Impact Wrestling results, review, & video (June 22, 2017): Standard fare

Impact Wrestling returned last night (June 22) with their third taped episode from Mumbai, India. You can find the results at the live blog here.

Main event tag

The main event was a tag match to represent the top matches of the Slammiversary pay-per-view (PPV) that’s in two weeks. EC3 teamed with Bobby Lashley to face James Storm and Alberto El Patron.

For a main event tag match, it was pretty good. By the numbers, but enjoyable all the same. Both Storm and Patron played face in peril. The end started with a fun sequence of Lashley missing a spear and receiving a Last Call Superkick from Storm, another superkick from Patron which was followed by the cross armbreaker.

Carter had to break it up who then went and grabbed the leather strap in his corner. (His match with Storm at the PPV is a strap match.) When the referee tried to stop him, Ethan took out his frustrations by whipping the poor official. This obviously resulted in a DQ but really paints EC3 as not just cruel, but slightly unhinged.

After the match, the foes continued to brawl and the show ended with Alberto holding both titles (Impact and GFW) up in the crowd, teasing it as a possible ending to i.

It was standard fare but pretty entertaining none the less.

Sony SIX’s (other) Invitational

Tonight, they hosted another Sony SIX invitational, this time to highlight the X Division. It was a six man elimination match between Matt Sydal, Trevor Lee, Davey Richards, Eddie Edwards, Suicide, and Braxton Sutter. Matt Sydal was the victor.

The match was half an hour and it was decent. The Wolves continued their issues as they build to a mixed tag Full Metal Mayhem match at Slammiversary. Not surprisingly, they focused on each other much of the match.

We got a taste of the PPV when Eddie tried a suicide dive on Davey, who threw a chair at Edwards’ head. This resulted in the disqualification of Davey. But he didn’t care. He just wanted to continue inflicting punishment on his former partner. He attempted a running chair shot but Eddie nailed Davey in the gut with a chair and then suplexed him onto an open chair. It was a nice teaser for what they will do in a couple weeks.

For some reason, Eddie Edwards was disqualified, despite the fact he was defending himself from a man who was no longer part of the match and was wielding a weapon. While it’s likely just a small nitpick, it’s frustrating when rulings of a match are confusing.

Matt Sydal ended up winning by pinning Trevor Lee. Sydal is a good talent for the X Division and hopefully this victory in a made up invitational leads to an eventual title shot in the future.

Not Finished Yet

Home country hero and new X Division champion Sonjay Dutt had himself a celebration for finally winning the X Division title. He was decked out in traditional India garb and had dancers in the ring and his countryman Mahabali Shera by his side.

After Sonjay thanked the the crowd and promised to be the best X Division champion he can be, former title holder Low Ki made his way to the ring. He was cordial, offering his congratulations. He requested a rematch and Dutt was happy to oblige: 2 out of 3 falls at Slammiversary.

Mahabali Shera stood in the corner awkwardly the entire time.

It all seemed respectful - until Low Ki delivered a cheap shot to the champion. And then another to Mahabali Shera. The former champion delivered a Warrior’s Way to Shera. When he tried to do it to Sonjay, Matt Sydal ran out to make the save.

This was a good segment and running a rematch of the title match is a better move than an Ultimate X match. (I believe they mentioned that in passing on commentary awhile ago.) This match became more than about the title tonight as Low Ki upped the anti with a cheap attack. Hopefully, they’ll continue that next week so this feud can be hot going into Slammiversary.

I also appreciate that they are starting to insert Sydal into all of this as he will hopefully be in that title scene soon.

Time Crunch

The story coming into last night’s tag match between Sienna/Laurel Van Ness and Allie/Rosemary is whether or not Rosemary would actually show up. Was she really a friend of Allie?

When the Knockout’s champion’s music played at the beginning of the bout, she did not come out. So both Laurel and Sienna decided to attack Allie up on the stage where Allie was waiting for her partner. But then Rosemary revealed that she was laying in wait under the ring and attacked both heels on the ramp.

That was a fun open but the following match was disappointingly short. This has been a fun story. I’ll admit I could be blinded by my love of both Allie and Rosemary and I definitely enjoy both Sienna and Laurel as well. But it was way to short to really build any more heat in this story. You can’t much along in a 5 minute segment.

KM and Braxton Sutter got involved in the end, perhaps leading to a mixed tag down the road. Meanwhile, Sienna and Rosemary go title vs. title at Slammiversary where I hope they get plenty of time.

Shera Doesn’t Listen to Doctors

After Shera took that beating for Low Ki, he had a scheduled match against KM planned for the segment after. Mahabali came out for the match taped up with two doctors trying to stop him from competing since he just took a Warrior’s Way to the ribs.

That was probably the coolest has ever seen. I dug the image of him saying “I’m going to fight this man anyway” against doctors orders. It’s a basic ploy to build sympathy, but it worked here.

During the match, Shera took a beating from KM but ended up winning. Afterwards, Kongo Kong came out and he and KM double teamed Shera. While KM may grow on me, Kongo Kong is such a bland character, and that’s outside they’re still running a savage character in 2017. They’re going to need to do something different to make Kongo at all compelling.

The Reveal

Moose revealed that he would be tagging with former NFL player DeAngelo Williams to face Eli Drake and Chris Adonis at Slammiversary. After he made that announcement, Adonis and Drake beat him down.

This is all rather meh for me. Right now, it feels like they are going to sacrifice Drake (who is way too talented to be fed to the football player) and Adonis to get some headlines. And that’s rather lame.

Maybe Williams is serious about wrestling and wants to make this a career. If that’s the case, I’ll see it out. But if this is a one off, it does nothing for me.

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Pros of the Show:

• Continuing the Low Ki/Sonjay story into Slammiversary
• Pretty fun main event tag

Cons of the Show:

• The women’s match had way too little time
• Moose’s reveal is underwhelming and it’s a crappy position for Drake

Quite the mediocre fare tonight. This was a show made up of multiple random segments with little tying them together. The main event wasn’t teased earlier or throughout the night. It just felt like another part of a show and if it were in the middle or the beginning, it wouldn’t have felt out of place.

If you missed this show, you didn’t miss much. While there wasn’t really anything actively bad, there wasn’t anything exciting you need to catch. It didn’t do much to make the PPV that’s a week and a half away feel any bigger.

Grade: C

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