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Impact: On the Victory Road to Bound for Glory

Bob Kapur

Confused by the title for this story? Well, with two big shows coming up for Impact Wrestling – Victory Road this Saturday (airing exclusively on the Impact-Plus subscription service, and Bound For Glory on October 24 – this week’s episode tried to act as both a go-home show and a plate-setter. The double-focus led to an episode this week that was a bit muddy, storyline-wise. Fortunately, the matches were still pretty good.

Match 1: Taya Valkyrie and Rosemary vs. Havok and Neveah

Havok and Neveah using their strength advantage to isolate Taya for a lengthy period. She eventually was able to break free and tag in Rosemary, who cleaned house, demonstrating some power of her own by heaving Neveah with a big suplex. She and Taya double-Speared Havok, leaving Neveah alone. After a Ride of the Valkyrie, the pinfall was just a formality. This was a good, physical match. It’s weird to see Taya as a babyface, but she is solid no matter what role she’s playing.

After the match, Kiera Hogan and Tasha Steelz attacked Taya and Rosemary who were celebrating their win, and beat them down, but they were run off by Havok and Neveah – apparently, nobody likes Steelz and Hogan.

Winners: Taya Valkyrie and Rosemary

The Good Brothers were backstage telling stories about their time in Japan to a bunch of security guys. The Motor City Machine Guns came up to them and they exchanged snarky comments.

Gia Miller interviewed Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo, who was accompanied by Kimber Lee. Purrozza said that Kylie Rae will have no chance against her at Bound For Glory, and that she was going to break Rae’s arm. Gia dropped the news that Deonna will have to defend her title against Susie at Victory Road this Saturday, and an irate Purrazzo and Lee ended the interview.

 

Match 2: Tenille Dashwood (w/ Kaleb) vs. Jordynne Grace

Grace started off hot, trying to even the score after Dashwood beat her last week. But Dashwood used the ropes effectively, dropping Grace hard neck-first and whiplashing her on them, letting her take over. She grounded Grace, dropping her in the corner with a series of kicks, and then using the bottom rope for another snap-attack. Finally, Grace had had enough of Tenille’s cockiness, and corked her with a huge punch and followed that up with running knees and a big splash. Tenille evaded another corner attack, which trapped Jordynne in the Tree of Woe and vulnerable for a Low Cross Body. Grace muscled out of a rollup, got Dashwood’s back, and locked on the Grace Lock to get the submission win. This was a fairly paint-by-numbers match. Dashwood is pretty unlikeable, so that’s good. But sometimes she looks too tentative in the ring – she plays cocky well, but doesn’t look confident, if that makes sense.

Winner: Jordynne Grace

Backstage, Moose was on the hunt for EC3, and a stagehand pointed him to EC3’s dressing room. Moose attacked a hooded dude in there, but it was an employee and not EC3. EC3 did appear, though, in the form of yet another video. EC3 said that he would finally destroy the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, and that it would take place next week. He invited Moose to be there to watch the end game play out.

 

There was a video package for Rich Swann and his comeback from the leg injury suffered at the hands of Eric Young. He said that he’d be ready at Bound For Glory and would prove all his doubters wrong.

The Flashback Moment of the Week was from Victory Road 2012 when Gail Kim beat Madison Rayne to retain the Knockouts Championship. On a related note, it’s a shame that Mike Tenay isn’t doing commentary anywhere – the Professor is missed.

Rhino went outside the building to see Heath, who was happy, because his #Heath4IMPACT campaign video from last week was a tremendous success and appears to have potentially opened the doors for him to have a discussion with management about a contract. He noted that he paid for the ad with his credit cards, but still had Rhino’s wad of cash and was going to use that to pay the bill. Suddenly, Reno Scum charged them and beat them down. They took the cash and handed it over to Hernandez.

After a commercial, Rhino approached Scott D’Amore backstage and reported the mugging. He asked Scott for a match between he and Heath against Reno Scum. As a favour to Rhino, Scott said he would make the match for Victory Road, but since Heath wasn’t contracted, it would have to be an Unsanctioned match.

 

Match 3: The Rascalz (Dez and Wentz) vs. the Good Brlothers

During the GB entrance, they were touting their Talk’n Shop Beer, which prompted Josh Matthews and Madison Rayne to take some shots at WWE’s wine and AEW’s champagne products, which was kind of funny. The Rascalz used their speed to dazzle their larger opponents, but that only lasted long enough for Gallows to completely send Dez head over heels with a huge lariat. The Brothers punished Dez for several minutes, but he was scrappy enough to escape and finally tag in Wentz. Before he could get rolling, he ate a pair of Anderson’s knees in a double-team move gone wrong and was effectively taken out of the match. Dez tried, but the numbers game caught up to him, and the Good Brothers ended things with the Magic Killer. This was a fairly standard big-team vs. little-team match.

Winners: the Good Brothers

After the match, the Good Brothers put the Motor City Machine Guns on notice, saying that they would take the titles from the Guns at Bound For Glory.

Brian Myers faced off against Tommy Dreamer in a backstage hallway. He took a swing at Dreamer, who caught his arm and thwarted the shot. Dreamer said that he would wait to fight Myers at Victory Road.

Backstage, Tenille – still feeling the effect of the Grace Lock – and Kaleb were lamenting her loss, when they ran into Jordynne Grace. Kaleb challenged Grace to a rubber match with Tenille at Victory Road, which Jordan accepted. Tenille was unhappy about this turn of events.

Match 4: Johnny Swinger vs. Fallah Bahh

A bunch of the Wrestle House cast surrounded the ring for this match, the winner of which will become John E. Bravo’s best man at his wedding to Rosemary. This wasn’t a full comedy match, but it was close. Bahh was in control, so Swinger resorted to desperate tactics. He goaded Cody Deaner into jumping onto the apron, but then when the ref dealt with Deaner, Swinger waffled Bahh with Crazzy Steve’s monkey. The ref missed the monkey shot, but saw the cover, and counted the three. Afterwards, Bravo protested the decision and chastised the referee for missing the monkey shenanigans. He demanded the referee restart the match. He did, and within seconds, Bahh squashed Swinger to get the win. After the match, Bravo, Bahh, and all the groomspeople celebrated, while Swinger sadly scraped himself off the mat. This was very much in the spirit of Wrestle House matches: comedic but short enough that it didn’t get irritating. It would be an interesting twist if Rosemary fell for Bahh at the wedding and dumped Bravo for him.

Winner, and John E. Bravo’s best man: Fallah Bahh

Gia Miller interviewed the X-Division Champion Rohit Raju, calling him out for his dirty win last week. Raju celebrated his smarts that led him to a successful title defense. He said that at Victory Road, he would debut the Defeat Rohit open challenge to give others the opportunity to face him. TJP came up to him and said that he wanted to accept the challenge. But Raju said he, Trey, and Christopher Bey were ineligible for the challenge because they’d already had an opportunity to face him.

Backstage, Swinger asked Bravo why he didn’t want Swinger to be his best man. Bravo said that his calling out the referee wasn’t motivated by any dislike of Swinger, and that he didn’t actually care who his best man would be. Rather, he doesn’t like bad officiating and called the referee a moron who missed Swinger’s blatant cheating. The referee in question was walking past when Bravo said this, and the two exchanged words.

Eddie Edwards came to the ring and grabbed a mic. He accused Eric Young of attacking him in the hallway last week and called out the champ. But instead of EY, Sami Callihan came out to the entrance ramp. He denied attacking Eddie, but said that he would reveal who did. He hit a button on his phone and the lights went out. When they turned back on seconds later, Ken Shamrock was standing behind Eddie. Shamrock hit Eddie with a surprise roundhouse kick to the head, and walloped Eddie with a series of hard punches. He then locked Eddie in an Ankle Lock that had Eddie screaming in pain while Sami looked on in disdain. Apparently, Sami is now the brains behind the monster that is Shamrock.

Backstage, Eric Young said that he would understand if Eddie would need to back out of their match this Saturday after what just happened to him. But that he probably wouldn’t, so EY would have to finish what Shamrock started. And after he beat Edwards, his next victim would be Rich Swann at Bound For Glory. Again, Young blamed Scott D’Amore for the carnage he was going to unleash on both of them.

Kylie Rae came into Susie’s dressing room where Susie was staring in the mirror. Susie wanted to make sure that Kylie wouldn’t be upset if Susie won the Knockouts title on Saturday, since Kylie was the number one contender and had a title match at Bound For Glory. Kylie said that if Susie were to win, then it would be fun to wrestle Susie, since they’re best friends. She even gave Susie a gift – a pair of kickpads. After she left, Susie had a Su Yung glitch.

 

Match 5: The North vs. Ace Austin and Mad Man Fulton

Fulton was unstoppable early on, battering both members of the North in dominant fashion. The smaller Austin didn’t fare as well, so he would tag in Fulton whenever he could. But the North were able to use their experience to ground Austin after some double-teaming, and turn the tables. They battered him for a while, but Austin deked a big move attempt by Page and tagged Fulton, who resumed delivering the pain. Things picked up after that, with the match becoming a big brawl. At one point, Austin stood on Fulton’s shoulders and dropped onto Josh but couldn’t attempt a pin as the fight rolled on. The North dumped Fulton to the floor, finally taking him off his feet by chopping down his massive legs. With him dispatched, they turned their attention to Austin, ending things with a flurry of hits and their Double Double finisher. This was a strong match that worked, despite the lack of a classic good vs. bad dynamic. The North have to be in the conversation for the best tag team in the business today.

Winners: The North

After the match, the Good Brothers music hit and they entered the ring. They went face to face with the North, but got jumped by Austin and Fulton. The North joined Austin and Fulton in the beatdown, until the Motor City Machine Guns hit the ring to make the save. The show ended with the teams fighting in and around the ring.

IMPACT Wrestling - September 29, 2020
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Impact Zone - Nashville, TN

The episode could have benefitted from focusing only on this upcoming Saturday’s Victory Road show. By trying to also further the angles for Bound For Glory, things got a bit muddled. The matches were solid, though, as is the norm for Impact.

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