By John Moore, ProWrestling.net Staffer (@liljohnm)
Impact Wrestling TV
Taped in Louisville, Kentucky at Old Forester’s Paristown Hall
Aired August 4, 2022 on AXS TV
Highlights from last week’s Impact Wrestling show aired. The highlights focused on Honor No More trying to get their tag team title shot…
Tom Hannifan and Matthew Rehwoldt were on commentary. Dave Penzer was the ring announcer. Hannifan noted that the Impact Plus Emergence show will happen a week from Friday…
1. Deonna Purrazzo vs. Impact Knockouts Tag Team Champion Rosemary (w/Taya Valkyrie, Jessicka [Havok]). Rehwoldt noted that Purrazzo has never lost a singles match to Rosemary. Rosemary dominated the early test of strength and followed up with a splash and bite in the corner. Rosemary hit Purrazzo with a bulldog. Deonna hit Rosemary with a wristlock takedown. Deonna hit Rosemary with a shortarm clothesline for a two count. Deonna stomped on Rosemary’s elbow for two nearfalls. Rosemary went for a tarantula, but let go due to her injured arm that Deonna focused on.
Rosemary blocked a Fujiwara Armbar attempt. Rosemary and Deonna took each other out with pump kicks. Rosemary rallied with lariats and hit Deonna with a Sling Blade. Rosemary hit Deonna with a sliding lariat for a two count. Deonna countered a Spear into a Fujiwara Armbar. Rosemary escaped with a rollup. Jessicka and Deonna jawed a bit at ringside. Rosemary hit Deonna with a spear for the visual pinfall, but the referee was distracted by Jessicka on the apron. Rosemary went to yell at Jessicka and Taya for distracting the ref. This distraction allowed Deonna to roll up Rosemary for the win.
Deonna Purrazzo defeated Rosemary via pinfall in 7:10.
Rosemary was seething as Jessicka and Taya checked on her…
John’s Thoughts: The usual formula of a tag team wrestler losing a singles match to set up a tag team title match. I’m still not sold on the Jessicka mess. It’s an inferior version of the Susie Yung story. The story also didn’t make sense as Rosemary talked about how she needed to “rally the troops” against Tenille Dashwood and Madison Rayne right before Madison Rayne stopped wrestling due to her faking a nose injury (and that’s probably not going to be run back because Madison’s in AEW now).
Tom Hannifan and Matthew Rehwoldt checked in from the commentary table. They ran through the advertised Emergence card as well as hyping up segments for this week’s Impact show…
Matt Taven was rallying Honor No More backstage, talking about how Emergence is the biggest night in Honor No More’s Impact careers. Eddie cut in and said that the most important part of the match is trust, in that they need to trust each other in the 10 person tag match. Eddie said the one person’s whose trust he questions is PCO’s. Vincent told Eddie to back off. Vincent said Bullet Club’s guns are loaded and PCO is Honor No More’s only bulletproof vest.
Vincent noted that PCO has gone through the same adversity as the rest of Honor No More, so there’s no need to betray PCO. Eddie said that PCO can prove himself if he can wipe the big man from Bullet Club off the face off the earth which will also prove that PCO believes in the message of Honor No More. PCO gritted his teeth as the camera focused on him…
John’s Thoughts: Oh look. Taven got through a promo without saying the word “Melvin”. There’s still the rest of the show though.
An ad aired for the Impact Emergence show…
Gia Miller interviewed Giselle Shaw about facing Masha Slammovich. Gia noted that Giselle has been avoiding Slammovich for the longest time. Giselle said she wasn’t avoiding Masha, but rather scouting. Giselle noted that there might not be enough info to scout because Masha’s matches against Tenille and Madison haven’t been competitive. Giselle said the world is about to find out if she’s ready to face Masha. Giselle shoved the calling card photo at Gia and said that she didn’t like the photo because her eyebrows are crooked in the picture…
Entrances for the digital media championship match took place. Highlights from the Ric Flair’s Last Match PPV were shown, featuring Black Taurus in the four way luchador match. They also showed Brian Myers, Matt Cardona, and Mark Sterling attacking Josh Alexander and Jacob Fatu at the PPV…
2. Brian Myers vs. Black Taurus (w/Crazzy Steve) for the Impact Digital Media Championship. Myers stalled to start the match. Myers faked a test of strength and gave Taurus a kick to the gut. Taurus came back with a shoulder tackle. Myers ran away and eventually got Taurus with boots. This allowed Myers to work on Taurus with methodical offense. Taurus rallied back with shoulder tackles and a front dropkick. After dumping Myers to ringside, Taurus hit Myers with a flip dive.[c]
Myers gained the advantage during the break and worked on Taurus with methodical offense again. Taurus managed to hit Myers with a basement dropkick to the shin and then followed up with a 619. Taurus hit Meyrs with a missile dropkick for a two count. Myers came back with a enzuigiri combination and Impaler DDT for a two count. Myers poked Taurus in the eye and rolled up Taurus. Myers got a hand on the rope for the leverage pinfall victory.
Brian Myers defeated Black Taurus via pinfall in 6:47 of on-air time to retain the Digital Media Championship.
Myers bragged to the crowd about his win. Bhupinder Gujjar showed up and tossed Myers back in the ring. Steve and Taurus attacked Myers. Bhupinder hit Myers with his signature 2nd rope spear…
John’s Thoughts: Decent match, but I’m still not to excited about the Digital Media Championship or Myers’s stale feud with Bhupinder Gujjar. It seems like Myers isn’t even inspired by the digital media championship and who could blame him? The title’s a worthless toy belt. I understand why he’s spinning his wheels, Impact looked to have had big plans for him, Matt Cardona, and Chelsea Green, but Cardona ended up getting hurt. Here’s hoping that with Cardona showing up at Ric Flair’s Last Match via interference, means that Cardona is returning at the next set of tapings. That would also hopefully set everything back on track.
Gia Miller interviewed Jordynne Grace about defending the title against Mia Yim next week. Gia talked about her and Yim being on the same page up until their recent loss when teaming together. Grace said she respects Yim, but at Emergence Yim is an obstacle, and everyone knows what Grace does to obstacles…[c]
Tom Hannifan recapped highlights from Josh Alexander vs. Jacob Fatu at the Ric Flair’s Last Match PPV. The match ended up in a no-contest DQ when The Major Players and Mark Sterling attacked both wrestlers. The segment ended with Diamond Dallas Page giving Matt Cardona a Diamond Cutter…
3. Masha Slammovich vs. Giselle Shaw. Masha had Kinesio tape on her right shoulder. Gisselle stalled at the beginning of the match. Masha got a quick takedown, leading to some stiff ground and pound. Masha ducked a right hand and hit Shaw with a spinning backfist. Shaw managed to hit Masha with a right hand and followed up with a Drive By Knee for a two count. Shaw crawled in fear after the kickout. Masha worked on Shaw with roundhouse kicks.
Masha sidestepped a crossbody and hit Shaw with a deadlift German Suplex for a two count. Rehwoldt noted that Shaw is the first person to kick out of a Masha Slammovich pin in Impact. Hannifan also noted that the only kickouts that happen during Masha matches are when Masha purposefully lifts up her opponents to inflict more damage. Masha knocked out Giselle with a stiff right elbow. Masha hit Shaw with the Snow Plow for the victory.
Masha Slammovich defeated Giselle Shaw via pinfall in 2:42.
John’s Thoughts: Another dominant win for Masha along with Giselle gaining in defeat due to giving Masha her most competitive match yet (even though “competitive” in this case meaning kicking out of Masha’s pin attempt and landing a kick on her). Impact is doing a simple and stellar push of Masha. Here’s hoping they have her locked down in a contract because it would be a shame if this awesome push were all for waste. This match also showed that simple attrition can help get her opponents over in that it was a big deal that Shaw managed to land shots on Masha when former Knockouts champions all were quickly dispatched by Masha.
This week’s Impact Plus Flashback Match of the Week was Gail Kim vs. Jade (Mia Yim) vs. Madison Rayne for the Knockouts Title from an episode of Impact in April 2016. This was where Jade won the Knockouts title after hitting Gail Kim with an STO off the distraction from Maria Kanellis. This was also when Yim had entrance music sung by Courtney Love…
Gia Miller interviewed Mia Yim about Jordynne Grace calling her an obstacle. Madison Rayne interrupted the interview and said she didn’t like how they just showed footage of Mia Yim winning the Knockouts title in a match that also involved Rayne back in 2016. Rayne said Impact was kicking her while she was down by showing that footage right after she just got facial reconstruction surgery after her match against Masha Slammovich. Mia said she’s willing to kick Madison while she’s standing up to mess up her nose again. Madison was dismissive and tried to walk away, but Gail Kim showed up and booked Madison in a match later on against Mia for next Thursday…
An ad aired saying that Impact now has episodes from 2006-2013 up on Impact Plus…
John’s Thoughts: Awesome. That took a while. I haven’t been on Impact Plus recently to confirm it, but I remember the last time I checked out the service, my biggest issue was Impact not having any of the Spike TV episodes up (which is 2006-2013). I think they also didn’t post the 2016 Pop TV episodes, which was my favorite year of Impact creatively. 2006-2013 was awesome too, because around 2010 was when Bully Ray had that memorable run in Impact combined with a lot of good Kurt Angle matches.
Taya, Rosemary, and Jessicka were backstage. Taya told Rosemary to not blame Jessicka because Jessicka is essentially a baby after her “rebirth”. Rosemary argued and said they are supposed to be soldiers. Rosemary said they brought back Jessicka for a numbers advantage, but so far adding Jessicka to their group just makes things harder for them. Rosemary said Decay is family and Jessicka might not be ready for battle after whatever happened in the undead realm.
Jessicka said she agrees that it was her fault with what happened in the last match. Jessicka said she’s going to be in Rosemary and Taya’s corner at Emergence to prove herself. Jessicka said Rosemary and Taya will walk out of Emergence as Knockouts tag champions. Rosemary liked Jessicka looking inspired. Jessicka then said it’s about to be an “Emergence-C” at Emergence and that somebody is going to need to call an “Whambulance”. Rosemary didn’t like the puns…
John’s Thoughts: I do chuckle at a few of Jessicka’s puns, but that’s not enough to make me care about the boring Jessicka character overall. I’ll give it a chance, but so far it’s just, whatever. What I do like from the segments is Rosemary playing the straight-man role. It’s forcing her to tone down the rhetoric which I felt was getting a bit too much during her recent run in Decay.
Entrances for the next match took place. Highlights from the American Wolves vs. Motor City Machine Guns at Ric Flair’s Last Match aired…
4. “Violent by Design” Joe Doering and Deaner vs. “The Motor City Machine Guns” Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley. Shelley tried to start a test of strength with Deaner, but he was blindsided by Doering. Shelley gained the upper hand on both opponents. Sabin cleared Doering from the ring with a missile dropkick. Shelley hit Deaner with a double team STO for a two count. Deaner blocked a Sliced Bread. Doering knocked Shelley off the top rope. Deaner hit Shelley with a facebuster for a two count.
Doering tagged in and hit Shelley with a body slam and elbow drop for a two count. Violent By Design traded tags to cut the ring in half on Shelley. Shelley got a window of opportunity for the tag after avoiding a top rope headbutt from Deaner. Sabin got the hot tag and took down Deaner with kicks and an enzuigiri. The machine guns hit Deaner with a Magic Killer. Doering broke up Sabin’s pin attempt. Doering took down Shelley with a shoulder tackle. Doering no-sold stereo superkicks from the Guns and hit both of them with a lariat.
Sabin sent Doering to ringside with a enzuigiri. Shelley held open the ropes to allow Sabin to hit Doering with a suicide dive. Shelley hit Deaner with a jawbreaker. Deaner blocked Shelley’s slingshot splash with knees. Shelley reversed a Deaner DDT with a crucifix rollup, but he wasn’t the legal man. This allowed Sabin to float into a jackknife pin for the victory.
The Motor City Machine Guns defeated Violent By Design via pinfall in 5:21.
Doering attacked The Machine Guns after the match. Deaner attacked both Guns with the Violent By Design flagpole. Kushida ran out for the save (and he wasn’t wearing his Marty McFly gear). Kushida cleared Deaner from the ring and put Doering in a Hoverboard Lock. Eric Young ran out to break up the submission. Young left Kushida lying with a Pile Driver. Violent by Design’s theme played as VBD continued to put the boots to the babyfaces…[c]
John’s Thoughts: A great in-ring showing by four extremely talented veterans. That said, these four men seem to be tied up in weird booking. Alex Shelley is supposed to be challenging for the World Title, but after winning the number one contender’s match, Shelley has been tied up in a random VBD vs. Machine Guns and Kushida feud with no real stakes. Same too, because Impact was doing some good stuff with the Alex Shelley video packages (which included the a rare Johnny Gargano sighting). Violent By Design seem like a lame duck faction that was supposed to have broken up after Slammiversary. Similar to Honor No More, this is an example of the sum being less than the parts. Eric Young needs to go back to being the World Class Maniac, where he had a lot of success. Deaner’s rebirth was beneficial and he can go off to do better and bigger things. On top of that, we’re still waiting for the Joe Doering singles run.
An ad aired for the Bound for Glory PPV, happening October 7th…
Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley, and Kushida were backstage recovering. Sabin cut a promo to set up Sabin and Kushida vs. Violent By Design at Emergence. Shelley said he’ll be in Sabin and Kushida’s corner to even up the numbers even though he has the world title match on that show. Josh Alexander showed up. Alexander told Shelley that even though he’s helping his friends, he needs to stay focused on the world title match. Shelley agreed…
Alexander ran into Eddie Edwards at the stairwell. Eddie talked about being a former world champion and how Josh Alexander needs to open his eyes. Josh wasn’t sure what Eddie was talking about. Eddie said he’s just trying to give Alexander some advice…
Entrances for the next match took place…
5. Sami Callihan vs. Raj Singh. Callihan and Singh had a strong style exchange. Raj got Sami to the mat with a enzuigiri and leg lariat for a two count. Sami rallied back with corner chops. Sami took down Raj with a stiff lariat. Sami hit Raj with a pile driver. Sami then put Raj in a Crossface Chickenwing for the submission win.
Sami Callihan defeated Raj Singh via submission in 1:56.
Hannifan noted that we rarely see Sami Callihan win via submission (If I remember correctly, we have seen him get submission wins with the Stretch Muffler. This is moreso a new move we don’t see Sami use). Rehwoldt noted that because Steve Maclin is analytical, Sami might be trying new moves to throw off Maclin.
Sami took a mic and called out Moose and Maclin. Moose’s theme played, but Steve Maclin was performing Moose’s entrance walk. Moose tried to spear Sami from behind, but Sami saw it coming. Sami tossed Moose into Maclin. Sami was about to pile drive Maclin, but he decided to do his thumbs up, thumbs down thing which allowed Maclin to low blow him. Moose followed up with a spear on Sami. Maclin hit Sami with a Dirty Deeds DDT. Moose left the ring while Maclin stood tall over the fallen Sami…
John’s Thoughts: Sami’s character really needs to stop doing the thumbs up, thumbs down thing in the middle of fights. This actually happens in most of his matches, where his opponents make him look like an idiot by attacking Sami while he takes his sweet time yelling about his thumbs. Good week for Sami otherwise though. We got no teleporting hacking magic this week (even though I totally expect it to come back by his next backstage segment). I liked Sami adding a new submission to his moveset, and the announcers framed it well by saying that Sami is adding new moves to throw off Maclin who has studied Sami’s moves.
A Killer Kelly promo vignette aired where Kelly recapped her attack on the OVW women last week. It was a little tough to make out what she was saying during the promo because of the sound mixing. The promo ended with Kelly saying she has no regrets…
Tom Hannifan and Matthew Rehwoldt checked in from the commentary table and announced the following segments for next week: Killer Kelly’s in-ring debut, Kushida vs. Deaner, Madison Rayne vs. Mia Yim, The Josh Alexander and Alex Shelley contract signing, and Mike Bailey vs. Rocky Romero for the X Division Championship. Tom Hannifan noted that the person who comes out of next week’s Impact show with the X Division title will defend the title against Jack Evans at Emergence. The commentators also noted that Deaner and Doering vs. Kushida and Sabin as well as Maclin vs. Callihan have been added to the Emergence card. Rehwoldt hyped up Jeff Cobb vs. Bad Luck Fale and Naito vs. Tanahashi for the NJPW AXS show…
John’s Thoughts: For some reason, Jack Evans keeps getting X Division title shots without earning them. I know he had to miss Slammiversary due to injury, but I was just reminded of how everyone else had to qualify for Ultimate X while Evans just gets randomly announced. Hey, but Mike Bailey vs. Jack Evans should be a wonderful match. Evans is an innovative high flyer and that should mesh well with Bailey’s Tae Kwon Do.
Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, Ace Austin, and Chris Bey were standing at the stairwell. Anderson hyped up Gallows facing PCO. Anderson said he, Bey, and Ace agreed to stay in the back. Gallows said he’s going to send PCO straight to hell. Gallows, Bey, and Austin then hyped up facing Honor No More at Emergence…[c]
A Bound for Glory ad aired…
Entrances for the main event street fight aired…
6. Doc Gallows vs. PCO in a Derby City Street Fight. Gallows started the match with an eye poke. Gallows dumped PCO to ringside. PCO came back by shoving Gallows into the ringpost. PCO hit Gallows with a suplex on the ramp. PCO set up chairs at ringside. Gallows ended up giving PCO a big boot to knock PCO off the apron and onto the chairs.[c]
PCO hit Gallows in the head with thrown chairs. Gallows recovered and hit PCO in the back with chairs. PCO hit Gallows back in the head with a chair. PCO used the spine of chairs to hold up Gallows. Gallows recovered and gave PCO a press slam onto the chair spines. PCO ended up giving Gallows a chokeslam at ringside. PCO used scissors to cut off the ring canvas. PCO hit Gallows multiple times with trash can shots to the head. PCO ended up removing the canvas and foam padding from half the ring.
Gallows recovered and punched PCO with chains. Gallows gave PCO a Baldo Bomb on the exposed wood. PCO kicked out of a pin. PCO tossed Gallows into random music drums. PCO set up Gallows on the apron. Gallows recovered to prevent a Deanimator. Gallows chokeslammed PCO through the ring, which created a hole in the wood and foam. PCO beat the ten count. After pummeling Gallows with strikes, PCO gave Gallows a Scorpion Death Drop. PCO put on a glove and grabbed a handful of thumbtacks. PCO gave Gallows a top rope diving punch with a hand full of tacks. PCO pinned Gallows while Gallows was in the hole in the ring for the victory.
PCO defeated Doc Gallows via pinfall in 12:00 of on-air time.
PCO posed to close the show…
John’s Thoughts: I wasn’t a fan of that match on several levels. On the surface, it was underwhelming and there was a lot of time with PCO just slowly walking around and trying to set up things that were impractical. On top of that PCO gave Gallows a bunch of random chair and trash can shots to the head. For one, head shots are unnecessary and don’t really add to matches in 2022. On top of that, they’re performing chairshots in a throwaway match on Impact TV. What also disappointed me was I had higher expectations from both guys in terms of telling a story and filling time. We’re used to PCO being more dynamic. I also credit Gallows for having one of my sleeper match hits recently when he had that fun big-man brawl with Joe Doering.
A step down from last week, but I still think Impact is an enjoyable two hour show of solid pro wrestling. Impact’s a true alternative with logical booking. What made this week’s episode a bit off was some of their booking though. Violent By Design needs to dissolve. Honor No More needs to dissolve. I feel like the roster will be a lot fresher once those 8 or so wrestlers pivot to better things. The Masha Slammovich build has been a fun treat. One thing I’m missing in recent weeks is lack of Mike Bailey matches. That will be remedied next week when we get Rocky Romero vs. Mike Bailey.
Ignoring the “…right before Madison Rayne stopped wrestling due to her faking a nose injury” idiotic comment, we just have another column from Moore reviewing a show other than WWE shows in which he either negatively reviews a match or says something positive but then adds something negative about a match.
So sad.
Wait? How is that even a negative comment. Madison’s a heel who’s character was playing up a fake injury to avoid matches. I actually thought it was a fun heel move. I wonder if you’ve actually been keeping up with the story because it sounds like you’re oblivious to her recent storylines?
Haha, I’m teasing ya. But it sounds to me like you are just looking to be salty over nothing.
Here’s the thing too. Ever since October, I’ve consistently said Impact Wrestling has been the better wrestling show over the WWE show I review, NXT 2.0.
I just critique things as I see it, not try to get into the weirdo tribalist wars you and a handful of wrestling fans try to get involved in.