Impact Wrestling – July 12, 2018: From The Black Lagoon
IMG Credit: Impact Wrestling
Impact Wrestling
Date: July 12, 2018
Location: St. Clair College, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
Commentators: Josh Matthews, Don Callis
With Slammiversary less than two weeks away, there isn’t much left to be done. Most of the card is already set up but last week’s show saw a big angle in the return of the original LAX. I’m sure that will set up a match at the pay per view, which is starting to look like a heck of a show. Let’s get to it.
Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.
We open with a recap of the LAX split, which has been far better than I was expecting.
Opening sequence.
OG’s vs. ???/???
That would be Homicide/Hernandez and it’s a complete squash with a Border Toss ending one of the jobbers at 58 seconds.
Post match King says Konnan’s time is done so King decided to take him out. Konnan is a smart man though so King brought in the OG’s. When Konnan restarted LAX, he went with the young boys instead of these two guys who don’t need your cheers. That’s why at Slammiversary, it’s a street fight. Good followup here as they didn’t waste time and set up the match in short order. That’s what you should have done and if we get a fired up response, everything will be copacetic.
Shotzi Blackheart recently impressed at a RISE event and gets to face Allie tonight. She’s ready to go.
Video on Blackheart.
OVE talks about how great they are and they’re ready to show their greatness in six man matches in tonight’s main event.
Shotzi Blackheart vs. Allie
Shotzi has long green hair and is from the Black Lagoon so I’m already a fan. A shoulder puts Allie down to start and Blackheart grabs something like a Muta Lock but pulls on Allie’s arms instead of her face. This is getting more and more promising. Back up and they chop it out until Allie misses a charge in the corner and we hit a quickly broken chinlock. Shotzi misses a missile dropkick and Allie gets two off a German suplex. The running Codebreaker puts Shotzi away at 5:45.
Rating: C. It’s a small sample size but Shotzi looked good for the most part here. Hopefully she’s brought back for some more shots as the division can always use some extra talent. Allie’s transformation from fun Bayley style character to serious has worked well and the change in gear helps too. You can only be so serious in the goofier looking gear but the Allie shirt and black pants give her a very different vibe.
Post match Tessa Blanchard comes out to beat Allie down.
Grado annoys Eli Drake, who hits on Katarina. A match is set for tonight.
Tessa is tired of Allie interfering in her business so she took Allie out.
Long recap of Tommy Dreamer vs. Eddie Edwards. Eddie’s turn has been great, but Dreamer being involved has sucked away a lot of the interest I had in the story.
The silhouetted woman is still coming but seems to have red hair.
Austin Aries knows Moose isn’t going to beat him and doesn’t think much of a retired, washed up football player (“I’m not talking about Moose.”) being here tonight. He’s looking forward to hearing what DeAngelo Williams has to say.
From Slammiversary 2013, Gail Kim and Taryn Terrell had a heck of a Last Man Standing match.
Josh Matthews brings out Williams, who happens to be Moose’s friend. If nothing else I could go for seeing him have another match. Williams has been training with Moose and thinks Aries is trash. We see a clip of the training and here’s Aries with a rebuttal. The fans chant for Aries, who says he knows his own name.
Aries asks why Williams isn’t in training camp and realizes it’s because no one wanted to sign him. He and Moose can bond over their lack of winning championships and Aries has a message for Moose. That would be a left hand but Aries misses a chair shot. Williams takes it away so Aries kicks him low and blasts him in the back. With Moose not around, this was about as good as it could have been.
KM and Fallah Bahh are having the same talk they have every week when the Desi Hit Squad comes in. They want to bring glory to India (we know) so KM yells at him. Gama Singh says that’s typical of North Americans. Well that’s irony.
Eli Drake vs. Grado
Grado has Katarina and Joe Hendry in his corner. Drake jumps him from behind and fires off the shoulders in the corner. A hurricanrana out of the corner of all things puts Drake down and Grado slugs away. Drake fires off a clothesline and the Gravy Train is good for the pin at 2:06.
Post match Drake accuses Hendry of trying to steal Katarina. I mean, yeah.
Video on Aries vs. Moose.
Killer Kross is ready to end Petey Williams next week.
Matt Sydal says his third eye is open and he isn’t an underdog at Slammiversary. Size doesn’t matter because if it did, he wouldn’t have a career. Good line.
Moose calls in to say he’ll be here next week to face Aries face to face.
We get a sitdown interview with Madison Rayne, who can’t believe what she’s going to be doing at Slammiversary. The lights flicker and Madison gets up to look for Su Yung. The interviewer disappears and THE TIME HAS COME is written on a wall. Yung’s dress is seen leaving the room and Madison opens a door to follow her but the camera cuts off.
OVE vs. Fenix/Pentagon Jr./Rich Swann
Tornado rules. Pentagon and Sami get in each others’ faces to start until six superkicks stagger everyone. Swann and Sami are the only ones left standing and Swann flips over him to speed things up. They kick each other as well though and it’s another knockdown. The Lucha Brothers beat up the Crist brothers and kick Dave in the face in the corner for two. Sami low blows Pentagon and suplexes Fenix into him, followed by a heck of a clothesline to take Fenix’s head off.
Swann is right back with a dive though, only to have Jake flip dive onto everyone. Not to be outdone, Fenix springboards into a twisting dive of his own, giving us a pretty awkward IMPACT WRESTLING chant. Dave superplexes Swann onto the pile and we take a well deserved break.
Back with the Tower of Doom into a powerbomb from Jake for two on Fenix. Jake puts Fenix up top but gets punched back down, setting up a very high angle Swanton. Swann starts kicking Sami down but eats a piledriver for two with Pentagon making the save. The Pentagon Driver gets two on Sami and Pentagon is stunned.
A series of cutters take almost everyone down, including Jake diving off one corner to cutter Swann, who was diving off another for an awesome visual. Sami gets caught in a spike Fear Factor for two in a rather ridiculous kickout. Another Fear Factor onto the apron destroys Jake and Swann kicks Callihan in the head. Swann’s super hurricanrana is countered into a powerbomb though and Callihan’s Get Out Of Here is good for the pin at 17:51.
Rating: B+. Heck of a main event here, rather ridiculous kickout for Sami aside. I can’t imagine Pentagon losing his mask at Slammiversary (it’s too valuable to him elsewhere) and Sami losing would be the right call. Other than that though, this was a rather fun match and Swann is looking like a star in the heavyweight division. I’m still not sure why he couldn’t do that in WWE, but then there would be no point to the cruiserweights having their own division. In other words, exactly how it is now. Really good match and a lot of fun in the style OVE should be doing most of the time.
Back to Madison, who follows Yung outside and gets surrounded by the bridesmaids. They come up to her but disappear, leaving Yung to grab Rayne to end the show.
Overall Rating: B. What does it say when this might have been the best TV show of the week? I’m looking forward to Slammiversary and most of the matches are looking very good. The show wasn’t perfect but the big stories are looking great and I’m curious to see who wins some of the pay per view matches. This is the best they’ve been in a long time and if that continues, they might be onto something.
Results
OG’s b. ???/??? – Border Toss
Allie b. Shotzi Blackheart – Running Codebreaker
Eli Drake b. Grado – Gravy Train
OVE b. Rich Swann/Fenix/Pentagon Jr. – Get Out Of Here to Fenix
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