Powell’s Impact Wrestling Hit List: Alex Shelley vs. Chris Sabin for a shot at the Impact World Championship, Mike Bailey vs. Deaner for the X Division Title, Deonna Purrazzo and Chelsea Green vs. Jordynne Grace and Mia Yim, Matt Taven and Mike Bennett vs. Chris Bey and Ace Austin, Masha Slamovich vs. Madison Rayne

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

Impact Wrestling Hits

Alex Shelley vs. Chris Sabin for a shot at the Impact World Championship: The Machine Gun vs. Machine Gun match headlined an episode filled with quality matches. They saved the best for last. Shelley and Sabin are a tremendous tag team and it’s no surprise that they were able to produce an excellent singles match. I really liked the way that both characters welcomed the match and took the “let the best man win” approach and I hope they simply move on from here rather than doing any type of jealousy angle. Shelley going over sets up a strong title match between him and Josh Alexander for next month’s Impact Plus special. The post match angle with Kushida saving the Guns from an attack by Violent By Design was well done and likely sets up a six-man tag feud.

Mike Bailey vs. Deaner for the X Division Title: While this match had the expected outcome of Bailey retaining his title, the match was laid out to be competitive enough that Deaner gained something in defeat. Deaner often feels like the fall guy for the Violent By Design faction, so it was nice to see him featured in a competitive match with the X Division Champion. The VBD faction

Deonna Purrazzo and Chelsea Green vs. Jordynne Grace and Mia Yim: The quality tag team match that one would expect given the talent involved. The heel duo got a quality win while some friction was established between Grace and Yim heading into their Knockouts Title match.

Masha Slamovich vs. Madison Rayne: More of the same, but that’s not a bad thing in this case. Slamovich continues to get a great old school build by destroying her opponents as she slowly climbs her way up the ladder.

Impact Wrestling Hits

Chris Bey and Ace Austin vs. Matt Taven and Mike Bennett: A Hit for match quality, but the ongoing Bullet Club vs. Honor No More feud continues to be a mess. Austin has been one of Impact’s best heel characters and yet now he’s being cheered because he’s aligned with Bullet Club, who tend to be heels when they work against anyone other than Honor No More. Heath also continued his recent odd homage to Frankie Kazarian’s brief Elite Hunter gimmick, which gave Honor No More an out for losing yet another match, and seemingly just prolongs this tired feud between the factions. I’m anxious for the Honor No More members to go their separate ways because there are a lot of talented wrestlers involved who would be much better off on their own than they are while stuck in this dead end faction war.

Sami Callihan: Give up on the hacking and teleportation and just get back to being gritty and real.