By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Impact Wrestling Hits
Austin Aries vs. Fallah Bahh for the Impact World Championship: They set the stage with a strong opening segment that initially showcased the new Aries faction before establishing the main event. The comedy duo of KM and Bahh have great chemistry and are one of the most consistently entertaining acts in the company. It was fun to see a show dedicated to Bahh getting a title shot. Josh Mathews set the stage nicely by running through a list of some legendary upsets in sports history. Aries played his part to perfection as the cocky champion who started to crack a bit as the underdog put up a good fight. Ultimately, the heel champion and his new faction stood tall and looked dominant to close the show.
Johnny Impact interview: The sit-down format is the way to go with Johnny. It allows the company to pick and choose what to air, which is always important with Impact, who delivers some of the corniest insults in the business (see “turd cutters” last week). I hope they continue to take a similar approach throughout the build to Bound For Glory because they did a terrific job with the Austin Aries and Moose videos heading into Slammiversary.
LAX vs. The Fraternity: A high energy win for LAX with a good post match angle involving The OGz and Eddie Kingston. As corny as last week’s mob family skit was, the forced truce between the two teams gave King and his crew a chance to taunt LAX without the possibility of retaliation. This is a good way to put heat on the heels and make the fans want to see LAX get their hands on them at Bound For Glory.
Joe Hendry, Grado, and Katarina segment: A Hit if only for the “pirate brother” line in Hendry’s latest musical masterpiece. On a side note, is the Alisha Edwards character ever anything other than angry? I get that her character’s husband has snapped and all, but she’s always yelling at him or someone else and scowling about something. This would have been a good place to show her smiling for once in reaction to the song. Instead, she stood with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face before rolling up Katarina to win their “match”. It’s hard to sympathize with a character that always seems so bitter.
Impact Wrestling Misses
Pentagon Jr. and Fenix vs. Trevor Lee and Caleb Konley: The match quality was Hit worthy. The Miss is more out of frustration than anything. The current Impact creative regime is the latest to drop the ball on Lee. So while I can appreciate the match quality, it’s also disappointing to know that it could have actually meant something if Lee and Konley weren’t booked like a couple of hayseed dweebs in an awful one follower cult gimmick.
Brian Cage vs. Kongo Kong: This match left me with mixed feelings. It was a decent match and Hit worthy in that regard. I settled in on a Miss because they could have gotten more out of this matchup if they had built it up to feel important. It should have felt like a big win for Cage and instead came off rather ordinary. It’s certainly a miss for Kong, whose recent appearances have featured him being thrown into a pool by Johnny Impact and now losing clean to Cage in less than five minutes. Kong’s monster mystique has been booked away.
“It was for to see”
This embiggens my interest in the show.