GFW Impact returned last night (Aug. 31) form the Impact Zone in Orlando. You can a run down of results in the live blog here.
Missed Opportunity
New Global Champion Eli Drake and Chris Adonis kicked off Impact. Eli cut a promo like only he can. He even told this outrageous story about earlier in the day when he had sex with an older woman and made that ridiculousness entertaining.
Johnny Impact and Eddie Edwards eventually made their way down to the ring and made their intentions known for the title. This brought out Jim Cornette who booked a tag team main event of Drake/Adonis vs. Impact/Edwards. If Drake were to get the pin, he wouldn’t have to defend the title against either of them (right away at least). But if Eddie or Johnny did, Eli would have to defend it against that person.
The opening segment illustrated that the title picture of Impact is certainly different from what it was a month ago… and fun! In the Alberto El Patron champion era, he didn’t really have a bunch of other gunning for his title. It was just him and his issues with Konnan/LAX. Now we have a scene with guys like Johnny, Eddie, and Drake.
It was nice of Cornette to set up a tag team main event that actually had some stakes too. Instead of just throwing them together for reasons unknown, there was some legit weight to it.
Unfortunately, that main event tag didn’t live up to the opening segment.
While the last 5 minutes were fun, the match was 30 minutes long. When Johnny got in the ring, things heated up because that man is an awesome pro wrestler, but this match could have been 15 minutes and not lost anything.
But the thing that disappointed me the most wasn’t the length but the fact they didn’t play with the stipulation at all. The fact that it was about the man who got the pin even more than the team that won, the motives in the match should have changed. Johnny and Eddie would have thought about it differently compared to if it were a standard match. Maybe Eddie wouldn’t want to tag Johnny in as much because then he wouldn’t be the legal man trying to score pinfalls. Maybe one of them would try to break up the other’s pin. Or maybe they’d just pause to think about it for a second. Or at least have the announcers tell that story.
So while this tag match had stakes, it still ended up being a regular main event tag. And a long one at that.
In the end, Drake picked up the win, so Johnny and Eddie will have to wait. Jim Cornette announced at the end of the show that next week, Eli will have to defend his title against Matt Sydal. That should be fun.
Will he or Won’t he?
For the last few weeks, GFW has been telling a story about tensions between Bobby Lashley’s MMA team, America Top Team, and GFW management. The crux of their issue is the fact they both want Lashley to themselves. However, things got more heated as members of Top Team have assaulted officials the last two weeks.
They did a brief backstage interview tonight with Lashley and America’s Top Team where the owner of the team, Dan Lambert, tried to convince Lashley to leave wrestling and focus on MMA. Bobby wasn’t ready for that though.
Then after the main event, Lashley and Top Team came out to ringside and Dan Lambert took a microphone and ran down the four men in the ring for not being as good as Lashley. This brought Jim Cornette out again, telling Lashley if he didn’t keep his boys at bay, he was going to be suspended. And that means that he wouldn’t be able to go to Triplemania next week.
Of course, Triplemania was last week since this was filmed a few weeks ago. So there’s that.
I don’t know what ot fully make of all of this. The basis of the story is reasonable, two people fighting over a premiere athlete in Bobby Lashley. And he certainly has been built as a premiere athlete the last couple of years.
The fact that GFW continues to even let these people into their arena is dumb since they are straight up assaulting people. But I find myself hating Top Team, which I believe is the point. I don’t know if Dan Lambert has some pro wrestling acting chops or he’s just naturally a douche, but I find myself loathing him… and that’s in favor Jeff Jarrett!
We’ll see where this goes. There’s definitely possibility for this all to crash and burn, but I’m still going to give it time.
The Cowboy Returns
A returning James Storm, who had been out due to a concussion, and LAX’s Low-Ki had a match tonight and it was all pretty damn enjoyable.
While the match didn’t have a reason behind it, they did set it up a bit prior with a video of Konnan in the clubhouse telling Low-Ki to make an example of James Storm to send a message to management. It was a nice little touch going into the match.
The match was good. Low-Ki can definitely go and the crowd was all in on the Cowboy. The combination of the fire of James Storm, Low-Ki pulling out some fun moves (a slingshot into a springboard Warrior’s Way was a highlight), and the numbers of LAX getting involved, it all came together well.
Storm ended up losing when the numbers game inevitably got the better of him. But they did a good job of continuing to build LAX as a power stable and the fire Storm showed helped me get behind him.
However, knowing Low-Ki has already left GFW hurts a bit. It makes him a lame duck wrestler, which takes something away. And when he does leave, it’ll leave LAX without their single’s competitor, which they really need to to fill out their crew. A female athlete in Diamante (who they should totally use more often) and a tag team is good, but they really need someone to be their single’s star so they can have their hands in all the divisions, including the top one.
All the Rest:
X Division action
Petey Williams defeated Caleb Konley in his return match. Trevor Lee tried to get involved, and because of him Petey took a good deal of offense from an aggressive Konley. But in the end, it was the Canadian Destroyer that earned Williams the win. Trevor tried to attack the victor immediately after the match, but Sonjay Dutt chased him off.
Not a bad crew at the top of the X Division at all. Though hopefully these 4 aren’t the entire division now.
oVe rolls on
Dave and Jake Crist continue to work up the card, defeating a more known Impact tag team in Fallah Bahh and Mario Bokara. Not that Bahh and Bokara have notched a ton of wins in Impact (or any wins?) but they’re not nameless enhancement talent. Clearly, we’re headed to a title match against LAX, who was watching this match from their clubhouse, but oVe will likely have to go through a couple other teams, such as Garza Jr. and Laredo Kid first.
Kongo Kong is still a thing
Kongo Kong faced standby wrestler Richard Justice and defeated him with ease. He continue the attack after the match and Mahabali Shera came out to make the save.
It is what it is. Kongo Kong does nothing for me. I don’t find him charismatic or impressive or anything. I find him completely uninteresting. If you dig him, maybe this segment was enjoyable for you.
I dig the Richard Justice standby wrestler gimmick though. That has big comedy potential.
Pros of the Show:
- Opening segment was fun and illustrated what could be a good main event scene
- Storm/Low-Ki was a fun match
Cons of the Show:
- Main event tag dragged and didn’t take advantage of the stipulation
- Triplemania was last week
- Kongo Kong
While they showed that the main event scene could be fun, the main event didn’t prove it. There was a bunch of set up, and some things that could be intriguing, but there’s no really hot stories in Impact currently.
Grade: C+
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