Impact Wrestling Review
October 7, 2016
By: Gerald Bocook of Wrestleview.com
I love me a good ol’ night of Champions. One of the most packed Impacts in awhile saw four Championships defended and the fifth Champion in a new match type, and it was a mostly good event! Let’s run it down!
The promo at the start was nice, seeing everyone come down and remind the Impact Zone that everyone has their own contributions. Then Billy Corgan and his associate (Aiden O’Shea) – came down and… what the hell was Corgan wearing? He’s the President of the Company, and I don’t care that a suit isn’t his deal, but… what the hell was that? He looked horrible and tacky, and it didn’t help with O’Shea by his side. Still, Corgan made his matches and got everyone on their way. It was short and concise and he didn’t spend any more time talking than he needed to.
I’m still not sure what to make of Team X Gold, because I’m not sure exactly what it’s supposed to mean, or what its implications are. It’s a different format, but they did a poor job of relaying how or why it’s different. The match was okay, but the end seemed to fly in the face of the whole “leave right when you tag” rule, so… shrug?
Fact of Life was good. I liked the sit-down this time, as opposed to the last Fact of Life where the X-Division competitors were hanging out in the ring around a podium. EC3 was weird here, the whole “I’m so angry and angsty!” thing was off-putting, and he got way too pumped-up to tell Drake to hit his Dummy button. Drake’s response was great, though. He didn’t hit the button out of fear or spite; he got up in EC3’s face and told him that he was being a big, entitled baby. It didn’t come to blows, and that was a great move.
I mentioned in my write-up that Maria is dumb and that she can’t sue someone for finding out about her medical history, so the reason she was yelling at Allie this week was extra dumb. I’m also not sure what Sienna was thinking, bringing Allie to the ring when she felt like Allie couldn’t be trusted to be useful. Plus, Allie didn’t get involved at all anyway, so it was a totally wasted bit.
The match, Sienna vs Gail, was okay. It didn’t have much to go on, though. Can’t blame them for that. The beatdown that Gail got was pretty nice, and Maria making herself a rematch with a no-DQ stipulation was a bold move. I guess, if it worked for Lashley, it can work for Maria? The bit later on, between Maria and Badger, raised the stakes, and I like that.
The Wolf Creek Cage Match was a good, fun match. What they showed of it on Pop, at least. I haven’t seen an explanation from TNA or Pop as to what happened to the video, but, they did at least put the end of the match on their YouTube channel instead of ignoring that something happened. The collection of weapons was weak, if only because it was typical Lethal Lockdown stuff with a couple additions and that broke the idea that it was stuff the character in Wolf Creek used to kill or torture people. Reby seems to’ve finally gone off the deep end, so that’ll be fun. I still have no idea where that staff came into play, but if it sticks around, and Reby keeps decorating herself in everyone’s blood, that could be fun!
Cody’s bit went down pretty much like you’d expect, and it’ll be nice to see him in the ring next week. The jab about Brandi getting to bill herself as “Rhodes” was nice.
Aron Rex vs Baron Dax was… most of a good match. The end came out of nowhere, and I always hate matches where one competitor will get the crap kicked out of them for the entire thing and then hit their ONE MOVE and win. Roll-ups don’t tick me off like this (see: Gail Kim vs Sienna,) but the submission move with no leadup whatsoever does. I also have questions about how they’ll determine who competes for the Impact Grand Championship. Is the match format only going to take place in matches directly for the Championship itself? Will they do Grand Rules matches on Impact to determine contenders? I do like answers.
The World Heavyweight Championship match was really good! I liked that Lashley didn’t completely dominate the match, that Edwards did his best to keep himself competitive, and it worked. Eddie Edwards didn’t have tons of momentum coming into this match, and I think it worked to his benefit. He hasn’t had tons of big wins since he won the X-Division Championship in time to use Option C, so the slingshot up to World Heavyweight Championship could be the perfect thing for him. It was time for Lashley to lose the Championship, so it’s good for the landscape of TNA that the new Champion is someone with Eddie Edwards’ talents. Lashley will, of course, get a rematch, and that will also be fun to see. Shame they abruptly cut out the celebration, though.
A really good follow-up Impact Wrestling to Bound for Glory. The landscape has changed a lot in the last week, so let’s see where they take us!