Here’s every Impact from 2018 graded

The last two weeks of December, Impact Wrestling will be running “Best of 2018” shows. This is a good time to look back at how Impact fared this year review wise. Below are all the grades Impact received here on Cageside this year.

The ones with the asterisk was reviewed by occasional Impact recapper Stella Cheeks. There was no Thanksgiving episode worth grading (it was only the turkey suit match) and there was an episode in September that no one was able to recap while I was out of town.

Jan. 4: B+ (Championship Action)

Jan. 11: C+ (Undercut)

Jan. 18: C (Massacre)

Jan. 25: B- (End of the Road)

Feb. 1: C+ (Spoiled)

Feb. 8: C- (Ho Hum)

Feb. 15: C+ (Slow Going)

Feb. 22: B- (Heading towards a Crossroads)

Mar. 1: B (A rivalry renewed)

Mar. 8: A- (Smooth Ride)

Mar. 15: B (Wait Till Next Week)

Mar. 22: B- (Fare Thee Well)

Mar. 29: C+ (The Belt Collector)

Apr. 5: B+ (Redeem This, Dummies)*

Apr. 12: B- (Well, That’s Random)

Apr. 19: C- (Go home filler)

Apr. 22: B+ (Redemption PPV)

Apr. 26: B (Redemption aftermath)

May 3: B- (Bury Me Softly, Sister)

May 10: C- (First One Down)

May 17: B (Rest In Fire)

May 24: B+ (Off the deep end)

May 31: B+ (Watching a good friend scream ‘Let me out’)

June 6: B- (Last House on the Left)

June 15: B (Dangerous)

June 22: B- (Picking the Wrong Fight)

June 29: B (Not Dead Yet)

July 5: A- (Splintered)

July 12: A- (Your time has come)*

July 19: C+ (Onto Slammiversary)

July 22: A (Slammiversay PPV)

July 26: B (Crazy Challenger)

Aug. 2: C+ (What a Jerk)

Aug. 9: C+ (Let’s Get Moving)

Aug. 16: C+ (On a Mission)

Aug. 23: D+ (Manslaughter)

Aug. 30: B- (Gone Heelin’)

Sept. 6: B (We interrupt this program...)

Sept. 13: B (Impromptu)

Sept. 27: C (Kidnapped)

Oct. 4: C (Underwhelming)

Oct. 11: B+ (Glory Bound)

Oct. 14: B- (Bound For Glory PPV)

Oct. 18: B- (The elephant in the room)

Oct. 25: B- (Late Night)

Nov. 1: B- (Moving On)

Nov. 8: B- (Final Hour, 10 pm)

Nov. 15: B- (Option C?)

Nov. 29: B- (After the Bell)

Dec. 6: B- (Tested friendships)

Dec. 13: C+ (Breakout)

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Here’s the break down:

A: 3
B: 28
C: 15
D: 1
F: 0

PPVs:

Redemption: B+
Slammiversary: A
Bound for Glory: B-

So what does this mean?

Before I go into any “analysis,” I should point out that this is just mainly one man’s opinion. If you’ve read a decent amount of reviews and watch the product, you probably know where I stand compared to you. Maybe you feel I’m too harsh. Maybe you feel I’m too lenient.

That’s why I like to look at the trends. I like to think I’m pretty consistent in my opinion so\if there’s a dip or spike in quality for one reason or another, it’ll show up in the trends.

A quick word on how I grade so there’s some context to the arbitrary. I rarely give out As and Fs. I always like to leave room to reward those great shows and pan those terrible ones. So a “B” grade of any kind is a pretty good show. A C gets handed to a show I wasn’t completely feeling but had some good to it. Or an average show that wasn’t actively bad.

Here are a couple areas of note from this year:

• Feb. 1 was the first episode of the Don Callis/Scott D’Amore creative era. It was Austin Aries’ surprise win (though we all knew about it since the company spoiled it themselves on their social media). That episode was a C+. The next two episodes were in the C range as well, which is likely because it takes time to get a creative vision rolling, especially for a company who likes to tell long form stories.
• Things picked up going into the Redemption PPV, even though they were still turning over the roster talent-wise and had to deal with canning Alberto El Patron. But it was after Redemption headed towards Slammiversary when I thought the product was at its best this year. This was the best of the Eddie Edwards story and featured the start of the Sami Callihan feud with Pentagon Jr.
• I was less impressed after Slammiversary with a string of Cs and the sole D (due to the OGz running over a child). While I appreciate Impact’s long term story telling, I felt too many feuds didn’t freshen up after the PPV heading into Bound for Glory.
• After Bound for Glory, the product was fine, with a ton of B-s, a grade I hand out to a show that isn’t bad but lacking any major excitement to bring the grade up. That was the rub on Impact after their last PPV. The shows were perfectly decent wrestling shows with plenty of good matches, but lacking real excitement.
• Their three PPVs this year all delivered. Redemption was good and Slammiversary was great. Bound for Glory wasn’t bad at all, but wasn’t as good as the other two.

So again, what does this mean? Not too much. I used the grades we gave here at Cageside to look back at their creative product the last year. And it was a consistently pretty good product. Like any wrestling promotion there were some lulls and some highs. But it was never bad and often good.

It did must better than last year, which didn’t get a single A, but got 7 Ds, and a 2 Fs.

That’s how I looked at the weekly Impact product this year. Let us know how you thought they fared throughout the year below.