By David E Houston II
Show air date: October 14, 2021
After a solid–and shockingly athletic–match with Fallah Bahh pinning Hernandez on BTI, Impact Wrestling on AXS-TV put on their first show aimed directly at building Bound For Glory (BFG) next Saturday night.
EL Phantasmo defeated Rohit Raju, and Willie Mack
Very good, fast-paced opener with El Phantasmo of the Bullet Club (accompanied by fellow BC and Finesse Club members “The Ultimate Finesser” Chris Bey and Hikuleo) beat Rohit Raju and Willie Mack in a three-way match to determine the final entrant in the X Division three-way title match at BFG (the others being Trey Miguel and Steve Maclin).
This was good. Raju ate the pin, getting dropped by an El-P Gotch piledriver. That’s what he gets for not bringing his Desi Hit Squad mate, Raj Singh, with him. Impact is not getting the most out of Willie Mack. He looked fantastic here and that live crowd was all the way behind him.
Good backstage interview with “The Inevitable” Ace Austin and Madman Fulton. I like young people with plans.
Savannah Evans defeated Lady Frost
Savannah Evans (with Tasha Steelz) beats Lady Frost in a match that was mostly one-sided, but Frost got in some offense. Evans looked like a killer.
That killer is then invited by Knockouts champion “The Virtuosa” Deonna Purrazzo to be her “poison” in a Pick Your Poison match next week against Mickie James. Evans accepts. Wow.
Great promo from Steve Maclin.
Decay, bomaye.
Rich Swann defeated VSK
VSK, the prized pupil of Brian Myers’ The Learning Tree class, took a shot at former World and X-Division champ Rich Swann. Nice effort but he came up short with Swann putting him away with the Phoenix Splash. Nice TV match.
Swinger’s Palace closed. I’m not crying. You’re crying. And Swingerella #1 is crying. Tommy Rich reference on the way out the door.
HEATH is “officially” signed to Impact Wrestling and immediately asks Executive Producer Scott D’Amore to get him a tag match with him and Rhino against Eric Young’s Violent By Design. Will Rhino show up though? We’ll see.
Chris Sabin defeated Chris Bey
Chris Sabin got the best of Chris Bey in an excellent wrestling match, pinning him after hitting the Cradle Shock fireman’s carry slam. Just a flat-out great match with both guys bringing their A-game.
Good backstage segment with Alex Zayne getting himself a match next week with his opponent from their three-way match two weeks ago, Trey Miguel. Zayne was good with Miguel bringing the fire. I expect a good one next week.
Main Event: Battle Royal
The winner of the battle royal would be number 20 in the 20 Man Call Your Shot gauntlet at BFG with the runner-up being number 1 so this had some stakes to it.
I’m not big on battle royals and this was no different: a lot of brawling that doesn’t come together until the ring empties out. Interesting to see some Knockouts in it. The women should be involved since it’s established they can contend for all the titles in the company, not just the women’s titles.
Sabin was the MVP of the second hour: having that banger with Chris Bey and then being a finalist with W. Morrissey. Impressive run by Madman Fulton and Ace, who were both eliminated by Moose and Morrissey (who look really good together). Morrissey wins, dumping out Sabin after Moose saved him from a possible elimination. That’s Morrissey at 20 and Sabin at 1 for BFG.
Minoru Suzuki is coming to Impact Wrestling.
The Summit
They closed with the BFG main event participants–world champion Christian Cage and “The Walking Weapon” Josh Alexander in a “summit”.
Hosted by Josh Matthews, both men got to talk their talk and while we know Cage can go, Alexander held his own.
This put me in mind of the old HBO sit-downs before big boxing matches Max Kellerman used to host. All three men played their part well: Matthews asked surprisingly good questions, both men came across as real people and not guys playing characters. Cage leaned in on the story of Alexander not being able to control his emotions and needles him after Matthews throws to footage where when fans at an AEW Fanfest say they wanted to see him face Alexander and he responded with “I don’t know who that is.”
This thing went from everyone being professional and cool to heated quick with Alexander storming off. Well done segment. They should do one of these for all the big pay-per-view shows.
Felt like they knew since they were closing with a talking segment, they loaded up on the good wrestling. Very good wrestling show.
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