This week’s Impact Wrestling was primarily focused on another appearance by AEW Champion Kenny Omega alongside Don Callis, as they hyped up Omega’s title vs. title match with Impact Champion Rich Swann at the next major pay per view in April, known as Rebellion.
But the main event match of the evening featured Eddie Edwards facing off against Karl Anderson, formerly one half of the Impact Tag Team Champions, which I’ll get to later. For now, here are some of my thoughts on the show.
BTI: Iceman’s Intel and Alisha vs. Tasha Steelz
There was a decent pre-show women’s division match between Lish and one half of the Knockouts Tag Team Champions, with Steelz picking up the win. It was not meant to advance any storyline but it did serve to continue building Fire N Flava as the number one tag team in the division.
What is more interesting during Impact’s pre-show is George Iceman’s Intel segment, which unveiled Chris Bey being injured. Bey has acknowledged Iceman’s “scoop” on Twitter, although with wrestling today one still can’t be sure if an injury could be a work. Whatever the case, I wish Chris Bey the best of luck in his recovery.
Impact Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo vs. Jazz (non title)
The opening bout was the current champion vs. one of women’s wrestling’s ring generals. One noticeable absence was Kimber Lee, as it was revealed she was injured from last week’s 12 women scramble, so Deonna was accompanied only by Susan while Jazz came out with Jordynne Grace. The Knockouts Champion won the match when Susan hit Jazz in the head with her shoe, which allowed Purrazzo to win via roll up.
I have concerns about this because it dilutes the strong build that Deonna has been put on since she arrived on Impact Wrestling. Within a year, she has become a two time champion and has turned back challengers like Grace, Rosemary, Taya Valkyrie and ODB on her own.
Why would she need a sidekick with a shoe to help her win? It doesn’t make much sense to me.
Rohit Raju vs. Fallah Bahh
This match came about during a backstage segment when Rohit ran into Fallah, who was apparently camped out in the hallway like a homeless person. Rohit yells at Fallah for having a gambling addiction and being a loser, which prompted Fallah to challenge the former X Division Champion in the ring.
Rohit manages to pick up the win via a crucifix style rollup, which was impressive in itself considering Raju is a much smaller man and Fallah is a three hundred pounder.
I’m not what if anything is going to develop with this going forward for Rohit and Fallah. Rohit should have been booked to continue something with Shera, who returned as Rohit’s backup but has apparently now split with him following their match last week.
On to one of the highlights of the show in my opinion, the “infomercial” for Johnny Swinger’s ‘Swingers Palace’ casino.
It was hilarious how the 45 year old Swinger billed himself being “just 26”, former security guard “Lenny Powers” giving a testimonial while for some reason standing outside the women’s bathroom, and Johnny Bravo looking like he’s in a hostage video.
Ace Austin (X Division Champion) vs. TJP in title match
TJP gets his rematch after losing the title at Sacrifice and essentially matched move for move with Austin. One thing I notice about the current champion is that he’s really good and spring-boarding from the middle rope for a high impact move, and Austin seems to move with such fluidity it’s almost like he’s part of the ring.
TJP managed to hit his Mamba Splash finisher but the pinfall attempt was broken up by Madman Fulton resulting in a disqualification. Ace and Fulton started beating down the former X Division Champion until Josh Alexander came out and chased the duo away with a steel chair.
This led to a tag match booked next week, Ace and Fulton vs. Alexander and TJP, but if this is leading to a push for Alexander going after the X Division title, I’m all for it.
We then had a sit down interview by Gia Miller with “Always Ready” Matt Cardona. Cardona said that while he and Brian Myers are best friends and they have a podcast together, he did not come to Impact Wrestling to tag with Brian or face him again and he was here at Impact to strike out on his own.
Despite those assertions, it seems the only way to settle things between these two is a match at Rebellion, or even Hardcore Justice if necessary. But it seems Cardona and Myers’ wrestling careers are destined to be intertwined no matter where they go.
If Matt Cardona really wanted to carve out his own space in the industry, maybe he should have stayed in AEW?
Trey Miguel vs. Acey Romero
In one of the most lopsided contests I’ve ever seen, the smaller Trey Miguel had to contend with the 300 pounder from XXXL, however the match didn’t last long as Trey started off quick but Acey counted with his power, at one point essentially using his whole body like a battering ram. Perhaps Trey’s newfound aggression allowed him to counter the bigger man with high flying tactics.
Miguel eventually put Acey away with a middle rope cutter followed up by a Meteora (double knees to the face) on the big man for the win. Afterwards, XXXL began beating down on the former Rascalz member when the lights went out and Sami Callihan was in the ring with a baseball bat. Callihan took out Acey with the bat, and when Larry D grabbed Sami, Trey came in and kicked Larry D in the face as Callihan ducked. You either wonder if Trey was going for Larry D or Sami at that point.
But just as quickly as he appeared Callihan pulled out his cell phone and turned the lights off again, vanishing just as quickly as he came in. Again, I often repeated that Sami and Trey would join forces at some point…but now I’m not certain if Trey is heading for a heel turn…or is Sami going babyface.
I bring this up because in an earlier BTI segment, Sami was talking to Don Callis and told the Impact boss that after the issues with Omega and Swann get settled, he’s coming back for the Impact Championship.
There was another backstage segment in which, once again, Tenille Dashwood attempted to convince Nevaeh to team up with her and to leave Havoc. Havoc and Nevaeh for some reason have a non title match with Fire N Flava next week, but it’s clear a team split between the former is being teased here. Despite the clear contradictions, Nevaeh transforming from Havoc’s dark sister into some wannabe Influencer like Tenille takes some getting used to.
Kenny Omega (with Don Callis) promo in the Impact Zone
So there is some teasing of perhaps future dissension between Kenny Omega and the Good Brothers, as the GB came to Omega’s office and found no one there. This was perfectly explainable, as this was around the time that Omega and Callis appeared on the weekly “paid ad” from AEW’s two Tonys. Gallows and Anderson look like they’re worried that Omega was ignoring them.
The Brothers’ goodwill they garnered backstage also may be waning, as they were not getting as much love from the “boys in the back” before Edwards came up to chastise the former tag champions, most likely because they lost their tag belts to “the outsiders”: New Japan’s Dave Finlay and Juice Robinson. Not only did the GB get a tongue lashing from Edwards, they also ran into Decay, teasing a future match between those two teams.
Also, if you watched AEW Dynamite the following night, there was a segment where Omega came out and got the cold shoulder again from the Young Bucks after their trio’s match with the Lucha Brothers. The Luchas then kicked Omega in the face, and afterwards the Good Brothers (slowly) made their way to the ring. I’m sensing that Omega is heading to a full on megalomaniac ‘one man band’ gimmick in the future.
But back to the Callis and Omega promos on Impact, which seems to be a hyping up of Omega’s lethal “One Winged Angel” finisher, including a video package of the AEW Champion executing the move several times on Swann from different angles, on poor Sammy Guevera some 20 feet in the air at the Stadium Stampede as well as on Jon Moxley on a barbed wired chair at Revolution. Later, Swann was seen backstage and he said he has a few ‘tricks up his sleeve’ to counter the One Winged Angel, so we’ll see what happens in April.
I think Don Callis’ promo on Swann last week was more important than the one this week, because it seemed like just 12 minutes of rambling incoherently at times and Omega just talking about his finisher. At some point, someone is going to kick out of it; you don’t spend all your time hyping up how no one has kicked out of the move to NOT have someone do just that.
Finally, the Omega and Callis dynamic is getting sexually disturbing at times although I don’t either hate or love this. I just find it stupidly amusing that two grown men are talking about “69-ing each other” in the middle of the ring on live television and the world champion is telling people to ‘suck it’. As if that hasn’t been done before.
Karl Anderson vs. Eddie Edwards
Now comes the main event of the evening, which on paper sounds like a good contest and for the most part didn’t disappoint. I love the part where the referee basically forced a man twice his size (Gallows) to sit in a chair instead of the usual move of sending him to the back.
Anderson showed his technical savvy by wearing down Edwards with a headlock with his knee in the back of Edwards’ neck, but Edwards counted with his patented Blue Thunderbomb and Backpack Stunner from the top turnbuckle. However, Anderson would pick up the win after kicking out of an Edwards rollup, which sent Eddie straight into Gallows with a chair to the face. The Machine Gun then hit a spinebuster for the win.
Afterwards, FinJuice appears on the big screen on the ramp, apparently somewhere in Japan and continues hyping up the Good Brothers’ rematch for the tag belts at Rebellion to close out the show. This was also the first time I haven’t seen the GB and Omega together on Impact, further teasing a split may be coming.
I am not ashamed to admit I have now hopped on the Impact bandwagon, but I have to say this week’s show was rather weak sauce with not a very exciting ending. The Edwards-Anderson match followed up by the FinJuice bit would have been better off on the second last segment of the show. Then you can have the Omega-Callis promo close the show with Rich Swann coming out afterwards to confront Omega face to face.
Since Hard to Kill, neither man has been seen in each other’s physical presence. I don’t know why they seem to be holding back direct confrontation between the two world champions. During the last two week of Dynamite, I was expecting Swann to run in while Omega was beating down Moxley and Kingston and the Luchas from this past Wednesday.
It really is high time for some other Impact talent to start appearing on AEW other than the Good Brothers.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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