Impact Wrestling – December 14, 2017: Just Don’t Talk
Impact Wrestling
Date: December 14, 2017
Location: Aberdeen Pavilion, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Commentators: Jeremy Borash, Josh Matthews
Impact actually has some wrestling competition tonight as WWE is presenting its annual Tribute to the Troops. This week’s big match is for the vacant Knockouts Title as Rosemary vs. Laurel Van Ness wraps up the mini tournament. Other than that we’re likely to get more build between Alberto El Patron, Johnny Impact and Eli Drake for the World Title. Let’s get to it.
Laurel and Rosemary arrive.
Recap of Gail Kim vacating the title and the tournament being set up. Again: it was two triple threat matches and a singles match. It’s not exactly some game changer.
Opening sequence.
Sienna vs. KC Spinelli vs. Madison Rayne vs. Allie
#1 contenders match and one fall to a finish. Allie gets triple teamed in the corner to start but Spinelli and Rayne quickly turn on Sienna. A northern lights suplex gives Spinelli two and Madison does the same move for the same result. Spinelli is back with a spinout Rock Bottom but Allie is back in to take both of them down at once. A hair takedown drops Allie though and it’s Sienna coming back in with a big boot to KC.
Sienna tosses Spinelli with a fall away slam for two as Allie makes the save. Back from a break with Sienna faceplanting Madison and throwing Allie down as well. Spinelli and Sienna hit a double clothesline and everyone is down. It’s Allie up first and cleaning house, including a Codebreaker for two on Sienna. Spinelli is loaded up into the AK47 but Allie rolls Sienna up for the pin at 12:39.
Rating: C-. Not much to this one but they got the finish right, especially if we’re heading for Laurel winning the title. Allie is still the most popular name in the division (or second most at worst) and giving her a push towards the title would make sense. That being said, it feels like it’s just being kept warm while we wait on Taya’s visa issues to be resolved, which makes some sense.
Trevor Lee/Caleb Konley vs. Dezmond Xavier/Taiji Ishimori
Lee and Ishimori start things off as we hear about expansion into Italy. Maybe we can see some Italian wrestlers that mean nothing around here for a change. Xavier comes in and uppercuts Lee a few times before dropkicking him in the back of the head. Lee sends Dezmond outside and scores with a running kick to the face as we take a break. Back with Xavier still in trouble as Konley sends him hard into the corner. Lee comes back in for a chinlock and a hard clothesline.
Somehow, during an X-Division match, the commentary manages to bring the discussion back to Gail Kim. We saw her during the opening and we discussed her during the Knockouts match and now we’re hearing about her too. Well of course we are. The hot tag brings in Ishimori to thankfully speed things up a bit, only to have Lee grab a German suplex for two. Everything breaks down and Dezmond gets caught in the Tree of Woe. For some reason they try a spike piledriver in the same corner though, allowing Xavier to make the save. Ishimori rolls Lee up for the pin at 12:49.
Rating: C. This division is so dull and so much of that is due to the villains. You can only do the “I’m the champion and you want the title” story for so long and they passed that point a LONG time ago. Completely average match here as we keep waiting for Ishimori to hopefully save us from the drek that is Lee’s X-Division Title reign.
We recap Dan Lambert pinning James Storm last week.
Alberto El Patron, Petey Williams and Johnny Impact aren’t happy with having to team together tonight. El Patron and Johnny talk a bunch of trash while Petey just stands around like someone who doesn’t belong here. Well you can’t fault him for his way of thinking.
We see the last five minutes of the Knockouts Gauntlet Match to crown the first ever Knockouts Champion at Bound For Glory 2007. The winner of course: Gail Kim.
Chris Adonis and Eli Drake seem to have found their partner for the six man tag in the form of Jimmy Jacobs.
Alberto El Patron/Johnny Impact/Petey Williams vs. Eli Drake/Chris Adonis/Kongo Kong
Or not actually as Jacobs comes out to say he’s a good guy. He’s here to help, which is why he’s found Adonis and Drake a partner. Quick question: has Impact ever explained who Jacobs is or why he’s here? Or are we just supposed to have a working knowledge of who has left WWE over the last few months?
Alberto hammers on Adonis to start but gets shoved into a tag to Impact. That goes nowhere so Petey chases Adonis into the corner….and earns a shot against Kong. A rolling backsplash crushes Williams and it’s back to Adonis to stomp in the corner. The slow beatdown continues and we’re just lucky enough to see more Kong. Drake comes in after a splash and drops an elbow for good measure.
Adonis almost hits Kong by mistake and the apology allows the hot tag off to Johnny. There’s a Flying Chuck for two on Drake but Alberto comes in to break up some attempted cheating. That’s enough being nice though as Alberto hits a Backstabber on Johnny. Petey gets caught in a double flapjack but Kong misses his top rope splash.
Johnny dives onto Drake but Petey’s slingshot hurricanrana is countered with a powerbomb into the crowd. Kong and Petey head to the back, leaving Johnny to deck Alberto. There’s Starship Pain but Alberto DDTs Johnny on the ramp. A frog splash to Drake is good for the pin at 8:32.
Rating: B-. Alberto logic made sense and it’s fine to have the champ get pinned in a tag match, but you really could have done almost the same match without Kong and Williams. This got a lot better at the end and once we got to the storyline stuff, but even the worst part of it wasn’t that bad. Just don’t let Alberto talk.
The Legion of Doom was in TNA for a cup of coffee back in the early days.
Alberto gets a title shot on the January 4 show.
The Park Family is proud of how well business is going but Chandler wants to be a wrestler. Joseph isn’t sure.
Video on the Grand Championship match, which will now be a three way involving champion Ethan Carter III, Fallah Bahh and Matt Sydal. That also takes place on January 4.
Also on January 4, Taiji Ishimori vs. Trevor Lee for the X-Division Title.
The next two weeks will be Best of 2017 specials.
Here are Moose and Storm to talk about American Top Team. After explaining to Storm that he doesn’t mean AT&T, Moose talks about having Lashley beaten multiple times but having the MMA guys jump in time after time. Maybe Lashley just can’t beat him. Cue Lambert and Lashley with the latter saying he can beat either of them at any time. Storm gets in Lambert’s face, saying he respects Dan but they have a problem.
All Storm wants is to face Lambert one on one. Dan goes into his usual wrestling sucks speech and eventually calls Storm the face of the company. Here’s the deal: if they fight each other, Storm’s career is on the line. Storm agrees, but if he wins, the MMA guys are all gone. Lashley and Moose start fighting and here’s KM, who is quickly cut off by a Last Call.
Storm vs. Lambert is set for the January 4 show.
Knockouts Title: Rosemary vs. Laurel Van Ness
The title is vacant coming in. Van Ness is sent outside and we take a break less than a minute in. Back (after a good while) with Rosemary hammering away in the corner and Cactus Clotheslining her outside. Laurel is up first and kicks Rosemary face first onto the ramp. That’s only good for two back inside and it’s time to shove each other a lot. Rosemary is up first and grabs her leaning back choke over the ropes.
They fall outside again with an exploder suplex dropping Laurel on the floor. Back in and Rosemary spears her down but has to escape an Unprettier. The Red Wedding doesn’t work either and Rosemary misses the mist. The delay allows Laurel to hit the Unprettier off the top for the pin and the title at 14:04.
Rating: C+. I’m a bit surprised by the ending but at least we have Laurel vs. Allie to look forward to. The match wasn’t bad but treating this like some kind of huge tournament win and a passing of the torch from Kim (who was mentioned almost as much as either finalist leading up to the match) is quite the stretch.
We go to a meeting between Konnan and Sami Callihan. They argue over who is in charge of this company and a match is made with titles vs. careers. Konnan agrees and says after LAX is done with OVE, they’ll be like O’Reilly and Spacey. Callihan throws a fireball at Konnan’s face to end the show.
Overall Rating: C+. Pretty solid show here as they’re setting up something big for the January 4 show. That being said, I might have liked the show more because it means I get two weeks off from watching the show for the most part. If nothing else this show needs a breather and hopefully they have something a little more interesting when they get to the next taping cycle. This show worked better because it was mainly wrestling and didn’t feature much of Impact’s very sub par writing. Do that more often and the show gets better, though I don’t trust them to pull it off.
Results
Allie b. KC Spinelli, Madison Rayne and Sienna – Rollup to Sienna
Taiji Ishimori/Dezmond Xavier b. Caleb Konley/Trevor Lee – Rollup to Lee
Alberto El Patron/Johnny Impact/Petey Williams b. Eli Drake/Chris Adonis/Kongo Kong – Frog splash to Drake
Laurel Van Ness b. Rosemary – Super Unprettier
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