By Jason Powell
GFW Impact Wrestling Hits
LAX and Alberto El Patron: A minor Hit for a decent angle with Konnan attempting to force El Patron to join his faction. One of the things that worked against the angle is that most viewers were only recently introduced to El Patron’s father and brother, so they have no real emotional attachment to them. I definitely could have done without Alberto beating up the entire faction singlehandedly. Still, I like the way the story played out throughout the night and closed the show.
Drago vs. Sammy Guevara: A strong Super X Cup tournament match. Drago is always a treat to watch and he grabbed my attention right out of the gate with an early innovative leg sweep. Guevara was impressive in defeat with a crazy 630 splash from the top rope and other big spots. The production team also did a terrific job leading into the match with quality video packages for both men.
Laredo Kid, Garza Jr, and Octagoncito vs. Idiris Abraham, Demus, and Trevor Lee: A minor Hit. Good in-ring action even though the match felt fairly random. Hopefully they get to Kid and Garza chasing LAX for the tag titles soon.
EC3 vs. Eli Drake vs. Eddie Edwards vs. vs. Moose: A minor Hit for a random main event on a show filled with random matches. Here’s hoping that Drake abandons ship if the creative team isn’t going to make better use of his talents. Yes, he won his match, but he’s arguably the best talker in the company and he rarely gets promo time and he’s positioned as a mid-card act.
Matt Sydal vs. Low Ki vs. El Hijo De Fantasma: Another random match, yet still a good three-way with Sydal getting another momentum building win. It’s nice to see him featured prominently by a promotion again and he seems more confident on the mic than I remember in the past. The post match angle with Lashley didn’t do Sydal any favors, but we’ll see if there’s more to come from him and Lashley.
Bruce Prichard turning heel: A minor Hit. Normally, I would say that the last thing the world needs is another heel authority figure in pro wrestling. However, Prichard has come off poorly since he returned to Impact Wrestling, which is bizarre considering how likable he is on his podcast. In other words, why fight it?
GFW Impact Wrestling Misses
Overall show: Too many random matches and the only thing that really stuck with me coming out of the show was the El Patron and LAX angle. One of the issues with that angle is that the world champion and the tag team champions are feuding with one another, so there’s not much focus on the titles at this point.
Karen Jarrett and Sienna: An awful segment with Karen Jarrett getting television time for no good reason. Karen has been a good television character in the past, but she’s not adding anything to the show these days. Those early strong reactions from the live crowds have faded. Karen is not a compelling authority figure character and her ongoing feud with Sienna is putting the spotlight on her for no good reason.
Luchador overload: It may seem odd to give this a Miss given that the matches the luchadors worked appear in the Hit column. Yet as much as I like the idea of Impact using lucha talent, the first hour-plus of the show featured so many masked wrestlers who are new or fairly new to Impact Wrestling that it felt like overload. Impact would be better off spacing out the introductions of the masked lucha talent with the goal of establishing their personas rather than just throwing so many of them out there at once.
Swole Mates: I hope Pop TV is paying Impact Wrestling for this horrible cross promotion. My DVR picked up the first five minutes of the show and it was like a horrible pro wrestling skit with even worse acting. I didn’t even make it through those five minutes before hitting the delete button.
Grado and Laurel Van Ness: The skits were too campy for my taste. Then again, I don’t enjoy Breezango’s antics as much as a lot of viewers do, so I’m sure some viewers will find more humor in this than I did.
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