Impact Wrestling Coverage: The Gang Still Rules

It appears D’Lo Brown’s days in the Aces and Eights appear to be numbered.

And that was just the start of the show.

Powered by excellent matches and sprinkles of creativity, this week’s episode of Impact was a nice segway into this weekend’s pay per view.

Matches:

Sting and Joseph Park vs. TNA World Heavyweight Champion Bully Ray and TNA TV Champion Devon: A surprisingly entertaining finisher that was back and forth throughout. The brothers appeared to have the advantage after some effective double-team offense, but got distracted when Abyss’ music hit and allowed Sting to win with the Scorpion Death Drop.

Samoa Joe w/Magnus vs. Garrett Bischoff w/DOC and Wes Brisco: Joe was all offense, but the Aces and Eights B-team focused instead on destroying Magnus on the outside, throwing the match out. Joe helped out his teammate by suicide diving on all the baddies. Joe then announced a six-man tag against the three of them at Slammiversary. Joe and Magnus’ partner? Jeff Hardy.

Eight-Man Tag: TNA Tag Team Champions Chavo Guerrero and Hernandez and James Storm and Gunner vs. Austin Aries and Robert Roode and Christopher Daniels and Frank Kazarian: Daniels had problems with Gunner and Aries wasn’t interested in getting in the ring with him either. Bobby Roode was another story, but Gunner was able to hold his own against Roode as well. Hernandez and Guerrero were solid in the match, using their signature offense and quick tags after Gunner tagged them in. After he sold for a few minutes, Roode battled back and Aries got in a few shots. Seeing an opportunity to strike, Daniels and Kazarian got involved. After their turn of offense, Hernandez went back on the warpath, nailing a nice Backbreaker on Roode and a massive Shoulder Block on Daniels. After some more scrapping, Gunner got back in match and destroyed Aries with an Irish Curse Backbreaker and the Torture Rack for the submission victory.

Taryn Terrell and Chris Sabin vs. Gail Kim and TNA X-Division Champion Kenny King: Terrell hates Kim and Sabin wants to steal King’s X-Division title. That drama made for an interesting mixed tag match. King and Kim were perfect heels, using interference and smart tags to stay ahead. In the end though it wasn’t enough after a Terrell Spear on Kim and Sabin’s Twisted Package Driver earned the faces the win. After the match, King nearly took out Sabin, but Suicide interfered and caught King with his Tiger Suplex/Gutbuster Combo.

Mr. Anderson vs. AJ Styles: The new AJ Styles is void of flash. He’s all about bang. Gone are most of the spots, replaced by strikes, suplexes and smarts. In control for the first 15 minutes of the match, Anderson fought back with some intelligent heel tactics on the outside. But once the action got back in the ring, he wasn’t able to stay in control. Using more strikes, Styles continued the onslaught. The cagey veteran, Anderson hit a few moves to even things out, but again, Styles came back and hit a nice corner Drop Kick. Just when it looked like Styles was read to finish things, Kurt Angle joined the party and took out Styles, throwing the match out. Soon enough, The Aces and Eights and a bevy of TNA superstars were in the ring. By the end of it all, Sting was the victim of the 3D.

mm
About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*