Powell’s Impact Wrestling Hit List: Austin Aries vs. El Texano Jr. for the Impact World Championship, Pentagon Jr. and Fenix vs. Rich Swann and Matt Sydal, Sami Callihan and The Crist Brothers vs. Laradeo Kid, Aerostar, and El Hijo Del Vikingo

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By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

Impact Wrestling Hits

Pentagon Jr. and Fenix vs. Rich Swann and Matt Sydal: It was a treat to see the Lucha Brothers work in their home country to get a feel for just how over they are there. The Sydal third eye bit does nothing for me, but they did a good job of setting up their oddball team with their backstage verbal exchange. This was the hottest he crowd was all night and while it’s cool they took the show to Mexico City, most of the Impact regulars didn’t seem to be as over as they are in the United States and Canada.

Austin Aries vs. El Texano Jr. for the Impact World Championship: It felt like a good win for Aries to go to Mexico and defeat Texano clean. Aries carries himself extremely well as the champion. And while he is a heel and will cheat to win and get help from Killer Kross and Moose, it’s important to have matches like this one where he wins clean to cement that he’s an in-ring force and not just a pest heel champion. The post match angle with Johnny Impact was decent, but they haven’t hooked me on the Bound For Glory main event from a storyline standpoint yet.

Sami Callihan and The Crist Brothers vs. Laradeo Kid, Aerostar, and El Hijo Del Vikingo: A fun, fast paced opening match. As much as I like Laredo Kid, the OVE trio had to win this match. They’re not just Impact regulars, they are featured players in Impact Wrestling and it would have been foolish to have them lose just to please the crowd or get the television show off to a surprising start.

Konnan and LAX’s cease fire with The OGz: I already established how awful the bad B-movie segment was with the mob bosses and this doesn’t change that. Nevertheless, there were strong performances with Santana and Ortiz upset because Konnan wouldn’t break the case fire ordered by the bosses. The LAX duo were believable with their frustration. Konnan was fantastic as showed great fire while barking at his team about what would happen if they ignored the bosses while also turning it into a plug for their six-man tag match at Bound For Glory. King beating Krotus after the OGz roughed him up first was also well done.

Alisha Edwards vs. Faby Apache: A minor Hit for this being a decent showcase match for Apache. I had no problem with Apache going over in this match even though Edwards is the Impact regular. The company couldn’t have the Impact wrestlers win all of the matches, and Edwards loses more than she wins in Impact. Plus, this served a purpose in that it led to Apache challenging Tessa Blanchard to a match.

Overall show: As I note occasionally, the Hit List isn’t always a great barometer for the overall quality of the show. In this case, the lopsided Hit count looks nice, but this was more of an average edition of Impact than anything.

Impact Wrestling Misses

Eli Drake vs. Trevor Lee: It was painful to watch Drake deliver the pre-match promo. The Spanish speaking fans presumably didn’t understand him, and even his catchphrases didn’t get a reaction. I can look past that, but it once the match was set it was impossible to see either guy gaining anything from it. Drake has been wasted on the undercard lately, and Lee is ridiculously underutilized to the point that beating him in Impact means nothing.


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