By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Impact Wrestling Hits
Josh Alexander vs. Mikey Bailey for the Impact World Championship: An outstanding match involving two of Impact’s finest wrestlers. As someone who avoids spoilers if we don’t have a report sent to us, this was truly pleasant surprise. One must question why the company opted against advertising their hottest match in advance. Even so, I like that they made a big fuss over it after the fact by releasing it online. This match is absolutely worth going out of your way to see.
Heath and Rhino vs. The Motor City Machine Guns for the Impact Tag Team Titles: A good match until the finish that saw Matt Cardona and Brian Myers attack both teams to end the match in a no-contest. While it’s never fun to see a cheap finish, there are times when it’s a logical creative move, and that was the case here. Impact has a limited number of meaningful tag teams at the moment, so it was wise to put heat on the heels while saving the clean finish between the champions and MCMG for another time.
Taya Valkyrie vs. Savannah Evans: It was good to see Valkyrie working a longer singles match again. She’s been spending most of her time working tag team matches with Jessicka and Rosemary, and I’ve been underwhelmed by the way she’s been booked in her latest Impact run. That said, it was also good to see Evans get a clean win over Valkyrie. Evans has taken too many losses despite being positioned as the muscle for Savannah Evans. This felt like a meaningful win for Evans even if it was formula booking in terms of having one of the challengers pin one of the tag team champions to set up a future title match.
Trey Miguel and Crazzy Steve: Miguel was really good as the cocky and even dangerous heel while teasing that he was going to spray paint interviewer Gia Miller. Steve stopping Miguel was a solid development as he tries to avenge his tag team partner Black Taurus. While I assume that Steve will be fed to the new X Division Champion, I hope the company does more with Steve. Much like the Joker character that inspired the act, there’s room for a good origin story to help round out the character. Until that happens, Steve will continue to come off like a Joker knockoff rather than a truly unique character.
Big Kon vs. Sami Callihan: A decent match with the logical finish of a Violent By Design member going over as the group is being reestablished under Deaner’s lead. It was also wise to have Kon win because of the VBD numbers advantage rather than having Callihan take a clean loss. The Impact creative forces get it. There’s typically a good reason when they book interference finishes, so they rarely come off like lazy finishes or like the company is just taking the easy way out.
Impact Wrestling Misses
None: The first hour of the show was fairly routine while the second hour featured the excellent Alexander vs. Bailey match. Impact continues to provide quality television on a weekly basis. They have a hard working crew and a creative team continues to get the most out of a roster that is lighter on star power than the bigger promotions. I can’t help but wonder what Scott D’Amore and his crew would be capable of if they were booking one of the bigger companies.
Agreed. Impact is the best booked promotion going.