GFW Impact results, review, & video (July 6, 2017): Growing membership

GFW impact Wrestling returned last night (July 6) from Orlando, Florida with the first episode after the Slammiversary pay-per-view (PPV). You can find the results of Impact here.

LAX’s newest member?

Impact started off with Alberto El Patron’s championship celebration. He had his father and his brother (who he said we’d see in Impact soon) by his side. (And no, there was no third mystery female Luchador with him.) He promised to be a fighting champion taking on any challengers no matter whom.

This drew out the last champion who ran down Alberto and his family before requesting his rematch for that night. Alberto accepted.

Meanwhile, through the night, we got a couple peeks into the LAX’s clubhouse with Konnan promising a new LAX member that will change everything. Keep that on the back burner.

The rematch between Lashley and Patron was good. It advanced the story that they told at the PPV. This time, Lashley was angry and more determined. Plus, he didn’t have any distractions on the outside such as King Mo’s issues with Dos Caras. It was just him and Patron and Bobby was more focused than ever. Because of that, Lashley was more dominant and it appeared a title switch was inevitable.

The beginning of the match was all Lashley, but there was no doubt that Alberto would fight back It wasn’t enough. Bobby caught Patron with a spear in mid-air and that completely knocked the wind out of the champ. Instead of going for the cover, Lashley hit a dominator and then set up for another spear. It looked as if Patron’s title reign was going to be 4 days long.

That’s when LAX showed up and attacked Lashley, resulting in a disqualification. Patron would keep his title. Konnan grabbed a microphone and announced that Alberto was the newest member of LAX.

However, we don’t know if that’s actually true. Patron was out on his feet due to the beating Lashley gave him so his facial expressions didn’t give away anything. LAX lifted up Patron and celebrated before making their way to the back, but Berto was pretty much dead weight for them. He wasn’t there celebrating with them.

Now the question is whether or not Alberto is actually a wiling member of LAX or this is some game Konnan and his crew are playing with the champ. And then there’s Lashley, who got screwed out of the title he was surely going to win back. If he was angry after losing his title on Sunday, we can only imagine how he’ll be after this.

The match was a strong follow up to Sunday’s bout. And now we have the start of a bit of a mystery with regards to Patron and LAX.

World X Cup

GFW started a 8-man single elimination tournament featuring X Division style athletes from different promotions. The winner will earn the Super X Cup trophy. They have participants from Impact including Dezmond Xavier, Davey Richards, Idras Abraham (who was also representing where he trained), and Andrew Everett. Pro Wrestling NOAH has Taiji Ishimori representing them. There is also Sammy Guevara out of Wrestle Circus, Drag from Triple A, and ACH will be representing AAW.

I dig this concept. It’s a good showcase of talent outside Impact. Some fans may have seen some of these wrestlers elsewhere, such as Drago who got a huge pop, and ACH. Others will be new to many fans. The fight for pride and their promotion is reason enough for this tournament and we should get some really good match ups. Hell, Andrew Everett and ACH is a first round bout and that’s going to be fire.

My only gripe is a small one but the video packages were lacking. They didn’t really let us know who these guys were, what they’re about, and why they’re fighting. It was a bit of a missed opportunity to let the fans in a bit more.

We saw the first match as well:

Dezmond Xavier def. Idras Abraham

Of three X Division matches, this was the one that got two segments. That’s a good sign that this tournament will get the care it deserves. This match was a great X Division style bout. Dezmond Xavier is a treat to watch and we’ll get to see him in this tournament at least one more time.

Random tag match for ‘Murica

There was a random tag in the middle of the show between the Veterans of War, Eddie Edwards, and Grado, who were representing America. They defeated Eli Drake, Chris Adonis, Fallah Bahh, and Mario Bokara. It was what you’d expect from a random eight man tag. Of course the team representing America is going to win the week of the 4th of July.

It is sad to see Drake in this position as a guy who’s taken to losing in tag action. But that happens in every promotion. There’s always at least one person who you want the world for and the booking committee doesn’t see it the same way. (Another example for me is Luke Harper on SmackDown.) Eli Drake is stellar on the mic and has had plenty of good matches in Impact. He’s a guy who should be in a title picture and not on the losing end of tag matches to football players or random patriotic teams with Scots on them.

Speaking of the Scot on that team, after the match, lawyer Joseph Park came down and showed Grado a paper that visibly upset him. They left together. Time will tell what that means.

X Division action

And new (not really) X Division champion

Sonjay Dutt defeated Caleb Konley in non-title X Division action. However, he didn’t get to celebrate for long as Trevor Lee ambushed him from behind, grabbed a microphone, declared himself X Division champion, and left with the title.

it’s good to see Lee as the next title program for Dutt. He definitely deserves a spot in the newer, beefier X Division. It could be fun.

Sydal vs. Sutter

Matt Sydal picked up another win last night, this time against Braxton Sutter. It looks like eventually Sydal will find himself in the X Divsion title picture. Sydal is a fun talent and he’s a good fit for the division.

Rebel/Sienna

Sienna had a non-title match against Rebel. Rebel ended up getting more offense in than expected. She looked better than she has in the past, though she still doesn’t look too believable in the ring.

She ended up getting distracted by KM, who was outside the ring but didn’t do anything to distract her. She tried for a springboard crossbody on him, but he just caught her and put her back in the ring where Sienna submitted her.

And that’s that.

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Pros of the Show:

• Good rematch main event with the start of an intriguing angle
• World X Cup is an enjoyable concept
• Trevor Lee back in the X Division title picture

Cons of the Show:

• Too much filler/meaningless matches

Not a bad show but there were too many matches that had little meaning/impact. The happenings that did have storyline implications were fun.

Grade: B-

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