In two days, Josh Alexander has the biggest match of his career when he challenges Christian Cage for the Impact World Championship at Bound For Glory. On Thursday night’s episode of Impact, the war of words between the two opponents intensified and bubbled over to fisticuffs in the closing moments of the show. It was a great ending to a solid go-home show for the company’s biggest show of the year.

 

Match 1: The Bullet Club (Chris Bey and Hikuleo) vs. FinJuice (David Finlay and Juice Robinson)

The winners of this one will go on to challenge the Good Brothers for the Tag Team Championship on Saturday at BFG.

The two teams were fairly evenly-matched, with neither one really taking an advantage early on. Eventually, the Bullet Club isolated Finlay, but when he escaped, Robinson took over, hurting Bey with a big Cannonball dive in the corner. FinJuice hit Bey with a nice double-team move, but Hikuleo made the save. Shortly thereafter, Finlay was going for a move on Bey, but the ref got inadvertently kicked and knocked silly. With him out, Hikuleo hit Finlay with a big Chokeslam, but by the time the second ref ran to the ring, Finlay was able to kick out. Bey went for the Art of Finesse, but Finlay countered with a huge Neckbreaker.

Then the match broke down and all four men were fighting in the ring. One member of each team rolled up an opponent for the pin. The second ref counted one, while the original ref – now fully revived – counted the other one, and we had simultaneous three-counts. The referees couldn’t agree on the decision, and the show went to a break.

The show resumed backstage where the refs and the teams tried to explain to Impact Vice-President Scott D’Amore what had happened. D’Amore said that he would make a decision as to who would challenge the Good Brothers and let everyone know later on.

This was a good match. Obviously they are going to make the BFG match a three-way, but how they got there was clever – and the double pinfall was perfectly-executed by the refs.

Winners: Inconclusive

They showed a stellar video package for Josh Alexander, and his journey from childhood to being the number one contender to the Impact World Championship. This one was *chef’s kiss* good.

Match 2: Fallah Bahh and Jordynne Grace vs. Crazzy Steve and Chelsea Green vs. John Skyler and Tenille Dashwood (w/ Kaleb)

These six will be in a six-person match at BFG to crown the inaugural Digital Media Championship. This was about what you might expect. Some comedy spots with Bahh and Steve, some heelish tactics by Skyler and Dashwood, and some power by Grace, who strung together a series of moves on Skyler that looked good. At one point, Bahh hit an Avalanche on all four opponents in the corner. He looked to follow that up with a Banzai Drop on Dashwood, but Kaleb pulled her out of the way. Some further shenanigans ensued, and in the end Bahh was in the ring and prone to a Spotlight Kick (running dropkick) to the head by Dashwood and she pinned him.

Like I said, this is about what you’d expect.

Winners: Tenille Dashwood and John Skyler

 

Heath confronts Rhino

Rhino was in the ring with a mic, but before he could say anything, Heath’s music hit and he came to the ring. Rhino wouldn’t look Heath in the eyes as he came in, keeping his head down with almost an ashamed look on his face. Heath told him that they can’t keep up this non-communication and that as friends, they need to talk it out. Heath told him that he and his family miss Rhino and they love him, which finally got a smile from Rhino.

Which triggered the entrance of Violent By Design who came to the ring. Eric Young took the mic from Rhino, who went back to his sheepish crestfallen look. Young told Rhino that he opened Rhino’s eyes, he made him who he is now, and that he can’t leave VBD. Heath and Young verbally argued for Rhino’s soul. Eventually things got physical and Doering and Deaner started beating up Heath. After some time, Rhino pulled them off of Heath. Young continued to sermonize to get into Rhino’s head, and it looked like Rhino was going to attack Heath. But instead he left the ring. Heath got up and VBD resumed their attack. As Heath screamed for Rhino to help him, Deaner and Doering held him prone and Young smashed the VBD flagpole across his back. They draped the flag over Heath to end the segment. Everyone here was good – major props to Rhino for his acting here – he wasn’t quite at the Paul Heyman Academy Award level, but certainly a Screen Actors Guild Award or a Golden Globe.

They showed Mickie James in the back prepping for her upcoming match against Savannah Evans, who Deonna Purrazzo selected as Mickie’s opponent as part of their Pick Your Poison stipulation.

A quick video package aired for the debut of Minoru Suzuki, who will be coming to Impact soon.

 

Match 3: Savannah Evans (w/ Tasha Steelz) vs. Mickie James

It was noted that this was Mickie’s first match on Impact in six years. Despite that, she did pretty well for herself early on, hitting and moving to avoid Savannah’s strength. But a distraction by Steelz on the outside sent Mickie right into Savannah’s path and then the powerhouse took over. Evans battered Mickie with big shots and then clamped on a big Bear Hug, rag-dolling Mickie violently. A desperate Mickie went hardcore country to escape it, biting Evans on the cheek. Mickie followed that up with a few hard shots and hit a top rope Meteora on Evans for a near fall. This brought out Deonna Purrazzo who came out to the entrance ramp, and this distraction put Mickie in trouble again, as Evans hit her with a big Full Nelson Slam. But Mickie kicked out! Evans missed a shoulder charge in the corner, and then Mickie hit a Mick Kick and a Jumping DDT for the win.

After the match, Purrazzo walked to the ring and got on the apron. She gave Mickie a love tap, which presumably broke the no-contact order that Impact management had put in place. But before Mickie could retaliate, Matthew Rehwoldt came up from behind and clotheslined her, knocking her out. Purrazzo and Rehwoldt posed over a downed Mickie.

The match was solid and was a good outing for James. Not sure that Evans should have been the sacrificial lamb for Mickie since she’s still pretty new and they could easily book her as an unstoppable monster in the division. But it did work to make Mickie look strong before her title match on Saturday.

Winner: Mickie James

Gia Miller interviewed Purrazzo and Rehwoldt in the back, and Gia reminded Purrazzo about the no-contact clause, suggesting she broke it. Scott D’Amore came up to Deonna, but she was defiant that she didn’t do anything wrong. D’Amore said that he could strip her of the title since she actually did put her hands on Mickie. But he doesn’t want her to lose the title that way. He wants her to lose it in the ring to Mickie. So to ensure that happened, he was banning Rehwoldt from ringside at BFG, warning them that if Rehwoldt did show up there, both of them would be suspended for life.

A video aired for Brian Myers’ training course on how to be the most professional wrestler. The video was him berating the Learning Tree for their loss last week. But instead of criticizing VSK for losing to Swann, he cut Lemons and Sam Beale. Zicky Dice and VSK left with Myers, while Beale was forlorn.

Scott D’Amore was in his office for the contract signing for the Knockouts Tag Team Championship match at BFG. The Iinspiration sent their barrister, R.D. Evans (who D’amore still can’t stand) to sign on their behalf. Decay teleported into the room. Though Rosemary was disappointed that the contract wasn’t being signed in blood, she and Havok both signed the contracts. She told Evans to warn his clients that they will get their faces bitten off at BFG.

 

Match 4: Alex Zayne vs. Trey Miguel

The first couple of minutes saw a chain wrestling exchange which was pretty good. Apropos of nothing, though, can we talk about how bad Trey’s tattoo looks on TV – it’s like a dark unreadable blotch that takes up his entire chest. Or maybe I need a bigger TV to see it more clearly? At least it doesn’t surround his nipple – a chest tattoo that goes around a nipple always looks bad (see: Ricochet).

After some more even-steven move exchanges, Trey kind of broke the stalemate with an Asai Moonsault to the floor, but even he had to recover from that as the show went to commercial. Back from break, and they were back to exchanging moves and counters. In a nifty sequence, Miguel hit a pop-up kick that sent Zayne into a backroll. Miguel hopped up to the ropes to follow up, but Zayne ran into the corner and hit a Somersault Frankensteiner that looked awesome.

 

They exchanged Knee Lifts and did some more back-and-forth with increasing speed and complexity, and this got really good. Trey was finally able to string together a couple of big kicks followed by a Meteora off the top for the win.

After the match, Steve Maclin ran into the ring and attacked Trey from behind, putting him down with Mayem For All. El Phantasmo – Maclin and Trey’s opponent in their three-way match for the X-Division Championship on Saturday – ran in with his Bullet Club compadres. They beat down Maclin, with El Phantasmo hitting him with a Superkick to end Maclin’s night. Bey and Hikuleo held up Trey and El P teased a Superkick for him, but instead delivered a Family Jewels Punch to lay out Trey. The Bullet Club celebrated their carnage with a Too Sweet.

The match was really good, and the post-match stuff was fine to put over El Phantasmo as a cheating jerkface.

Winner: Trey Miguel

Commentators D-Lo Brown and Josh Mathews ran down the entire BFG card. During this, they confirmed that Scott D’Amore had ruled the Tag Team Championship match will indeed be a three-way match between the Good Brothers, FinJuice, and the Bullet Club.

 

Josh Alexander and Christian Cage face off before BFG

Josh Alexander was introduced and he came to the ring for a face-to-face with Impact World Champion Christian Cage. Alexander said surrendering the X-Division title as Option C was seen as a risk – but for him, who risked everything to come back from his neck injury six years ago, it was not a risk for him. And that the only risk he sees is in letting his children down if he didn’t do what he could to make their lives better, and that’s what winning the World Championship will allow him to do.

Christian Cage came to the ring. He said that he’s familiar with having huge matches on huge shows, and knows how to deal with it. But he wondered if Alexander would be able to deal with that kind of pressure, and that he didn’t think Josh would.

Alexander said that his journey is a lot like Christian’s – a guy who had something to prove, that he was more than a tag team wrestler, and that he could be a world champion – i.e. the same thing that led Christian to come to Impact originally in 2005.

Alexander said that as long as Christian cashes a cheque from a billionaire that owns another company, he will never represent Impact even if he holds the title. And that at Bound For Glory, Alexander was bringing the title home where it belonged. And that he would slam the Forbidden Door in Christian’s face, and that if anyone else came through it, Josh would be standing there as the best wrestler in the world, ready to face them.

Christian retorted that Alexander isn’t the best wrestler in the world, the best wrestler from Canada, and not even the best wrestler standing in the ring. But rather that he was.

Alexander said that if Christian thought getting him angry was a good call, they could find out, and then he charged Christian and took him down. The two of the brawled in the ring while a team of security guards and a bunch of guys form the locker room came out to separate them.

This was a really strong ending to the show, with both guys playing their part perfectly. Alexander, in particular, was on fire. For someone who isn’t known for his promo skills, he really showed he has the skills. The build for their title match has been tremendous, so all that’s left now is for them to tear it up in the ring. See you in a couple of days with the full report from Bound For Glory.

 

 

Impact Wrestling - Oct 21st, 2021
4.5

Skyway Studios - Nashville, TN

For a go-home show, this one ticked all the boxes. It featured some good matches (Zayne-Trey and Mickie-Savannah were both very good), and some awesome promos. If Alexander delivers as well in the ring on Saturday as he did tonight, this will be the week when he breaks through to the next level of superstardom – and rightfully so.