Impact Wrestling 3.23 Review: She's Back!

[cero2k]

Impact Wrestling
March 23, 2017

"The Lone Wolf" Davey Richards w/Angelina Love vs Suicide - 6.5/10
Davey is back to trunks. Match was somewhat balanced, both Suicide and Davey got their chance to shine; Davey defeinitely working a lot more heel, his moves and taunts are more heelish, and between him and Love, the heat was oozing, together they're reaching South Pacific Power Couple leves. Davey had red on his mouth for most of the match, not sure if blood or Love's lipstick.

LAX Vignette - They're playing poker in their clubhouse. Konnan pretty much explains why he left and why they're back. This was LU Konnan acting good. I'm just glad we get to watch Konnan cutting promos again!

McKenzie interviews Laurel Van Ness - Laurel has gone completely crazy. As she is saying that she hates everyone (including Maria and Sienna), Sienna comes out and calms Laurel down, Sienna clears some stuff with her and tells her, she's got a plan against Allie and Sutter. Laurel was great.

Idris Abraham, Fallah Bahh, and Mario Bokara vs Mahabali Shera, Garza Jr, and Laredo Kid - 5.5/10
All the new guys have really interesting looks, Mario and Bahh are tag teas somewhere. This match was advertised as international trios match, I think Iris is the only US born, but with Egyptian blood. Girls in the crowd are starting to get behind Garza taking off his pants. Match was a great showcase for the new guys, even Shera look competent. I loved Bahh, I need to see more of him. I think I missed it, but this may have been a Tag Team Title Qualifier match.

Impact Tag Team Championships Qualifier Match
Reno Scum vs Decay w/Rosemary - 6/10
Dang, hell of a match for a first round qualifier match, I really expected both teams in whatever final match. This match was all Reno Scum, they controlled most of the match aside from when Decay would cheat to get th upper hand. It was a really heels vs Babyface match that unfortunately could had been much more given more time and less one sided booking. Reno Scum has a kickass team finisher.

"Fury Will Be Unleashed" Vignette - Looks like Kongo Kong and some female manager are debuting next week.

Impact Grand Championship Match
Eli Drake w/Tyrus vs Moose (C) - DUD
Match never happene because Cody Rhodes attacked Moose in the entrance ramp, Cody was wearing a Bullet Club hoodie. This was PERFECTLY done, we saw Cody walking from the parking lot as Moose's music is starting, grabs a chair and attacks Moose at gorilla, then the 'show' cameras just show Moose crawling to the ramp being chased by Cody and a chair. Moose still wanted to fight Eli Drake, but refs wouldn't allow it. Should be easy heat for Drake to get later on for a future match.

Impact Tag Team Championships Qualifier Match
LAX w/Diamante, Konnan, and Homicide vs D.C.C. w/Kingston - 6.5/10
Before the match, Konnan kinda cut the same promo as the one from the clubhouse. Ortiz and Santana representing LAX. Storm and Bram representing DCC, who are actually wearing matching attires. Santana has a really Eddie Guererro-esque style, not like the fluency or smoothness of Eddie, but some of the moves and mannerisms are definitely Eddie's. Story of the match was Storm and Bram by themselves were better than Ortiz/Santana together, but DCC can not get their teamwork together, and the LAX numbers were too much for them. DCC were wrestling as babyfaces, Storm was even going for the Beer Money style "Last Call"

Post-match - Dissension again between the DCC, Storm and Kingston are about to get in a fight, Bram steps in between but rubs off the wrong way on Storm. Not sure, but it seems Storm did kinda quit DCC here.

Bruce Prichard Interviews Bobby Lashley - I mean, it was great, but completely unnecessary and extremely long. We got to learn more about Lashley, but nothing that we could care about stoyline-wise. It was all about making Lashley look good and Prichard never addressed Alberto. Only cool story was about how Lashley fucked up his knee and missed the '04 Olympics, all because he dodged a bullet to the head! during a bank robbery!! That came out of left field. If they're gonna use Prichard for podcast-like interviews, then make them youtube material, or special fight network material, but don't take away so much time from the show.

"Make Impact Great Again" promo by DJZ - Who gives a fuck about DJZ?

Moose vs Cody for the title is announced by McKenzie.

Sutter/Allie Backstage interview - Sutter is gonna protect Allie until the day he dies. Cool.

Rebel vs ODB - 4/10
God damn, Rebel got even hotter. Two returns, I'm only excited about one, and no, it's not about the workrate. It was a quick nothing match, but the wrestling...was actually...kinda decent. I mean, the match sucked, but it wasn't a botchfest as one would expect with these two. There was a thing all match with Rebel telling Old Man Hebner she was gonna hit him, then Hebner took Rebel's hat and forced a kiss on her, then took a sip of ODB's jar, then ODB forced a kiss on him. Hebner is drunk and Flair-flopping. What the fuck is going on? TKO, one, two, three. This match got the biggest pops of the night. I wonder if the point of this match was to swerve that whole "She's Back" thing.

Josh: What did we just see?. Totally agree there Josh.

Bruce Prichard Interviews Bobby Lashley - More!? uuggghhhh. The only relevant thing here was Lashley saying that with the new regime, he is taking Impact on his back. He'll fight Emelianenko or Lesnar. Wrestling or MMA, don't matter. He is literally pushing for cross-promotion between Impact and WWE.

"Walking Armageddon" Lashley vs Jake Holmes - Squash
This Jake Holmes guy is pretty large, would be interesting to see if he's any good not doing squashes. Good thing to let Lashley squash a big guy after that whole Alberto/Lashley fiasco two weeks ago, people need to remember Lashley is still dominant.

Karen Jarrett Returns - yay? Some fans seem to be happy about her return, hugging some kids awkwardly, kid just looked at her boobs, she got some 'Welcome Back' and 'Karen Jarrett' chants. Anyway. She is pretty much doing the same spill as Mantel and Prichard, until the fans chant "Fire Josh", she puts it on her To Do list, and gets a huge babyface pop. She's babyface Dixie.

ECIII comes out and interrupts. He continues his "I already made Impact Great Once." movement. Gets in Karen's face and completely antagonizes her. Out of nowhere, Josh Matthews interrupts everyone, gets in the ring, and completely craps on Karen Jarrett calling her the 'Evil Queen'. Josh cuts a 'shooty' promo on the Jarretts, Mantel, Borash, and Prichard. He takes a shot on the crowd, reveals that Madison is his wife, and talks enough that earns a slap by Karen. Josh was awesome here, as a heel, he is a really good talker, I really hope he does end up as a heel manager somehow.

I know Karen Jarrett has a really bad rep from her previous Impact run, but I seriously loved her as a heel in AAA. If she can bring that heel work across the border, I'm totally down for heel KJ; however, babyface authority KJ? I'm not sold. Her face screams heel.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:
Good show, aside from the ODB match and the Lashley Interview, it felt like a productive show. Good to see the Tag Title situation move forward, as well as the Borash/Josh thing, Josh definitely took a step forward here. I'm not super hyped about Karen coming back on-screen, but let's face it, it's the Jarretts we're talking about, of course they would end up on screen sooner or later.

[Big Red Machine]

Kongo Kong? Really?

[KILLdozer]

Kongo Kong? Really?

Worst name ever.

[cero2k]

Kongo Kong? Really?

I'm not 100% sure, but there was like a 1 second shot of a dude with facepaint and it looked similar to him. I thought the same thing, I don't like what i've seen

[Big Red Machine]

I just heard Filthy Tom's recap of the Rebel vs. ODB match. It's things like this which are the reason that TNA will never succeed. No matter who is in charge, they haven't figured out not to waste time with pointless, stupid, sh*t like this.