With its streaming special No Surrender taking place this Saturday night, Thursday night’s episode of Impact Wrestling was all about the final build to that show. With nine announced matches to hype up, there was a lot to get to on the “go-home” show. So instead of a long pre-amble, let’s get right to the action.

The show started off with Impact World Champion Moose making his way to the ring, where Impact Executive Vice-President Scott D’Amore was waiting, with the contract for Moose to sign and make official his title match with W. Morrissey this Saturday at No Surrender. Moose said that he doubted Morrissey would make it to Saturday after Moose attacked him last week. D’Amore said that he would give Morrissey up until Saturday to sign the contract. Moose said to have a replacement for Morrissey ready just in case.

As Moose headed up the ramp, Morrissey’s music hit. Mosse charged at him, but Morrissey dropped him with a Boot to the Head. Morrissey then picked up Moose and Chokeslammed him off the entrance ramp and through some production cases. A defiant Morrissey then signed the contract as he looked down at the fallen Moose.

 

This was brief but a good final confrontation before the title. That said, this really should have closed the show. The World Championship match should be positioned as the most important one on Saturday. Doing this hot angle up front and then not replaying it, or even mentioning it over the next two hours, it diminished the impact (pardon the pun).

Backstage, Gia Miller interviewed the Bullet Club who all predicted wins in their matches this Saturday.

 

Match 1: Masha Slamovich vs. Kiah Dream

This was a complete squash. Masha even gave Dream a free shot to start this one, but then hit a Russian Hammer and a Russian Death Device to end it in less than a minute. Flawless victory.

This was another perfect showcase for Masha. It will be interesting to see if they keep this going right through the roster and into title contention, like in Goldberg’s initial WCW run. At some point they will have to move her up into title contention, and it would be neat to see her juggernaut her way to gold.

Winner: Masha Slamovich

Match 2: Ace Austin (w/ Mad Man Fulton) vs. Blake Christian vs. Laredo Kid

The winner of this one will go on to compete in a 4-way match at No Surrender against Chris Bey, Jake Something, and “Speedball” Mike Bailey, with the winner of that one becoming the number one contender for the X-Division Championship, currently held by Trey Miguel.

This one started off quickly with Kid and Christian in particular showcasing their speed. Things slowed down when the action spilled to the floor, where Laredo hit a flying dive off the top and flattened Fulton who had tried to interfere on Ace’s behalf.

After a big Driver by Laredo Kid on Austin, it looked like Kid swung his leg around to get up and inadvertently kneed Austin in the back of the head pretty hard, but Austin didn’t seem to show any ill-effects.

Lot of nifty moves after that, including Christian doing a Fosbury Flop over the ropes to the floor where he landed in position to hit both opponents with a Reverse DDT on the floor.

A neat sequence saw Kid nearly get a pin on Christian after a PoisonRana and a Frog Splash, and later Christian nearly pinned Austin after a Standing Spanish Fly.

In the end, Christian hit Kid with a 450 Stomp off the top, but before he could cover Kid, Austin sneaked in and hit Christian with The Fold and pinned him.

This was a fun X-Division style match. A program between Kid and Christian could be good, as the stuff they did during this one was a lot of fun to watch.

Winner: Ace Austin

Backstage, Decay cut a promo against JONAH who faces Black Taurus on Saturday. They said JONAH will learn a lesson about what real monsters can do.

Kaleb was in the dressing room when the Iinspiration came in. They thanked him for taking their photos last week and buttered him up. They continued to drive a wedge between him and The Influence. He told them that he was a very loyal person, and they flirted with him and left.

 

Match 3: Lady Frost vs. Gisele Shaw

This was Shaw’s first Impact match – she debuted last week when she came to the ring after Frost won a match, and Frost felt like Shaw was trying to steal her spotlight.

The match was pretty evenly-contested, with Frost getting the early edge, but Shaw getting in some big shots in the middle portion of the match, including using some hard kicks. But Frost wasn’t going to go down without a fight, and after a big Spin Kick, Frost hit the Temperature Drop Moonsault – but Shaw surprisingly kicked out!

 

Frost went back up for another, but Shaw caught her and hit a Spanish Fly – but this time Frost was the one to kick out! Shaw wasn’t plussed by that, though, and simply dragged Frost into the other corner and hit a Twisting Corkscrew Splash to get the pin.

This was fine. They may have done a bit too much for their first match, though, with both kicking out of big finishing moves, including Frost’s Moonsault. Having Shaw win cleanly suggest they have plans for her – but not sure it did any favours for Frost who’s still relatively new to the company herself.

Winner: Gisele Shaw

Backstage, Gia Miller interviewed Honor No More who denied attacking Jonathan Gresham last week. Kenny King said that he would beat Chris Sabin tonight and make him bend his knee to “the King”. PCO looking around cluelessly like he’s a crazed animal is more entertaining than it should be.

Gia then interviewed Deonna Purrazzo who said that she would continue issuing open challenges for either one of her ROH or AAA Championships – including this Saturday.

 

Match 4: Kenny King (w/ Honor No More) vs. Chris Sabin (w/ Rich Swann, Eddie Edwards, and Rhino)

Ian Riccaboni joined the commentary team for this one.

The match started off fairly evenly, but a distraction from the HNM crew allowed King to take control, ground Sabin, and punish him with some hard kicks to the midsection that slowed Sabin down. Eventually, Sabin was able to fight back and he was the first to get up after they rocked each other with simultaneous Clotheslines.

After that, the advantage swapped back and forth, with Sabin hitting King with a huge Tornado DDT for a near fall, and then King responding with a huge Spinebuster. After a series of reversals, King hit a Blue Thunder Bomb, but when he went for a Royal Flush, Sabin was able to counter it and roll up King with a Crucifix to get the pin.

After the match, Maria said that Honor No More was a cohesive unit and would be on the same page at No Surrender. She pointed out that Steve Maclin wasn’t at ringside with his teammates, and suggested that he may not be on the same page as the rest of Team Impact – possibly hinting that Maclin was the one who took out Jonathan Gresham so that he could replace him on the team.

This was a good match, which isn’t unexpected given the competitors.

Winner: Chris Sabin

In the back, Team Impact were wondering if Maria was right about Maclin and questioned if they could trust him. Speak of the devil and Maclin walked up to them. He said that they had two choices: either trust him, or find a new partner. They agreed to trust him and go into the match against Honor No More as a united front.

 

Match 5: Savannah Evans and Tasha Steelz vs. Mickie James and Chelsea Green

Green and Mickie used their speed to deftly avoid some big hits by Evans, and they fared very well. That is until some dirty tactics allowed Evans to sneak up behind Green and shove her off the top rope behind the referee’s back, sending her crashing hard to the mat.

Evans and Steelz then isolated Green in their corner, taking turns beating her up. They used some classic heel tactics to keep Green from tagging in Mickie who grew more and more anxious to get into the ring and save Green. Finally, Green capitalized on a mistake and got the tag to Mickie, who took over.

The action spilled out of control and soon all four women were in the ring fighting. Mickie laid out Steelz with a Mick Kick, while Evans dispatched of Green. Mickie then gave Evans a Mick Kick and dropped her with a Mick DT. But Steelz was still the legal opponent. And she used Mickie’s momentum against her, hitting the champ with a Crucifix Bomb and giving her team the win.

This was good, especially in the middle when Evans and Steelz were dipping into some classic tried-and-true heelish methods to keep their opponents from tagging. The wins should, in theory, give Steelz the momentum heading into Saturday’s title match – though I don’t see them taking it off of Mickie quite just yet.

Winners: Tasha Steelz and Savannah Evans

 

How To Be a Professional with Brian Myers

This edition was billed as “The Final Chapter” and effectively marked the end of this storyline.

Myers berated The Learning Tree (Zicky Dice and VSK), blaming them for his loss in the No DQ match against Morrissey last week. Myers cut them from his class and effectively chopped down The Learning Tree. It would have been even better if this also marked the end of Myers’ inconsequential Impact run – fingers crossed.

 

Match 6: Violent By Design (Eric Young, Deaner, and Joe Doering) vs. The Bullet Club (“Switchblade” Jay White, and the Guerillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa)) (w/ Chris Bey)

White and Young – who will go 1-on-1 this Saturday – started off and they had a good, brief exchange. After that, the Bullet Club fired the first shots, triple-teaming Doering to dump him over the top and to the floor and sending his VBD partners there shortly thereafter to take us into a break.

Doering was in control after we returned, and he outmuscled Tama Tonga for a while, including hitting his Chaotic Elbow and a huge Flying Low Cross Body that looked awesome.

 

VBD trapped Tama in their corner for a while, until he finally escaped and tagged in Tanga Loa.

Tanga Loa and Doering had a nice bull-ram shoulder block exchange that knocked them both silly, and both tagged out so we got another White-Young flurry, that White got the better of. He hit a Final Cut – earning a Dustin Rhodes reference (that’s probably one more than Dustin’s received on AEW in all of 2022 so far), but before he could follow up, the match broke down and others joined the fray.

G.O.D. stole a page from the Good Brothers’ book and hit a Magic Killer on Doering, but when White went for a Blade Runner on Deaner, he got clocked by Young, who followed up with his Flying Elbow for a very long two-count.

Young and White countered each other’s finishers, and then things got even more chaotic. In the end, Deaner tried for a sneak attack on White but got intercepted by G.O.D. who hit him with a 3-D and a Flying Headbutt-Superfly Combo, allowing White to crawl on top of him and get the easy pin.

After the match, the Tag Team Champions, the Good Brothers, came to the ramp and stared down G.O.D. who they face on Saturday – for the first time ever on Saturday.

This was a good match though it suffered with the lack of any refereeing in the final stretch. For people who aren’t NJPW fans, not sure they would be blown away by Jay White or G.O.D. because of this one, but they certainly didn’t do anything to turn anyone off of them. Doering continues to impress and it really behooves this company to consider him in the main event scene.

Winners: The Bullet Club

 

 

 

 

Impact Wrestling - February 17th, 2022
4

The Factory - Dallas, TX

In terms of a go-home show, the episode ticked all the boxes. Good matches to set up the blow-offs on Saturday, decent promos to hype up the ones that didn’t get time on-screen, and a strong violent final build-up for the main event. Unfortunately, while it had all those elements, they weren’t presented in the right order. And as a result, the final build for Saturday wasn’t as strong as it should have been.