Jim Ross on Bound For Glory Booking, Gail Kim Retirement, Jericho-Omega

Recent blog posting by Jim Ross on his official blog discussed a variety of topics including his thoughts on the booking for Bound For Glory, Gail Kim’s retirement, and Chris Jericho wrestling Kenny Omega in NJPW.

On the topic of Impact Wrestling’s booking for Bound For Glory, Ross praised the talent involved but felt the event’s quality was dragged down because of the overuse of gimmicks and gimmick matches. He felt a few tweaks to the card and booking would have been very beneficial in the end.

“Respected the work ethic of the talents, but at times too many ‘gimmicks and gimmick matches’ became overkill, in my opinion. Overuse of gimmick matches, and gimmicks in general, dilutes the process and desensitizes the audience which was seemingly the case in Ottawa. Bound for Glory was a solid show that had its share of booking issues, but the look of the show and the looks of the small arena was good. However, like many fans often proclaim, I would have made some tweaks to the card. The goals of any rasslin’ creative entity should always be to attempt to put the talents in a position that they can best excel based on their skill sets and the overall makeup of the card. The overuse of duplicate or like spots with extensive gimmick use does no one any favors on anyone’s card.”

On the topic of Gail Kim’s retirement, Ross praised Kim’s career and felt Impact made the right decision on having her win her final match.

“Loved the Gail Kim presentation. She’s a timeless treasure for the biz and one of the best performers of any gender that I can recall seeing in my 40+ year career. If she had not won, I was prepared to do some thing really stupid, but I’m grateful that the right call was made without overthinking it and making it ‘unpredictable’ because that’s the primary thing that most fans want. To that I say, B.S. Most fans want great execution and logical booking and some things are much better being ‘predictable’ than not. That’s simply my two cents.”

On the topic of Chris Jericho challenging Kenny Omega to a match in NJPW, Ross stated the match should be fantastic and will be a really great way to generate more interest for next year’s Wrestle Kingdom event.

“Just my take, but how any of us can complain about Jericho vs. Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12 in January of 2018 is a head scratcher. It was excellent booking, creative, and the two Winnipeg natives will rock the Tokyo Dome and sell tickets. This is the best way for them to monetize this window of opportunity, without question. It’s been a long time since the Dome went clean on January 4 and this match should certainly help regarding that matter. I read where the NJPW goals was to sell 30,000 for Wrestle Kingdom 12, which is a tremendous number, but the Dome’s capacity for baseball is 55,000 and obviously a bit more for wrestling.”