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Impact Wrestling ‘Bound For Glory’ Results: Former WWE Superstar Answers Eli Drake’s Open Challenge

By Carter Lee
Published on: 13:45 PST, Oct 14, 2018

Impact Wrestling Bound for Glory is airing live on pay-per-per view. Impact Bound for Glory comes to us this year from the Melrose Ballroom in New York City, New York. As Cageside Seats reported, this is the company’s third pay-per-view under the guidance of Don Callis and Scott D’Amore, co-executive vice presidents of Impact Wrestling. Slammiversary was the promotion’s last pay-per-view, and both critics and fans alike largely considered it Impact’s best event in years.

Bound for Glory features a total of eight matches, including the main event of Johnny Impact challenging Austin Aries for the Impact World Championship. In addition to that title bout, fans were treated to Eli Drake conducting another open challenge. The Impact Wrestling official website describes Drake’s previous open challenges.

“Eli Drake’s open challenges have yielded interesting results to date—an adventurer answered the call, a Mexican legend, a former associate of Drake and even Zach Gowen making his return to an Impact ring for the first time since Bound For Glory 2006 to accept the challenge on a recent Twitch show.

“It takes a particular sort of mettle to issue an open challenge—to turn to the world and invite anybody to come and face you. You have to have supreme confidence in your abilities to do that. The big question remains for Eli Drake, who will answer his special New York open challenge tonight?”

Drake had a special stipulation for his challenge at the pay-per-view: the wrestler who answers must be from New York. As the Inquisitr reported, because Chris Jericho was born in New York and has a working relationship with Don Callis, many fans and wrestling insiders thought that it would be “The Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla” who would challenge the Impact wrestler.

Though it was a former WWE superstar who answered the call, it wasn’t Chris Jericho. As of the time of this writing, the pay-per-view is still airing, so the IWGP Intercontinental champion could still make an appearance at Bound for Glory. However, for the New York open challenge, it was former WWE SmackDown superstar James Ellsworth who challenged Eli Drake.

Eli asked Ellsworth if he was even from New York, and James said he wasn’t but that he did live with a girl from Staten Island, referencing his former relationship with WWE’s Carmella.

After the two trash-talked one another, the match was underway, and Drake quickly pinned Ellsworth after delivering two Gravy Trains. Eli then got on the mic and said he was hoping for hall of fame material, and Abyss—who was inducted into the Impact Wrestling Hall of Fame the night before—made his way to the ring.

After a brief back and forth session, the Impact Wrestling legend choke-slammed Drake through a table in the center of the ring, sending the Bound for Glory live audience into a frenzy.

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