Impact Wrestling Review 4/20/17

This is my first time watching Impact in a couple months, meaning that it is my first time watching since the new regime took over. I have been very critical of the new regime but decided to give them a chance.

Impact Tag Team Championship

LAX vs Joe Coleman and Jake Holmes 

This was a squash but it was good to see EYFBO in their new roles as LAX. After the match Konnan got on the mic and explained the goals of the faction. Decay came out and the two teams brawled. Those teams could probably have a fun match, but sadly Crazzy Steve is leaving soon so I don’t know that there will be time for it to really happen. I hope that they find something interesting to do with Abyss if he stays because he’s been doing well with Steve after being really dull for a couple years. N/A

Karen Jarrett came out and announced that Impact and GFW were merging. This ended up turning into a segment about the X-Division when Sonjay Dutt emerged and suggested that he be added to the X-Division title match between Trevor Lee and Andrew Everett. Lee and Helms emerged and said they had no right to decide who is involved in the match. Bruce Prichard then came out and announced that the X-Division match would be the main event and would be a six-way. I was very happy to see Sonjay Dutt because he has always been great and they did a good job at building the X-Division title match (that’s something I haven’t said in years). Hopefully this is the start of a new emphasis on the X-Division. 

Knockouts Championship

Rosemary (c) vs ODB

ODB has been criticized for her recent performances but I didn’t see anything wrong with her performance here. This was a nice little inoffensive match that made Rosemary look good. I’ve been very happy with the booking of her reign thus far and hope she continues to reign for a while after the ridiculous amount of title changes in 2016. **

Backstage Sienna found Karen and asked her where the GFW Women’s Champion (CVE) was. Karen said she would be there soon. Yay for actually doing stuff with Sienna!

Kongo Kong w/Laurel Van Ness, KM, and Sienna vs Chris Silvio

This was a complete squash that made Kongo look like a beast. Nothing much to say here. N/A

Impact World Championship

James Storm vs Lashley (c)

This was a decent match that ended up being more about storyline than wrestling. The wrestling was fine as James Storm is still very good and Lashley wasn’t COMPLETELY boring here like he can be at times. The ref bump was dumb but no matter who is in control of this promotion they are obsessed with them. EC3 costing Storm the match was a nice unexpected move. Also Josh Mathews was horrendous here as always. **

They showed footage of Chris Adonis (Masters) attacking Moose in an indy promotion. Moose says next week he will face Adonis but Adonis says he is injured so he can’t but he chooses Davey as his replacement. Davey attacks Moose.

X-Division Championship

Sonjay Dutt vs Suicide vs Desmond Xavier vs Andrew Everett vs Trevor Lee vs Low-Ki

Desmond Xavier signing with Impact is very unexpected as most rising stars on the indies don’t do so. I’ve been a fan of Xavier for a while now and am very excited to see him interact with the X-Division guys and show off what he can do in front of his largest audience yet. I’m also very happy to see Sonjay Dutt back in an Impact Wrestling ring and LOW KI! Low-Ki is in my top ten favorite wrestlers of all time so I am so happy that he is going to be back performing on a regular basis in an easily accessible place. This was a pretty decent match that probably should have been great considering the talent involved. There were quite a few good moments but there was also a lot of time where not much if anything was going on, which doesn’t really work well for this type of match. I like the outcome and hope they continue to give this much time and focus to the X-Division. However this match, like the last match, was somewhat hurt by the constant bickering going on at the announce table. I understand what they are trying to do but they don’t seem to understand that Josh Mathews is objectively bad and legitimately hurts the show. I don’t like how Mathews and Borash shenanigans took away from Low Ki’s championship celebration either.  **1/2

Overall Review: This was a decent show that was easy to get through with my main complaints being that there were no matches that I’d say were really above average and the commentary. I enjoyed most if not all of the story based stuff but I hope they have long term plans for people because with so many people coming into the promotion it is going to be very easy for people to get lost in the shuffle. There are tons of top talents who were barely or just not on this show which is concerning such as Eddie Edwards and Allie. Nothing really stands out but I’d say the show is worth watching even though there are clear flaws (I could’ve done without ever seeing Bruce Prichard or Karen Jarrett on Impact again).
Overall Rating: 6.5/10