Impact Wrestling
Friday, May 3rd
Toronto, Ontario at the Rebel Complex
RESULTS:
*Ace Austin over Petey Williams in 7:19
*Rosemary over Kiera Hogan by DQ in 4:26
*Fenix over Eddie Edwards in 8:02
*Michael Elgin over Johnny Impact and Pentagon Jr. in a #1 contender’s match in 10:55
-This episode was re-done after Brian Cage’s injury at Rebellion as he was scheduled to be all over the show as the new Impact champion.
-The main event featured Michael Elgin defeated Johnny Impact and Pentagon Jr. in a #1 contender’s match with a buckle bomb and Elgin bomb onto Impact. The match came off well and designed to get Elgin’s power moves across and obviously, be the focal point of the match. Other highlights included Elgin attempting a superplex to Pentagon when Impact hit a springboard and sent both off the top turnbuckle. Pentagon was hit with a chair on the floor, eliminating him from the closing sequence while Impact missed Starship Pain leading to Elgin going into the finish.
-There was no focus on Pentagon at the end, there were concerns he injured himself in the match and was helped to the back, but they didn’t draw attention to it or make it clear what happened to him.
-Rob Van Dam came out and cut a rough-sounding promo about younger talent stealing his moves and came off as complaining rather than the youthful vibe Van Dam had prior. Ethan Page interrupted and tried to sit down and chat with him. Page was great in the segment, so much that the audience chanted his name and Page had to insult them to stop. Van Dam hit a Van Daminator for a big pop and the two are having a match next week. Backstage, Josh Alexander was upset he’s having a match with Van Dam because they are scheduled to challenge for the tag titles next week, as well. Moose walked in and offered to team with Alexander next week.
-They promoted the new Impact Plus streaming app a lot on the show. They advertised Sunday night’s “Code Red” special with House of Glory better than any of their past Twitch specials. Long-term it’s a better move having the live specials on the in-house app rather than a third party and the rebranding allows Impact to re-launch the service, which wasn’t rolled out effectively as the Global Wrestling Network.
-Fenix defeated Eddie Edwards in a match that sounded good on paper. It was average and put the attention on Killer Kross watching from the stage until the finish when he distracted Edwards by taking his kendo stick and Fenix capitalized on the distraction. Edwards was left with nothing when Eli Drake abruptly left the company after breaking up the team on television. Edwards appears to be working with Kross and that should be a good pairing.
-The best promo on the show came from Tully Blanchard that was shot after Tessa Blanchard’s win over Gail Kim. Blanchard spoke to Jimmy Jacobs, who was the off-camera interviewer, about how proud he was of Tessa and bringing him back to his battles with Wahoo McDaniel and Dusty Rhodes. A random woman walked into the background and realized they were shooting something and quickly ran off, which was amusing. I guess they weren’t telling Tully to redo a promo in 2019.
-The show kicked off with the main event participants out angling for their title matches with Brian Cage. Impact had some funny lines at the expense of Elgin, including a line about Elgin’s $49 Highspots gear. Elgin countered that he still had his ball while Impact’s were in Taya’s purse. Konnan came out and said with the LAX vs. Lucha Brothers feud over with, he is representing all of them and argued on Pentagon’s behalf to set up the three-way main event.
-Ace Austin defeated Petey Williams with The Fold, which is a running blockbuster. Williams applied the sharpshooter for the easy reaction in Toronto.
-Overall, this was a tough show to grade as they were dealt a difficult hand with the legitimate injury to Brian Cage and threw plans out the window. They built up several matches for next week and established the next title contender, so it wasn’t a throwaway show. There wasn’t anything that came close to the quality of matches during the second half of the pay-per-view. I felt Ethan Page was very good in the segment with Rob Van Dam and is one of the better speakers the company has.
Next week on the show:
*Sami Callihan, oVe & Madman Fulton vs. Rich Swann, Tommy Dreamer, Willie Mack & Fallah Bahh in a Street Fight
*Taya Valkyrie vs. Madison Rayne in a non-title match
*LAX vs. Josh Alexander & Moose for the tag titles
*Rob Van Dam vs. Ethan Page
