Impact Wrestling results, review, & video (Oct. 19, 2017): Stumbling towards the finish

Impact Wrestling returned last night (Oct. 19) from the Impact Zone in Orlando, Florida. You can find all of the results at the live blog here.

First Blood?

The main event of this week’s show was a one on one match between Taya Valkyrie and Rosemary. It was a bit surprising that these two would have a match when they looked destined to do it bigger at the Bound for Glory (BFG) pay-per-view (PPV) in just a few weeks. It was even more surprising when Taya won clean.

Taya won with a standing stomp to Rosemary, which is not her finish. After the match, she tried to deliver Road to Valhalla, which is her finish, but instead Rosemary misted her. The Demon then told Taya that at Bound for Glory, she wants to paint the Impact Zone with her blood, alluding to a possible First Blood match.

They didn’t get a ton of time, but enough to show off. The chemistry is definitely there and they can put on a show at Bound for Glory. So match wise, it was good.

This moment was especially fun:

However, it was an odd move to have Rosemary lose clean as they set up their Bound for Glory match. Rosemary has not had a signature win in a long while. Meanwhile, Taya has not yet lost. It would have been better for this to end in a DQ or a non-finish. That way, both women would be on more even footing. Instead, Rosemary not only lost completely clean, knocking her down a peg against Taya, but she didn’t even seem phased about losing afterwards, which should never be the case.

Instead of Rosemary losing to a standing stomp, it may have been better to run the post match spot as part of the match. Taya goes for her finish, Rosemary mists her, and it ends in DQ. That’d set up a match with no rules at the PPV.

I’m still pumped for their match at Bound for Glory, but the decision to have one of them lose completely clean is questionable.

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Main Event Mediocrity

Johnny Impact opened the show in a match against Chris Adonis set up by when Adonis attacked Johnny with a board last week.

The match was structured in an odd way when it came to television breaks. The first segment started with Adonis controlling the match. Impact came back with some athletic moves and Impact (the show, not the man) went to break. But when they came back, the match was pretty much finishing up. It was legit just Johnny pushing Adonis off the top rope and then hitting his elbow for the win.

With zero build to the finish of the match (outside some commercials), there was really nothing to see here.

After the match, Eli Drake attacked his BFG challenger but Johnny ripped the pants off the champ and whipped him with his belt. However, Drake and Adonis used their numbers to beat up Johnny and the champ took off his shirt and whipped Johnny in his boxer briefs. Finally, Garza Jr. made the save.

This is all very underwhelming for what looks to be the main event at Bound for Glory. The match was undercut by the placement of the break. The bit after was silly at best with Drake whipping his challenger in his underwear. Garza Jr.’s role is still a bit random.

They have two weeks to really amp this up or they’re going into BFG with an underwhelming main event title match.

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Dan Lambert Love Wrestling More Than You

Welp, the Moose/Stephan Bonnar/American Top Team story continues to decline.

This week, American Top Team owner Dan Lambert cut a promo, and it was a loooong one, about how he actually loves professional wrestling. He brought a duffle bag of championship titles he owns and explained to the crowd which wrestling titles they were while challenging the crowd’s knowledge of wrestling.

Up to now, I’ve enjoyed Lambert as the bastard that runs the heel MMA faction. He’s got a quality about him that makes him easily unlikeable. But asking him to cut what felt like 10 minute promo was way too much. The material didn’t help him.

Coming into this, it was all about how wrestling was bad for his client Bobby Lashley and how he was tired of Impact keeping Lashley from being a prime fighter. But then he cuts a huge promo about how he loves wrestling more than the fans? That doesn’t fit the narrative at all. Even if Lambert didn’t hate wrestling, a 10 minute promo about how he loves it does nothing. It’s an unnecessary detour. The fans should get the impression that this man disrespects wrestling or at least thinks MMA is better. This undercut that.

This led to him issuing a challenge for Bound for Glory: A fight between King Mo & Lashly and Stephan Bonnar & Moose.

Moose and Bonnar come out with all the titles they stole last week (which is something that would have had a bit more impact if we knew about how important Lambert’s title collection was prior). Lashley quickly bum rushed them and all of Top Team beat them down again. A couple of Impact guys tried to help out but they got laid out too. (There feels like there’s an Impact vs. Top Team aspect to this that is no more of an afterthought.)

This story started off fairly strong with duel sport athlete Lashley being forced to choose one. However it definitely dropped off since then. They suddenly included Bonnar without any explanation. There was that goofy segment from last week. Then there was this week’s painfully long Lambert promo about how he loves wrestling, which really shouldn’t be part of this story at all. It’s all going off the rails.

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GFW vs. Triple A

The feud between Triple A and GFW took place outside of the Impact Zone this week. Eddie Edwards, James Storm, EC3, El Hijo de Fantasma, and Texano were all part of a fatal 5-way in Triple A. It was a rather random match which Texano won.

Afterwards, the Impact guys argued backstage about not being on the same page. Eddie was tired of hearing of the other two arguing and wants them to get it together.

This did nothing to really advance this story, which had taken a few weeks off. Winning a random fatal 5-way without any stakes doesn’t feel like a way of showing promotional dominance. A tag match (which it looks like may be coming) would be better for that. But we already saw that match and team Triple A won, so even that is just old hat for this feud. It feels like they’re just spinning their wheels here until they add something new to it. If they add something new to it.

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Bit Off More Than He Can Chew

For the last few weeks, there have been brief videos of Grado and Joseph Park working together. They alluded that Park may be screwing Grado out of his money, but it wasn’t until last week that Grado seemed to figure it out and really get irritated.

This week, this set up a match at Bound for Glory. Grado came to the ring furious that Joseph Park is screwing him. Park admitted it but reminded him that he has control over the Scot’s visa. The lawyer supplied a contract for a match at BFG with the rights to Grado’s visa at stake. Grado immediately signed without reading the fine print that stated it’s actually a Monster’s Ball match against Abyss.

This is what it is. The build to this was nothing but very short video clips the last month that were so incidental that it was surprising that it turned into a PPV match. The build was minimal so this segment didn’t have any heat going into it.

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oVe at Crash

oVe decided to go to Tijuana to talk to Konnan. The leader of LAX wouldn’t talk to them unless the champs defended their titles at his Crash promotion. oVe was happy to and defeated the team of Black Danger and Black Diamond.

They got their opportunity to talk to Konnan... and had absolutely nothing to say to him. They offered him the opportunity to touch their titles and then asked for the money from the match. He refused to pay them and then his Crash wrestlers beat them up.

Man, oVe are not smart at all, are they? They went to talk to Konnan, something they put their titles on the line to do, and then had nothing to say to him and set themselves up for an asskicking. Not the brightest plan here.

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X Division

Despite Andrew Everett having Team Carolina in his corner, Dezmond Xavier was still able to defeat him. Perhaps Xavier will get a title shot against Lee pretty soon. That’d be fun.

It still annoys me that Everett just randomly went back to Lee though. Inconsistencies like that are a major pet peeve of mine.

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Pros of the Show:

• Rosemary vs. Taya was a fun match

Cons of the Show:

• That Top Team segment
• What’s the point of Rosemary taking a clean loss to Taya so close to their match?
• The flow of the show was once again poor with all the time outside the Impact Zone
• The main event BFG angle is very underwhelming

This wasn’t a good show.

The stories for their major matches are either underwhelming (Eli Drake vs. Johnny Impact) or inconsistent (Moose vs. American Top Team). There was plenty of filler with the Triple A stuff that didn’t do anything to add to that story and the Crash parts just made oVe look stupid. They played the full matches of both shows, but the production value in both spots were not as good as in the Impact Zone and they still felt like filler.

The main event was fun but the finish was a bit baffling.

Grade: D-

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