wrestling / TV Reports
Himanshu’s Impact Wrestling Review 12.08.22
Image Credit: Impact Wrestling
Loading...Hey there, IMPACT fans! It’s Thursday and that means it’s time for another episode of IMPACT Wrestling. I’m Himanshu (you can follow me on @Himanshu_Doi) and you know how this works. Tonight, we have Heath and Rhino vs. “The Motor City Machine Guns” Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin for the Impact Tag Titles, Taya Valkyrie vs. Savannah Evans and Impact World Champion Josh Alexander appearing. So let’s jump right in!
As a reminder, the GoFundMe for Larry’s daughters is still active and if you can make a donation, that would be awesome. Thank you so much to everyone who’s done so thus far.
IMPACT Wrestling
A vignette by Deaner opens the show where the show him stabbing Eric Young. He says Violence By Design was a movement. Some movements die, but the pure or righteous ones never die. This movement has simply been reborn. The men who walk the valley now are the chosen few. He says Sami Callihan went into the valley and cut the head of the snake, but in its place came out three heads with sharp fangs. He challenged Sami Callihan to walk the valley again.
MATCH 1: Motorcity Machine Guns vs Heath and Rhino for the IMPACT World Tag Team Championships
Sabin and Rhino start off with the lock up and Rhino gets the advantage. Rhino tags to Heath and Sabin with the armwringer on Heath and tags to Shelley. Shelley keeps the pressure on Heath’s arm. Shelley whips Heath into the corner and runs into him. Heath puts his leg out but Shelley catches it and throws it outside the ropes and dropkicks it. Tag to Sabin and he maintains the pressure on the leg. Shelley gets the tag and he locks in a Figure 4 Leg Lock, but Heath gets to the ropes. Shelley runs off the ropes but gets caught with a powerslam. Both Rhino and Sabin are tagged in. Rhino hits a TKO on Sabin and goes for the pin but Shelley breaks it up. Tag to Heath and they go for a double team but Sabin dropkicks Heath on the knee and throws Rhino out. The Major Players come out and attack both the wrestlers in the ring.
Result: No contest
Rating: **1/4
Himanshu’s Hot Take: An okay match before the Major Players interfered. Heath and Rhino are not a team who can have incredible matches or keep up with the likes of the Motorcity Machine Guns or other such teams who wrestle that style, so IMPACT are banking on their popularity to make this tag title run work. They may even be a transitional champ but we’ll have to see.
We see a promo recapping the Josh Alexander and Bully Ray feud.
Josh is backstage with Scott and says the reason this happened is because everyone has been warning him about Bully and he let his guard down. Scott asks if this is how he wants to do this. Josh says this needs to be done. Scott says he respects that. Johnny Swinger and Zicky Dice show up and say they want a title shot. Scott tells them to get 50 wins. Swinger says, “So there is a chance”.
Jordynne Grace and Mickie James are having a photoshoot and Grace asks if Mickie is ready. Mickie says not to take her lightly. Jordynne says she will not hesitate to retire Mickie James.
Match 2: Taya Valkyrie vs Savannah Evans
Savannah Evans shoved Taya down. Lock up and Savannah pushes Taya against the corner. Lock up again and Evans drops Taya face first onto the mat. Taya runs the ropes and hits a spear on Evans. Taya is about to hit a suicide dive but Evans moves out of the way.
Back from commercial and Evans has Taya against the corner. Evans has Taya in a chinlock but Taya fights out if it and hits a hurrancanrana. Evans gets Taya down with a shoulder block. Taya hits a Blue Thunder Bomb for two. Taya locks in a modified Ankle Lock. She turns it into a STF. Evans gets out of it. Evans hits the Full Nelson Slam for the three.
Result: Savannah Evans def. Taya by pin.
Rating: **
Himanshu’s Hot Take: Another okay match. They wanted to showcase Savannah’s strength and power advantage here but it was a slow and not very fluid match between both the women.
A promo shows Ace Austin and Chris Bey wrestling in the NJPW Super Jr. Tag League.
We’re backstage and Moose is seen beating down Gujjar with referees trying to stop him. Moose tells Gujjar to send this message to Joe Hendry.
A promo by Delirious where he speaks gibberish with subtitles. He challenges Eddie Edwards to a match.
Match 3: Kon (w/ The Design) vs Sami Callihan
Kon goes for the clothesline but Sami ducks and hits a chop. Sami hits more chops but Kon is unmoved so he pokes Kon in the eyes. Kon takes Sami down with a clothesline. Kon clothesline Sami in the corner. Kon hits a spinebuster and clobbers Sami. Sami hits a running forearm for a one count. Kon gets out of the ring and Sami follows him but eats a chokeslam onto the apron. Kon gets back in the ring and Sami gets a chair from underneath the ring. Kon pulls him and Alan gets the chair from him. Sami goes to the top rope but Kon hits a Fireman’s Carry Slam for three.
Result: Kon def. Sami Callihan by pin.
Rating: *3/4
Himanshu’s Hot Take: I’ve not seen much of Kon before IMPACT but he seems slow and limited in the ring. I don’t know if that’s just him or if it was on purpose to emphasize his size and strength over speed, but it wasn’t particularly good.
Josh Alexander is backstage and Tommy Dreamer wants to talk to him but Josh says not now.
Interview in the locker room with Trey Miguel and is asked why would he deface the X-Division Championship with spray paint. Trey shakes his spray paint but is stopped by Crazzy Steve who says that when he tag something he wants, he paints it with blood. Trey says he will give him a better paint job.
Josh Alexander comes out to the ring and he says he wanted to think about how to respond to what happened at Overdrive. He says right now they are going to have an IMPACT Wrestling World Championship Open Challenge. There is only one person he wants to walk down to take the challenge. He says Bully Ray takes it and wins, he becomes champion. He loses, he still gets to call his shot. He says Bully Ray has nothing to lose. We see Bully on the big screen and he says he’s really busy looking at pictures of him and his wife. He shows picture of Josh and his wife after Overdrive where Bully attacked Josh and his wife. Bully says he can’t be there tonight but he will be there at Hard To Kill.
Mike Bailey comes out to the ring. Bailey says Bully Ray is not out here tonight, but he is. So if this is still an open challenge, let’s do this. Josh calls for a ref out.
Match 4: Josh Alexander vs Mike Bailey for the IMPACT World Championship
Mike Bailey gets a headlock and is pushed against the ropes and hits a shoulder block but Josh is unmoved. Mike Bailey tries again but Josh is unmoved so Bailey takes him down with the kick. Josh hits the chop on Bailey but Bailey hits the combination kicks on Josh. Josh goes to the outside but Bailey hits a somersault to Josh on the outside.
Back from commercial and Josh hits Bailey with a big boot. Josh stretches Bailey’s arms. He takes Bailey in the corner and hits the chops. Backbreaker for a two count. Josh whips Bailey into the ropes but Bailey hits a dropkick. Bailey goes for another kick but Josh hits three German Suplexes for a two count. Josh goes for the C4 Spike but Bailey fights out of it. Josh has Bailey on his shoulders but Bailey goes after his shoulder. Josh runs into the corners with Bailey on his shoulders. Bailey hits a reverse Rana and gets a two count.
Back from commercial and Josh is in control. Bailey with the springboard but Josh hits the forearm. Josh goes for the C4 Spike but Bailey reverse into a pin for two. Bailey goes for the Ultima Weapon but Josh catches him and hits a backbreaker. Josh goes for another C4 Spike but he falls backward and out of the ring with Bailey. Bailey gets in the ring and hits a big boot on Josh before he can enter the ring before hitting a springboard moonsault to Josh on the outside. Josh hits slaps on Bailey’s chest but Bailey takes him down with a kick. Bailey goes for the kick on Josh in the corner but Josh catches his foot and goes for the Ankle Lock but Bailey fights out of it. They exchange forearms but Bailey hits a spin kick and Josh goes to the outside. Bailey goes for another kick but Josh catches him and hits a slam onto the apron.
Back from commercial and Josh goes to the top rope but Bailey catches him and goes for a hurrancanrana but Josh fights out of it and is about to hit a Styles Clash but Bailey fights out of it. Josh gets Bailey on his shoulders and hits a UFO Slam for two and immediately goes for the Ankle Lock. Bailey goes to the corner and hits the Ultima Weapon on Josh. Bailey hits running penalty kicks on Josh and hits a somersault double knee on Josh. Bailey goes for combination kicks but Josh catches him and hits 6 straight German Suplexes as we go to commercial.
Back from commercial and Bailey is on the top rope and he goes after Josh’s shoulder with the Kimura Lock but Josh hits an Olympic Slam. Josh hits a moonsault but Bailey moves out of the way. Bailey goes to the top rope but Josh hits an Olympic Slam from the top. Bailey hits a combination of kicks on Josh for two. We cross 50 minutes and Josh immediately goes for the Ankle Lock. Bailey tries to get out of it but Josh converts into a Tombstone Piledriver for two. Josh gets the Ankle Lock again. Bailey seems like he is about to tap but gets to the ropes. Josh takes Bailey to the top rope but Bailey fights out of it. 5 minutes remaining and Bailey hits a hurrancanrana from the top rope followed by a Ultima Weapon. Bailey goes the pin but Josh gets his foot on the ropes. Bailey goes for kicks on Josh. He takes Josh to the top rope and tries to hit the Flamingo Driver but Josh gets out of it and hits the Styles Clash followed by an Ankle Lock. Bailey tries to get out of it with kicks onto Josh’s head but Josh catches him and hits a piledriver. Josh hits two straight C4 Spikes with 20 seconds to go and get the three.
Result: Josh Alexander def. Mike Bailey by pin.
Rating: ****3/4
Himanshu’s Hot Take: A very good match as you would expect between these two. They worked really hard here and I’m glad they were given this amount of time. IMPACT needs some sort of buzz to get people talking about them and I’d like to see more such matches from them, especially when you have Josh Alexander in his prime right now. Mike Bailey is a future main-eventer for IMPACT unless he leaves to join some other company, so it is cool to see these two go at it as it would hopefully be the first of many matches between them. The one thing that I feel hurt the match the most was the crowd as IMPACT’s TV crowds can come across as dull and uninterested. They draw hotter crowds for their PPVs which is hopefully the next time we see these two wrestle each other again.
Josh Alexander celebrates to close the show.
