Hey guys it is Josh here to review this week’s Impact. I’m still recovering from the fantastic Okada vs Omega and Goto vs Shibata matches from WrestleKingdom and it’s been a long time since I reviewed an Impact but it’s live this week so I figured why not. The live shows are generally either fun or disaster. Hopefully this is not the latter as TNA really needs to kick off 2017 strong after a pretty successful 2016 where Broken Matt and Jeff led the promotion back into prominence. 

The show kicked off with Eddie cutting a promo to pump up the crowd but he was quickly interrupted by Lashley. Honestly I’m pretty sick of this feud as I haven’t really enjoyed any of the matches, so I was happy when EC3 came out even though he was kind of uninteresting in the second half of 2016. Then again, the same can very much be said for Lashley. This was a pretty generic opening segment which wasn’t really the ideal way to kick off this show. Eddie promised that there would be a surprise, which I guess will be Davey. I hope so, I love Davey.

Impact Grand Championship

Moose (c) vs Mike Bennett 

I wasn’t excited going into this because very few of the Grand Championship matches have been anything special, and Bennett and Moose both haven’t been very good in ring in TNA. They worked hard and both pulled out a lot of big moves, with Moose at one point kicking out of a piledriver which seemed quite unnecessary. Nothing bad but nothing special either, which has been the story of these guys’ in ring TNA careers. **1/4

After this a backstage segment happened with the Broken Hardyz interacting with “Swoggle.” I enjoyed his cameo in Total Nonstop Deletion but I l’m not sure how I feel about him actually getting brought in for a taping.

Rockstar Spud vs Swoggle

This was bizarre. It was funny to see Spud bully someone for their size and it was funny to see the artist formerly known as Hornswoggle doing legit moves to Spud. Spud’s downfall continues and after the match he says that he quits. N/A

The Fact of Life with the Broken Hardyz

This was a very enjoyable segment as the Broken Hardyz and Eli are two of my favorite gimmicks in TNA so it was very cool to see them interact. This ultimately set up a tag title match for the One Night Only the next night which I am not watching so I don’t care. Either way it was a fun segment. 

The Decay vs Trevor Lee and Andrew Everett

Another basic match. I still like The Decay but they’re not as good as they were last year, and I really wish Everett and Lee were doing more stuff that allowed them to showcase how good they truly are. When he is on I really think Lee is one of the best in the world so it’s sad to see him doing such basic and unimportant stuff like this. *1/2

Allie w/Braxton Sutter vs Sienna w/Maria and Laurel Van Ness

This was pretty fun story-wise as Allie was finally getting all her anger out on Sienna from the past several months. The finish was perfect because it continued the Allie/Laurel feud while also protecting both wrestlers because neither of them should be losing clean right now. I love that they brought in Allie and Braxton separate and are gradually putting them together as that isn’t what most people were expecting and it’s been fun to watch. Not much wrestling wise but my favorite match of the night probably just because the rise of Allie is one of my favorite things in TNA. **1/2

TNA World Heavyweight Championship

Eddie Edwards (c) vs Lashley vs EC3

This was a pretty decent match with some fun moments as EC3 and Eddie teamed up to take down Lashley. I liked EC3 reversing the Backpack stunner into the sleeper and then both of them getting speared into the exposed turnbuckle but very much could have done without the three-man tower of doom as I find that to be one of the most overdone spots in all of wrestling. I was happy to see Davey even if it was pretty obvious and I was very happy that Eddie retained. Hopefully he makes it through this week of tapings without losing the title. Decent match but again nothing special. **3/4

Overall Review: The first Impact of 2017 was far from bad but wasn’t very good either. Even though the ring physically looked different this was nothing different from any Impacts from the second half of 2016. Not actively bad but not special. They kind of needed a home-run here and instead got a single. It was fine but not what it should have been. It never reached disaster level and it wasn’t a necessarily difficult watch but nothing was must-see. I wish they would get back to how they were in the summer where even though the shows weren’t amazing there were generally 1-3 ***+ matches on each show. It is insane that Hornswoggle got a match and a backstage segment but the X-Division couldn’t get a match, but I’m so used to them failing to use that division that I don’t even care anymore. Decent way to kick off the new year with a fun segment and the last two matches being relatively enjoyable. 

Overall Rating: 6/10