By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Impact Wrestling Hits
Johny Swinger vs. Mike Jackson: The Young Bucks tease by Swinger was comical and never felt like false advertising because it came from the silly Swinger character. It was obviously risky to have a 70 year-old man wrestle even before the pandemic, but putting that aside this was a lot of fun. Jackson delivered a good promo before the match that fired up the live crowd and he performed well inside the ring. Good for him.
X Division Champion Ace Austin vs. Trey Miguel in a non-title match: A nice match between two of Impact’s rising stars. The feud has been too one sided, so it’s hard to see where it could go from here even with Austin stealing this win with a handful of tights. Austin is moving on to face Willie Mack, but hopefully they have something in mind for Miguel beyond camp smoke circle gags.
Taya Valkyrie vs. Tenille Dashwood: A well booked segment with Dashwood getting the win only to have Valkyrie snap and violently attack her afterward. I’m not sure what this means for Dashwood since Josh Mathews speculated that she could have internal injuries, but Jordynne Grace making the save furthered her ongoing feud with Valkyrie.
TJP and Fallah Bahh vs. Dezmond Xavier and Zachary Wentz vs. Larry D and Acey Romero vs. Reno Scum in a four-way tag match: A soft Hit for a match that resulted in TJP and Bahh getting another win as they work back to another tag title match against The North. I’m still holding out hope that Impact will get behind Xavier and Wentz as a tag team while giving Trey Miguel a singles push. By the way, I’m still wondering why The Rascalz lost to Reno Scum a few weeks ago when the company followed it up by having Reno Scum lose a handicap match to Willie Mack last week and then had them take the pin in this match.
Locker Room Talk with Madison Rayne: A fun backstage talkshow segment that did a nice job of showcasing the personas of Rayne, Johnny Swinger, Kylie Rae, and Kiera Hogan.
Impact Wrestling Misses
Ken Shamrock and Sami Callihan contract signing: Callihan is a terrific talker, but his mic work in this segment just didn’t do much for me. He spent the majority of his time talking about how big this match is for Shamrock. I get that his character is egomaniacal, but it just didn’t ring true, nor did it feel personal. The campy bit with the lights going out and a bunch of people sporting the the ICU logo over their faces did nothing to make me look forward to the match. Things got even worse when they used cheesy production on the signs covering the face of the man backstage and Callihan’s driver. All of it felt unnecessary and corny. And this show was taped back in February so I don’t hold it against Impact, but they may want to consider changing the ICU listing on Callihan’s hacker graphic.
Eddie Edwards vs. Michael Elgin for the Middle Eastern Title from Qatar Super Slam 2: I assume that Impact needed to fill some time on the show, but why in the world would they select this match? The Edwards vs. Elgin best of five series was underwhelming to the point that I had no desire to see them work another singles match. Worse yet, the match featured interference from Brian Cage on behalf of his Impact rival Elgin, who was apparently working as a babyface in this match while Edwards was a heel, which is the opposite of how they are booked in Impact. Why not pick another match match from the library that meshes with the current storylines?
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