To a degree I really admire TNA at the moment for continuing to march despite the large, and I mean large, number of setbacks they’ve had in the last ten years really. Things were getting critically bad in the last few years and I’ve spoken a few times about it, but they still want to make something out of seemingly nothing which is respectable. They still want to make Total Nonstop Action Wrestling a viable professional wrestling company and will be willing to go to any lengths to do it. Some of these methods have been seen as unethical and some have been seen as outright stupid. Despite this, they will not go down without a fight. In a way, you have to respect that.
With that being said, there were a lot of questionable booking decisions in the last few years which made you question whether those writers wanted to accomplish anything worthwhile at all. My biggest issue was with the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, which has been embroiled in one of the most illogical title merry-go-rounds in recent memory. Ethan Carter III’s title reign came to an end at Bound For Glory, despite not being pinned. Matt Hardy’s newly-won title was forfeited a few days later, making the main event of Bound For Glory seem like a waste of time. After a long World Title Series to crown a new champion, Ethan Carter III regained the title which reverted things back to EXACTLY as they were before Bound For Glory. A double turn saw Matt Hardy REGAIN the TNA World Title. This was an amazingly complicated way of having the two men trade the titles back-and-forth.
The issue initially was that the main-event title scene ever since October has been dominated by Ethan Carter III, who had been a prominent part of TNA programming ever since he debuted, and Matt Hardy, who is 41-years-old and shouldn’t really be main-eventing “international” wrestling programming in 2016. The title scene needed a fresh change and on Tuesday night, we got one.
It was in fact Drew Galloway that emerged as the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion, following the main event match between Matt Hardy, Ethan Carter III and the returning Jeff Hardy. Drew cashed in his “Feast Or Fired” briefcase and captured the TNA World title, winning his first world championship for a internationally-broadcasted wrestling company (as he had won world titles at ICW and Evolve).
Drew was also the first person to successfully cash in the World Heavyweight Championship “Feast Or Fired” briefcase in the history of TNA. Isn’t that strange? This is a concept based off the Money In The Bank ladder match from WWE, where almost everybody that cashed in was successful. In TNA, everyone that had the World title briefcase had failed up until Galloway! TNA, everybody!
This was obviously a win that was big for Drew when you saw him with the belt. It was also nice to see Alberto Del Rio and Sheamus both come out to congratulate Drew’s win for what is supposedly a rival wrestling promotion. It was very nice.
It was a title change which needed to be done as it puts it on some new blood. It feels kind of strange calling Drew Galloway new blood as he’s been a superstar WWE for a number of years. Then again, he’s never really been a top main event guy in either WWE or TNA before. Drew was in the main event of Bound For Glory but he was still the one that got pinned by Matt Hardy. This is the first time where Drew has been the man in a “major” promotion.
It opens up the possibilities and I hope they run with him until this year’s Bound For Glory. I have a bad feeling inside of me that they’ll eventually go with Jeff Hardy vs Matt Hardy for the title in that event, but I feel that Drew needs to be the one going into the event as the champion. A good call by TNA and I hope Drew has a good run as champion ahead of him!
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