In a world where championship victory can often give way to heartbreak and humiliation, it's only fitting that the Second City of Chicago host the 2023 Impact Wrestling Bound for Glory PPV live on FITE.
Chicago is, of course, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, a place where culture and pride can quickly give way to violence and trauma. It's a city that has burnt to the ground only to be remade and twisted into the visions of mobsters, politicians and of course the blue collar men and women who fight their way through life, seeking to better themselves while also cheering on their hometown heroes and teams.
Chicago isn't a place, it's a way of life, one that springboards young skateboarders into Straightedge Superstars. It's the birthplace of Walt Disney and the home of the Chicago Bulls. It's a city of great pride and of great sports. A place where anything can and will happen in the blink of an eye, where greatness can happen anywhere from the UIC Pavilion to Navy Pier to Cicero Stadium, where Bound for Glory will emanate for Impact Wrestling live on FITE.
Once more, Impact Wrestling's greatest championships and fiercest rivalries will collide live for all to witness live from Chitown. Bound for Glory has always been a night where careers are defined, where grudges are laid to rest and where championship history is enshrined forever. It is where men and women step into the squared circle as champions and challengers and emerge future Hall of Famers.
This year will prove to be no different. Bound for Glory is both the culmination of the journey and the beginning of the next, the nexus for all who dare to lay down the gauntlet and seek to raise the sword, at one staring down the neon streets of dreams and the void that is defeat. It is the event where anything can happen, where the bold and the confident face off with the hands of fate. All who enter seek the boundless riches and bragging rights of victory, but not all will emerge unscathed and successful.
MPACT World Championship – Alex Shelley (c) vs. Josh Alexander
Indeed, if the main events of Impact Wrestling Bound for Glory 2023 teach us anything, it is that with great victories often come great setbacks in the months to follow. While Alex Shelley walks into Bound for Glory the reigning and defending Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion, he does so knowing that the former champion Josh Alexander's injuries set the stage for Shelley to eventually become champion. While Shelley, a pro wrestling wizard by any definition, had proven to be a worthy champion, The Walking Weapon has returned to Impact from injuries, seeking to reclaim his position as the most important professional wrestler in the world.
Alexander's Championship reign defined his life just as Shelley's title reign does now. The reality is that each man more than deserves his claim to fame as champion. They are both good, noble fighters who have left their heart and soul in the ring countless times in pursuit of victory and in defense of Impact Wrestling itself. The pride of being the best will drive any sane man to the brink, so imagine what being forced to sit on the sidelines did to Josh Alexander? Maintaining your position at Champion is enough to keep any stellar athlete up at night, so imagine that knowing your title is in peril in Chicago is doing to Alex Shelley?
This World Championship match may prove to be one of the most historic battles in the 20+ year history of Impact, a fight worthy of AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Jeff Jarrett, Kurt Angle and all others who battled to raise Impact from nothing into something sacred. It is a generational battle of two talents who have lived and died for Impact, spiritually, their career paths bringing them to their very moment where the Impact World Championship is the most important thing in the entire world for the entire FITE universe. At Bound for Glory, a legacy will be enshrined forever.
IMPACT Knockouts World Championship – Trinity (c) vs. Mickie James
In a very similar situation, the Impact Wrestling Knockouts World Championship is at stake in one of the most talked about battles at Bound for Glory on October 21st in Chicago as Champion Trinity will battle her friend and ally, former Knockouts World Champion Mickie James.
In a situation that mirrors Josh Alexander vs. Alex Shelley, it was James who was forced to forfeit the Knockouts Championship due to injury, eventually setting the stage for Trinity to ascend as Champion with a victory over Deonna Purrazzo at Slammiversary earlier this year. With James returning at Impact 1000, it was only a matter of time before she and Trinity, despite their deep respect for each other, landed on a collision course with the championship at stake.
James made it clear that she didn't return to Impact just to return, but to resume her place as the Knockouts World Champion. She issued her challenge to Trinity, noting that Trinity was a worthy champion and that James appreciated her as a competitor, but Bound for Glory needed to be the destination for when and where the world would learn who the true champion was. Trinity accepted. Live on FITE from Chicago, a true dream match between two of the most beloved and accomplished Knockouts in history will take place. Can Mickie James, who once considered retirement if she didn't win the Knockouts World title live with herself if she's not successful? Will Trinity's Starmaker spell doom for Mickie James or is the glow about to be snuffed out?
IMPACT X-Division Championship – Chris Sabin (c) vs. KENTA
Chris Sabin has made history his entire career but now stands tall as the ten-time X-Division Champion, ending the argument as to who the greatest X-Division star of all time truly is. When Sabin steps into the ring in Chicago, he'll be tasked with facing and defeating one of the most celebrated Japanese stars of all time, KENTA. Representing New Japan Pro Wrestling, the originator of the GTS - Go To Sleep - has shown unrelenting anger and intensity, breaking down opponents methodically in a brutal fashion. Embittered by his experience competing in the United States, KENTA has shown that every time he returns Stateside, he's looking to take that fast frustration out on his opponents. Should he catch Sabin with a series of strikes and the GTS, a new champion may indeed be crowned.
KENTA shouldn't underestimate Sabin, however. Over the course of Impact's timeline, Sabin has become one of the most decorated athletes in the promotion's history for a reason: he's one of the most versatile athletes who has ever lived, able to perfect the right aerial maneuvers at the right moment while also showing an incredible scientific wrestling acumen. Every time an outside observer writes Sabin off, he returns to form even more prominent and powerful. Sabin should never be discounted, but KENTA is a worthy foe. Once more, the X-Division will shine on the brightest night of the Impact calendar.
Will Ospreay vs. Mike Bailey
The international flair continues when IWGP UK Champion Will Ospreay returns to Impact Wrestling in a bout that some are already touting as the show-stealer when he steps into battle with Speedball Mike Bailey. Ospreay, a true aerial assassin, may be without peer when it comes to innovative, awe-inspiring stratosphere-breaking flying maneuvers, but if there's one competitor who can lay claim to having some of the most impressive and groundbreaking in-ring performances while also shattering gravity, it is the karate-infused combant known a Speedball.
At Bound for Glory, these two competitors will hit the ring with nothing to chain them down as they attempt to prove to the entire wrestling world who the better man truly is. Bound for Glory has always been renowned for the landscape of professional wrestling changing before our very eyes, but with this match, the international journeys of these stars in a match that may shine so bright, it may blunt everything that follows it. Indeed, it is all but guaranteed that no matter who has their arm raised in victory, Ospreay vs. Bailey may level up the entire professional wrestling world based on their performances in Chicago, live on FITE!
PCO vs. Rhino vs. Steve Maclin vs. Moose
As October marches ever closer to Halloween, it's only expected that the creatures will rise and the violence will ratchet ever more brutal at Bound for Glory. After all, it's Monster's Ball season! Impact's most fearsome and dangerous brawlers will be unleashed into an environment where it's anything goes with no rules and every implement of destruction available to plunder everyone with, Steve Maclin, Moose, Rhino and PCO are all on an unrelenting quest to destroy each other to achieve the ultimate victory while enduring the most insane battlefield Impact can ever offer. One competitor will be Bound for Glory with a massive victory but all four men will submerge themselves into the most horrid, upside down battle imaginable, proving once the innate toughness of the roughest of the rough.
IMPACT World Tag Team Championships – The Rascalz (Trey Miguel & Zachary Wentz) (c) vs. ABC (Ace Austin & Chris Bey)
Impact's spectacular tag team scene will also be on full display on October 21st at Cicero Stadium. ABC, Chris Bey and Ace Austin, who show the full might of the legendary Midnight Express in their double-team offensive maneuvers but bring their own unique flair and charisma to the ring, will challenge The Rascalz, Trey Miguel and Zach Wentz for the Impact Wrestling World Tag Team Championship in a match that will see the two top tandems in pro wrestling enter the battlefield. Each team has an insatiable hunger, but The Rascalz have shown they have zero respect for anyone but themselves. Will that prove to be the deciding factor?
Knockouts Tag Team Championships – MK Ultra (Killer Kelly & Masha Slamovich) (c) vs. Tasha Steelz & Deonna Purrazzo
The Knockouts World Tag Team Champions MK Ultra, Masha Slamovich and Killer Kelly have been craving competition and wars since arriving upon the scene and they'll get it live on FITE when former Knockouts World Champions Deonna Purrazzo and Tasha Steelz unite inside the ring. These two world renowned stars actually have a relationship that dates back to the Damian Adams Academy in New Jersey, but now unite to bring their Virtuosa Flavor to the squared circle in a battle that promises to blow away the audience as they compete to prove who are the best Knockouts team on Planet Earth!
Call Your Shot Gauntlet
Of course, Bound for Glory means it is time for the return of the annual Call Your Shot Gauntlet, as the stars of Impact charge headlong into the unknown, seeking to emerge victorious from the fray. If they do, they will have earned the ability to declare they want the Championship Match of their choosing at any time, any place. The ultimate passport to greatness, one talent will be Bound for Glory after fighting their way through every single competitor who shocks the world with their entry to the Gauntlet.
Beyond all this tremendous action, Impact Wrestling will enshrine Mike Tenay, Traci Brooks and the late Don West with inductions into the Impact Wrestling Hall of Fame as the stars of today pay tribute to those who helped pave the way with their accomplishments, raising the profile and prestige of Impact to the heights it now enjoys today.
Since its inaugural event, Bound for Glory has been where Impact's greatest fighters ascend to the heavens, hoping that by doing so, they haven't sentenced themselves to crash down to hell at terminal velocity. They are all seeking to achieve immortality, but only a select few will survive their quest. Champions will be anointed. Earth will be scorched. Careers will be made. The trajectory of lives will be changed forever.
Bound for Glory, live on FITE, will once again set the standard for greatness in professional wrestling.
Mike Johnson is the lead reporter for PWInsider.com and has been writing about professional wrestling since 1996. He can be found on Twitter @MikePWInsider and MikeJohnsonWrites.com.
