This week’s Impact Wrestling on AXS TV consisted of building of new feuds, another New Japan visitor coming to the Impact Zone, and culminated in a surprisingly title change at the end of the show. Let’s get into what happened on Impact this past week.
BTI: Before the Impact
On Before the Impact, we saw a tag team match that apparently stemmed from some altercations between XXXL and Hernandez and Johnny Swinger inside ‘Swinger’s Palace’. No surprise that XXXL, the actual tag team, won the match after Swinger was basically squashed and flattened by a top rope splash from Larry D.
Swinger made my day as a comedy act by doing several spots or moves that were just downright nutty, such as attempting to pick up the almost 400 Ibs. Acey Romero for a bodyslam or trying a drop toe hold on him. At one point, Swinger did a double axehandle on Acey with zero effect. At times, it’s hard to remember that Swinger has been wrestling for almost 30 years, as Hernandez looked like he had to direct Swinger what to do during the match.
Something Flattens Shera
In the opening match, we see Jake Something facing Rohit Raju, a rivalry stemming from Rohit’s interference in Jake’s qualifying match for Under Siege. This match ended with Rohit picking up the win after some interference from Shera, who assisted Rohit in a reversal of a suplex attempt by Jake and held his foot down while Raju got the pin.
What was more interesting was what happened after, as Something went after Shera and demolished him with a steel chair before spearing the Indian Lion through a table….all the while as Rohit watched from the ramp, not helping his friend at all, if he was supposed to be a friend to begin with.
It makes the heel duo of Rohit and Shera, who is a beast, look somewhat weak over one guy, even though Jake Something is somewhat of a beast himself. But unlike the weird WWE trend of babyfaces acting like heels, there has been storyline build that led to Something snapping like this.
Knockouts Chaos Erupts
We get a Knockouts match as Tenille Dashwood takes on Kiera Hogan, one half of the Knockouts tag team champions, which Dashwood wins with a rollup. This entire segment just ended up being one big mess, as Susan, Kimber Lee and Knockouts Champion Deaonna Purrazzo ran in to gang up on Tenille of all people. Taylor Wilde came in to make the save but still outnumbered….until Havoc came in to clean house.
As the heels made their way to the ramp for their escape, Decay’s music hit and Rosemary, Crazzy Steve and Black Taurus blocked their pass…forcing the heels to run like hell over the guardrails. This set up a massive ten women tag match next week on Impact (Deonna, Kimber, Susan and Fire N Flava vs. Rosemary, Havoc, Taylor, Tenille and Rachael Ellering).
I don’t see why Havoc wouldn’t join Decay at some point, but I was curious of Ellering’s inclusion…and speaking of the former Knockouts Tag Champion…
What’s next for Jordynne Grace?
The only reason I could think of is Impact is playing off a possible split of this new tag team of Ellering and Jordynne Grace. During a backstage segment, the former Knockouts Tag Champions, who lost their titles to Fire N Flava at Under Siege, were trying to rebound after the loss and Grace said she was going to ask Scott D’Amore for a match…but it ended up being a match between the two.
It’s rare to see tag team partners facing off against each other, but what we saw was a very technical match between two women with similar styles and physiques. Ellering beat Grace after a series of back and forth rollup attempts before Rachael caught Jordynne with the last one. The two partners shook hands afterwards but I was expecting Grace to turn on her partners. Maybe Grace is taking “some time off” which is why Ellering was put into that ten women match next week.
Omega vs. Moose faceoff…featuring Sami Callihan?
This exchange between Kenny Omega, the Impact World Champion, and number one contender Moose had the typical back and forth, with Don Callis adding some disparaging remarks about Moose’s career in football and having never actually won a world championship. The X factor at this point is Sami Callihan, who interjected just as it looked like Moose was about to be ganged up on by Omega and the Good Brothers.
I would not be surprised if Callihan somehow gets inserted into the world title match at Against All Odds; I mean the pay per view has a gambling theme (something that AEW is quite familiar with through one of their signature annual events), and a triple threat match would be more interesting between Omega, Moose and Callihan. But it’s not likely that Impact would dilute the importance of a title match for their side, considering Omega is defending his AEW Championship in a triple threat at Double or Nothing.
One thing I have said before is that Moose is really coming into the role of a dangerous heelish character, with the soft speaking style conveying dangerous intentions. It is reminiscent of heel Chris Jericho in the suit and tie during the WWE late 2000s period, who also “spoke softly while carrying a big stick,” to quote former US President Teddy Roosevelt.
Backstage Segments – KOJIMA is Coming
Looks like the former Impact World Champion, Rich Swann, will be W. Morrissey’s next target as the big man interrupted Swann’s interview with Gia Miller to attack him, throwing him into a door. Gia really sold the angle, screaming for help like it was a legitimate attack.
I thought Matt Cardona and Brian Myers would be done by now, but we saw Myers attack Cardona in the hallway, ripping off Cardona’s necklace. My hope is they just write Cardona off for a few weeks and bring him back for something else, because I’m not that invested in a continuation of Myers vs. Cardona again.
But the main backstage vignette featured the announcement that New Japan multi-time IWGP Tag Team Champion and 2 time IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kojima was coming to the Impact Zone, another example of the continuing relationship between New Japan and Impact Wrestling.
So far we’ve seen El Phantasmo, FinJuice, and now Kojima on Impact while AEW has seen KENTA and Yuji Nagata show up on Wednesdays. Everyone is so focused on a possible invasion by Impact to AEW, but doesn’t it seems as though it’s New Japan doing a subtle ‘invasion’ of sorts instead?
I don’t have much to say about the Swinger’s Palace segment other than…HILARIOUS. I like how they tied in prior storylines left over from Wrestle House (Swinger calling Crazzy Steve his former Young Boy and Rosemary and Bravo’s interaction). A tag team match was also booked as Petey Williams and X Division Champion Josh Alexander will face TJP and Fallah Bahh.
Speaking of the tag team division…
#ANDNEW Impact Tag Team Champions
I’ve been predicting this would happen for weeks now since Rhyno reemerged as part of Violent By Design, touting the Call Your Shot trophy allowing him a championship opportunity at any time. The fact that FinJuice did this energetic promo about beating Ace and Fulton and taking the titles back to Japan again really foreshadowed to me that something was going to happen that would lead to new titleholders.
While FinJuice pinned Fulton, instead of the smaller Ace Austin, was impressive enough, the match ending with a full five minutes left definitely told me that VBD was coming out, since they had been absent throughout the entire show and that Eric Young said things were ‘going to change’. Indeed, Rhyno ‘calling his shot’ for the tag belts with the monster Joe Doering as his partner was entirely predictable.
I am happy the Impact Tag Team Championships are back on this show and not over in Japan again, not that I have an issue with FinJuice at all. This budding partnership with New Japan will definitely lead to another team from NJPW to come challenge for those tag titles again, but even still Impact has teams on the horizon that could provide some decent matches with VBD down the road.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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