1-5 record treting you.  James Ellsworth came out.  People were hoping for Chris Jericho, kind of a big dropoff.  Fans were chanting “delete” at him.  Drake said to the fans, “Wrong guy.”  Drake said he wasn’t from New York.  Ellsworth said he dated a girl from Staten Island once and lived in her basement.  Ellsworth kissed up to New York and peole were booing him and saying “F*** you Ellsworth.”  Drake made fun of the bad reaction.  Drake made the first chin joke.  Ellsworth said “I might not have a chin, but you don’t have any balls.”  Fans were chanting “balls” but he’s not around anymore.  And then the match started

ELI DRAKE VS. JAMES ELLSWORTH

Fans were totally behind Drake who won quickly with two Gravy trains.  Really the segment completely backfired, people hated it even though it was a set up for something next.

Drake said he didn’t come here to face garbage, he wanted to face a Hall of Famer.

Abyss, who was inducted into their Hall of Fame last night, came out and laid out Drake with a black hole slam.  Abyss pulled out a table.  Drake  made a bief comeback before Abyss choke slammed Drake through a table. 

TESSA BLANCHARD VS. TAYA VALKYRIE FOR THE KNOCKOUTS TITLE 

Good match, more physical than WWE women’s matches.  Taya used the road to Valhalla but the ref had been distracted by Blanchard pulling the apron dressing into the ring.  Blanchard used the hammerlock DDT but Taya kicked out.  They traded near falls ending when Blanchard flew off the top rope two-thirds of the way across the ring into a codebreaker, like the MX that Bushi uses.  Strong overall except a Taya choke slam that didn’t get high enough. 

EDDIE EDWARDS VS. MOOSE

Moose came out with three women. Match went seconds with Killer Kross choking out Edwards for the DQ.  Tommy Dreamer made the save so it turned into a tag match.

TOMMY DREAMER & EDDIE EDWARDS VS. MOOSE & KILLER KROSS

It was all a brawl.  Crowd was into it.  Jylen Ware of the New York Giants was at ringside shoved Moose at one point.  The cameras missed that and also missed Edwards giving Moose a belly-to-belly overhead on the floor.  Edwards pinned Moose with a schoolboy.

The heels beat them down after the match.  They gave Edwards a double-team hard power bomb into the ring frame.  This was more brutal than most power bombs on the apron.

SAMI CALLIHAN & DAVE & JAKE CRIST VS. PENTAGON JR. & FENIX & BRIAN CAGE IN AN OVE RULES MATCH 

Big surprise finish as Callihan pinned Cage after a piledriver.  All three gave Cage a ton of superkicks one after the other  This is the first time Cage has lost a fall in Impact.  Match was all action but a few of the spots wre off.  There were some ceazy spots including Fenix running down the ramp jumping over the top rope and hitting a cutter.  Callihan piledriver Pentagon on the apron.  The building doesn’t allow for spectacular dives so we didn’t get any of that.

Austin Aries interview.   He said when he came here the place was on life support and he built the reputation of the company and make the title mean something again.  Johnny Impact showed up, while I’m putitng in the work, you do a reality show, nurse injuries and get married.  Aries said he doesn’t trust Impact and he doesn’t trust management.  Said he was bringing Moose and Kross out and he wants Taya at ringside to see when he exposes Impact. 

ORTIZ & SANTANA VS. THE KING & HOMICIDE & HERNANDEZ IN A CONCRETE JUNGLE MATCH

This was very dangerous working a match on the bare boards which kept moving messing with people’s footing.  LAX won when Konnan came out for the finish and used a slapjack on everyone and then Santana & Ortiz used the street sweeper which is a combination Doomsday device and blockbuster on King for the pin.  There were a lot of bumps on he boads including LAX giving Hernandez a top rope superplex on bare boards. 

Jim Michtell allowed Allie to go into the undead world to save Keira Hogan from Su Yung.  It’s their own Buffy the Vampire slayer vignette.  Allie keeps destroying Su Yung with an ax.  But Allie saw he soul which means her soul stays in this dreaded place.  Then she found Keira Hogan in a coffin and Su Yung came back and had the ax but keeps missing Allie with ax shots.  Su Yung used a baseball bat on Allie several times.  This was different.  I’m not sure this is what people want out of their wrestling TV shows. .  I think Allie killed Su a third time and got Kiera out of the coffin.  Jim Mitchell showed up and told her he promised to get her in but never promised to get her out.  Rosemary showed up.  Evidently she lives there now and she told Allie and Hogan to go back to their realm.  Su Yung is alive again by the way and she showed up to stop them from returning to the real world.  Allie wanted Rosemary to come with them.  She had some supernatural fight with Su Yung and didn’t.  Allie and Hogan made it back to the real world.  But Allie is now possessed.  This was all kinds of embarrassing if anyone ever walked in the room if you were watching this.  This was Randy Orton-Bray Wyatt bad.

The next PPV will be in Nashville on Jnauary 6th at the Fairgrounds.  

AUSTIN ARIES VS. JOHNNY IMPACT FOR TITLE

They really had a hell of match ending with Impact winning the title with a brainbuster and Starship pain.  Aries got right up and walked out.  Right before the finish Aries gave Taya a tope.  Impact used Starship pain earlier but Aries got his foot on the ropes.  Aries hit the brainbuster but Impact mae the ropes.  They used a ton of big moves.  The only negative is that they opened up working it like a shoot, which was good, but it came right after that undead stuff so they put people in the mood where you couldn’t take anything serious and then tried to work a shoot the first few minutes.  They opened up and did a match.  Aries is a great worker and a ring general and Impact does cool athletic things.  They gave people the title change and went off the air without a celebration past Impact and Taya hugging.  Aries looked like he’d lost a lot of weight.