Do these cards interact?

So last night at the table, my buddy was playing his food deck and had Frodo out. It was a rogue, the ring had tempted him 4 times, and he swung at another player. That player did not block and had boltbender face down. In response, he flipped bolt bender and attempted to redirect the ability.

We couldn’t figure out which way this would play out because if they were able to do it, the Frodo player did not take damage. 1. The ability redirects, frodo player did not take damage, the card fizzles. 2. The ability redirects, and Frodo player loses instead of boltbender player. 3. The ability is not able to be redirected since there is no target, and boltbender player loses.

We ruled it as 3 but I’m still not sure if that was correct.