Pay-per-view wrestling coming to Ottawa

City beats out Montreal, Toronto to land Bound for Glory in Aberdeen Pavilion

Ottawa will host a major wrestling pay-per-view Nov. 5.

IMPACT Wrestling announced Monday that its Bound for Glory global pay-per-view will be held Nov. 4 in the Aberdeen Pavilion at Lansdowne Park. The pavilion will also host five days of IMPACT TV tapings Nov. 6-10.

Montreal and Toronto were also under consideration to host the events.

“It’s the nation’s capital, it’s a good place to make a statement in our inaugural effort to bring our premier event outside of its traditional home in Orlando,” said Ed Nordholm, president of IMPACT Wrestling, on Monday.

“No slight to Toronto, we’ll get there too I’m sure sometime along the way.”

So why not an arena, why the Aberdeen Pavilion, where the company is hoping for about 500 spectators a night?

“We’re legacy people,” said Nordholm. “It’s a great facility with a rich history. An arena would be a big place for us to sell. We want to have a venue with an intimacy with the crowd. The crowd will pack it rather than be spread out through it. It’s just the right size, it’ll ensure we can get people in the stands where they’ll have a connection with our wrestlers and vice-versa.

“It’s night after night after night, we’d maybe look at it differently (if it was just the pay-per-view). We wanted to make sure even by the last night, there was still a good crowd and a good feeling.”

Hey, it may not be WWE, but there’s plenty of talent in what should be a very good show.

Bound for Glory will feature world champion Eli Drake, former champion Alberto el Patron and Johnny Impact, the holder of the Mega, Latin American and World Cruiserweight championship belts in Lucha Libre AAA, who will be making his inaugural Bound for Glory appearance. Among others appearing: Canadian star Gail Kim, plus competitors from the X-Division, including El Hijo del Fantasma, Pagano and El Texano Jr. from Lucha Libre AAA.

“Our tag line is Less Talk More Action,” said Nordholm. “It’s a style of wrestling that focuses more on the action in the ring than in the storylines. Not to take anything away from WWE — that is their product and they obviously do a spectacular job. But we have a very good show with talented wrestlers, athletic wrestlers.”

It’s expected tickets will go on sale within a couple of weeks.

IMPACT airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on Fight Network and GameTV in Canada and on Pop in the U.S.