ZeeWI: Bound For Glory, Destined For Agony

Editor’s Note: One More Week of Hiatus for the Grand Championship Rankings, as the Belt was not featured at Bound For Glory, leaving the division in a holding pattern for the time being. We fully expect to resume the rankings shortly!

This past Sunday, Ottawa, Ontario was rocking and rolling as Impact Wrestling hosted its annual superevent, Bound For Glory. Top to bottom, the card was stacked, and it looked like Impact was ready to make a statement about what they plan to do in the future. We broke that card down last week, along with our predictions.

And… we got one match prediction correct. One. Not the greatest winning percentage, to be sure. Still, there was a silver lining to acknowledge, as the one match that we got right, was the main event for the Heavyweight Championship between Johnny Impact and E_Li_Drake.

Now, to be fair, the match didn’t exactly plan out the way that yours truly had first imagined. If I’m being honest – and I am – I thought that Drake would use every trick he knows to cut Johnny off at every turn, and that with Christopher Adonis watching his back, that Drake would be able to overcome the odds of having the company obviously favor your opponent, and desperately trying to make their wishes come true.

As those of us who tuned in on Sunday would see, this is not the way the match panned out. Yes, Drake won. And yes, he did so with lots of assistance from Adonis along the way. And yes, this columnist was totally okay with that, because again, Impact Wrestling has made it clear for months that they want Johnny Impact to be the champion – not Drake – and that they’d give Johnny as many opportunities as necessary to achieve that goal. So Drake having one person helping him out while Johnny is backed by many didn’t seem so wrong to me.

You see, earlier in the night, we were all treated to the glorious return of Alberto El Patrón, the former Heavyweight Champion who lost his title in the boardroom after being involved in an incident that only brought bad publicity to the company. Yes, the same company that gave Matt Hardy championship opportunities after he assaulted fans suddenly decided that they didn’t like bad press anymore. It was pretty shocking, to tell the truth.

In his return, El Patrón basically said that he would return to the top of the mountain, and that he would regain his championship again. He referred to E_Li_Drake as a “paper champion,” which is slightly understandable from the perspective that Drake never beat El Patrón, but absolutely ridiculous when one considers that, to win the title, Drake had to wrestle for nearly an hour, outlasting 19 other competitors in a grueling Gauntlet For the Gold. A match he entered at #2, for the record. Drake may not have beat the reigning champion, but he’s been anything but a paper champion, that’s for sure.

After Alberto was finished speaking, it was pretty clear that he’d get involved in the main event. How could he not?! He was going to make everyone pay for his rough past few months, including the company that took it all away from him, on their biggest night of the year!

So no, it wasn’t surprising when Alberto made his way back to the ring during the main event. It wasn’t surprising when he stopped a pin attempt by Johnny Impact, nor when he floored Johnny with a chairshot. It wasn’t surprising when he then dropped Drake with a shot to the head with the Heavyweight Championship belt. It wasn’t surprising that he put Drake on top of Johnny and watched the ref count the three. None of this was surprising, because it proved everything we have already accepted as fact:

One: We know that Alberto El Patrón needs everything to be about him, good or bad. There was no way he was going to let Bound For Glory be about the great matches, or new champions crowned, or anything else like that… not on the night of his big return!

Two: We know that Impact Wrestling isn’t thrilled with their current Heavyweight Champion. Jim Cornette did all he could to keep Drake from winning the belt, and when his plans failed, the company did everything it could to keep its desired champion – Johnny Impact – in the title scene, regardless of how many times he fell short. Knowing that Patrón was in the building and unhappy, did they set any type of rules regarding interference? Of course not!

Three: We know that, in spite of how they handled the Patrón situation, that Impact Wrestling craves attention, good or bad. Even if Impact Management didn’t think/know that Alberto would interject himself into the main event to the level that he did, one has to assume that they simply didn’t care, either. It should have been pretty easy to connect the dots that the angry ex-champion might want to sabotage the match for “his” belt, but Impact couldn’t do that. Whether it was because they didn’t care to try, or because they hoped it’d blow up in Drake’s face, is almost moot.

Which causes this journalist to wonder if there was some secret handshake deal. Maybe Impact management finally realized that, despite all of his skills, Johnny Impact simply doesn’t have what it takes to stop Drake. He’s had his chances, and regardless of why he failed, the fact is, he failed. Repeatedly.

It’s speculation, but I don’t think it’s unfair to come to the conclusion that someone from Impact approached El Patrón about making everything right between the two parties. All Alberto would have to do is guarantee that Johnny Impact walked out of Bound For Glory as the champion, and they’d give Alberto the very first crack at the new champion. Meanwhile, E_Li_Drake is removed from the picture, and he’d never be allowed another shot at redemption.

As is usually the case for Impact’s bumbling crew, the plan backfired. El Patrón realized that he was now holding the cards, and decided that he would definitely interfere, but that he was not going to help out the company that tossed him to the side at the first sign of trouble. Instead, he was going to make sure that the “paper champion” won the match. If Management got angry at him for going back on their deal, he’d simply tell the world – and Johnny Impact specifically – about the deal, and how Impact management had no faith in their hand-picked challenger.

And so, El Patrón headed to the ring knowing that he was holding all the keys. Down went Johnny. Down went Drake. He could have put either on top of the other for the pin, but he chose to give Drake the win. He got some payback on Impact Management for taking his belt in the first place. He twisted the knife by making sure that Impact’s new shiny toy, Johnny Impact – the man that basically replaced El Patrón as far as being the Golden Boy of Impact goes – failed to capture the top prize. In doing so, he kept Impact’s undesired champion on top, with El Patrón now ready to strike as the next contender.

As stated, this is all speculation. Maybe there was no handshake deal. Maybe Impact Management just made one boneheaded decision after another at Bound For Glory – letting El Patrón return, not promising any type of penalty if he interfered in any matches, not guaranteeing that there would be no interference in the Main Event – all in their usual naïve manner, thinking there was no way anything bad could happen.

Instead, they are now in the worst possible place, at least from their perspective. Their challenger is a man they’ve actively tried to undercut almost from the day he arrived. The angry ex-champion is back, and looking to stick it to the company in every way possible. The beloved top contender has been vanquished again, with a long road ahead of him if he wants to earn another crack at the belt.

On the other side, you have an angry champion who has long known that the higher-ups want him out of power. He’s more than aware that he’s a marked man, and after Bound For Glory, one has to expect that he’s feeling untouchable. And angry. Really, really angry.

At this point, the very worst thing that could happen for Impact Wrestling would be an alliance of sorts between Drake and El Patrón. For now, that seems to be nearly impossible, as the gold belt that Drake wears is everything that El Patrón wants. But, if the two can strike a bit of a cease fire while they make the company suffer, I’m sure they could reach an agreement that pleases both parties.

For now, we can celebrate that E_LI_DRAKE is still the Impact Wrestling Champion. We can celebrate that he defeated Johnny Impact, and we can celebrate that Impact’s most nefarious plans went up in smoke.

Yes, we can celebrate. But Impact Wrestling cannot. Bound For Glory was many things to many people, but there is no way that, for those running the company, the night was a success. Two very bitter employees now appear to hold a large amount of power, and both are brash enough to flaunt that fact at every turn.

And, as the saying goes, that’s not an insult… that’s just a fact of life!