Craig Ferriman@MrImpact
IMPACT Wrestling once again treated us to the best two hours of wrestling with this week’s instalment of their flagship show and did not disappoint, we had excellent Intergender matches, superb tag team bouts and the stars of the X division showed why the X Division makes this company unique.
Aiden Prince vs Wentz vs Rohit Raju vs Chuck Mambo vs Cody Deaner vs Petey Williams in an X Division Championship Number 1 contenders match opened this weeks show and it was truly a classic put on by guys of the x division and it’s great seeing Chuck Mambo get an opportunity on an international stage like IMPACT. A lot happened in this match and here’s my personal highlights of this match.
Prince hitting Mambo with a beautiful hurricanrana followed up by Wentz landing a springboard corkscrew onto Aiden Prince and Mambo. The Veteran Petey Williams drops Wentz to the mat and locks on a sharpshooter in front of his hometown crowd in Windsor to a loud pop, Rohit Raju would get in on the submission by locking in a Cross face to Wentz. A short time later Petey Williams is looking for a dive to the outside but is halted by Windsor crowd favourite and BCW regular Cody Deaner who puts his hat on backwards and drapes the Canadian flag around the shoulders of the Canadian destroyer and both hit stereo dives outside onto everyone. Wentz, Prince and Mambo all take turns with high risk dives of their own. Wentz connects with a massive cutter on prince, Petey nails Wentz with a Canadian Destroyer to another pop from the crowd in the St. Clair College sport plex, Aiden Prince hits Chuck Mambo with a big brain buster swiftly followed with a 450 splash for the win. Aiden Prince is the number 1 contender for Jake Crist’s newly won X Division championship and will receive his opportunity next week on IMPACT.
On oVe cam backstage, Sami lets Mad Man Fulton out of his cage for his match later tonight with Tessa Blanchard and Sami still isn’t happy Jake is calling himself the golden draw. Backstage Tessa Blanchard is making her way into the building and is met by the former X Division champion Rich Swann warning Blanchard and trying to prepare her for her match against Fulton later tonight and offers to have her back, Tessa declines and informs Swann “Thanks, But I gotta do this”.
Havok vs John E Bravo came next and not a lot happened during this match, Bravo tried to convince Havok they can still deal with this the “fun” way and after once again unbuttoning his shirt a little, kneeled down and kissed Havok’s hand however the death machine doesn’t appreciate it very much and goes on the attack. Picking the former IMPACT official apart before dropping him with a powerful chokeslam which seemed to jack knife slightly for the 3 and Havok simply destroyed Bravo for the win. Havok the turns her attention to the Knockouts champion who’s retreating back up the ramp but then SU Yung appeared on the big screen and delivered a message to Havok I assume as I don’t think anyone could understand what was said but Havok was visibly Angry.
The North prepare for their Tag title defence against the Rascalz in the main event later on. The North tell everyone that this is what they wanted, they want IMPACT to line up all the tag teams they can so the champs can knock them straight back down.
Next was Stone Rockwell Vs Ace Austin, I say this a lot but it’s only because it has to happen because of how talented he is and how bright his future is. Ace Austin is a future X Division champion and I can see it happening by the end of the year. The match was short but still entertaining after Austin jumped stone before the bell with a cheap shot, Stone who is very entertaining and such a unique character turns it around with a big swinging backbreaker however Ace hits the fold for the win.
Straight after the match Eddie Edwards runs from the back and beats down Ace for his antics last week with Eddie’s wife Alisha.
Backstage, Madison Rayne approaches Tessa Blanchard in the knockouts locker room to sarcastically wish her luck for her upcoming match with Mad Man Fulton. Blanchard isn’t interested and leaves the locker room then the queen
bee lets us know how she think Tessa will fair against the mad man by saying “She’s Dead”.
Alisha Edwards confronts her husband backstage over his actions earlier saying that Ace was just trying to be nice.
Coming back to ringside we’re shown something that happened during the break, Moose attacked Stone Rockwell after his match and tells Don Callis at ringside that “He’s no longer responsible for his actions” Fallah Bahh makes the save and Moose challenges him to a match after attacking him with a vicious spear.
Fallah Bahh gets to his feet at the bell and dodges Moose in the corner and as Mr IMPACT Wrestling falls to the mat Fallah climbs to the second rope and drops down with his version of the Banzai Drop for the 3, Fallah Bahh pins moose which I don’t think was a very smart decision and it may have hurt Moose given his big character change of being an unstoppable monster to be pinned so quickly… I guess we’ll have to wait and see how this turns out.
Big change of pace next as Tessa Blanchard took on Callihan’s monster Mad Man Fulton in a very hard-hitting match. It’s clear IMPACT are stepping away from referring to these matches as “Intergender” because it’s just pro wrestling. Not everyone is going to enjoy these types of matches but in my opinion mixed matches are the next evolution of wrestling, it used to be about hard hitting heavyweights the athletic high flyers and now it’s all about the bad ass women in pro wrestling. Fulton dominates most of the match with lots of heavy chokeslams and huge shows of strength, Blanchard attempts the Magnum off the top but is caught by fulton, a frustrated Callihan takes out a chair sliding it into the ring to his Mad Man and instructs him to “Kill Her”. As Fulton is about to attack Blanchard Tommy Dreamer runs out for the save kendo stick in hand, Tessa uses Dreamers Kendo stick and tees off on Fulton before she and Tommy run at Fulton and using the kendo stick clothesline Mad Man out of the ring.
The Match ends in no contest.
Backstage, Michael Elgin has some stern words for Rhino. Telling him and everyone else that just all of his other opponents he’ll send them straight to the hospital.
Madison Rayne and Kiera Hogan bully the newest knockout Alexia Nicole out of the locker room.
Jimmy Jacobs is outside the house of the World champion trying to find out anything he can regarding the health status or his status as world champion. Melissa Santos comes to the door and asks for privacy. She then says next week she’ll sit down with Jimmy and answer any questions he has.
Rhino has some very strong words for IMPACT and his former employer saying, “I didn’t want to collect a big a** pay cheque sitting in catering” and that anyone who steps to him is going to get Gored.
It’s main event time and the IMPACT Tag Team Championships are on the line as The North defend their titles against the Rascalz (Dez & Trey). A team I’ve said are future champions and will be great champions, The match had huge contrasting styles from the fast pace of the Rascalz and the hard hitting almost old school style of The North. A great match with lots of different things going on from Dez launching himself over the ring post crashing into the All Ego and the walking weapon on the floor to Alexander catching Trey and Dez in mid air and drops them both with a running power slam. After the Rascalz hit double 619’s to Alexander, Dez hits the Final Flash but Page pulls the referee out of the ring. The North hit a Cutter into a German Suplex, they hit one final double team move to win and retain the world tag team championships in a great matchup.
This week IMPACT was excellent just like it is every week and next week should be a lot of fun.
