The Aces And Ehs Of Impact Wrestling 12/07/17: This Is A Story About A Man Named Papi

Hello, and welcome to weekly Impact Wrestling coverage on With Spandex. And also welcome to me, LaToya Ferguson, your recapper and friend. You know what doesn’t make weekly Impact Wrestling coverage easier? Coming down with the flu and watching this show in (more of) a state of delirium. But that’s what you’re getting here!

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Previously: Texano and James Storm had a “we’re not so different, you and I” match. Also, I’m pretty sure Alberto El Patron tried to murder Johnny Impact in their match. Oh, and Impact Wrestling doesn’t know which Knockouts are which.

EH: A Rough Start

Impact Wrestling continues to document Alberto El Patron’s mental breakdown this week by immediately starting the show with close-up promo from him. He reminds us all Eli Drake is a “paper champion” — that he plans to jump tonight, so spoiler alert for the main event — and Johnny Impact is a “kid.” Okay, bye.

ACE: A Cult Classic

My first note for Caleb Konley vs. Taiji Ishimori was that it should be a good match, and I’ll say that it even managed to exceed my expectations. And a good deal of that is because it allowed Caleb Konley to actually let loose and show just how good he actually is. (You see, Caleb Konley is very good. Suicide agrees with me, I’m sure.) Of course Ishimori delivers, but unlike last week’s exhibition with Hakim Zane, it’s great to see him in a match with someone who can keep up with him in the ring … until Ishimori gets into an even higher gear. Then it’s all over for Caleb.

Trevor Lee of course spends the entire match screaming encouragement for Caleb, and after the match, he ends up attacking Ishimori from behind. Then comes Dezmond Xavier with the save, and commentary points out it’s based on the respect Xavier and Ishimori gained for each other post-Super X Cup. I mean, I’m all down for that, but imagine how much better it would have been if either man had gotten a real spotlight after that tournament.

EH: He’s A Smart Guy

I have an idea about how “Taiji Ishimori,” and in my mind — and, you know, reality — it shouldn’t sound anything like (an also mispronounced) “Taj Mowry.” Come on, Josh “Vice President of Digital Media” Mathews.

ACE: Five By Five

As Allie makes her entrance in this match and decides to pick up the Knockouts Championship before getting into the ring, Josh has a point: She might have just “cursed herself.” The proof is in the pinning too, as she ends up eating the pin from her BDF (Best Demon Friend).

This match is expectedly better than the first triple threat match in the tournament, which is just the nature of it being as stacked as it is. It’s literally the three top women in the division, after all. Sienna tries to play the match smart by bailing early on (to force Demon Bunny to face off) and also showing up whenever the other two are too focused on each other to expect the attack, but as smart of a match as she plays, it never ends up working in her favor. She leaves the ring, they follow her and take turns beating her up. She sneaks up on them, they end up double teaming her hard.

Unfortunately for Sienna, it doesn’t matter how smartly she works the match, because Rosemary and Allie make it so it’s all about them. That’s the story of this match, from their initial double teaming turning into Rosemary breaking up Allie pinning Sienna (and pie facing Allie right after doing so) to them knowing each other so well they counter everything they throw at each other (after the initial forearms). I know Allie is a big Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan, and I feel confident in saying she and Rosemary did Buffy and Faith proud.

Of course, in this instance, Faith actually wins — as Allie’s Codebreaker to Rosemary gets turned into a Red Wedding and the Knockouts Tournament Finals are now a Bound For Glory “rematch” between Laurel Van Ness and Rosemary.

ACE: BULLCRAP

Let me tell you something: Sami Callihan’s voice somehow made my sore throat feel even sorer.

Anyway, apparently every place that’s not Ohio is “BULLCRAP,” which brings out “local heroes” TDT to say “au contraire.” (I’m sorry.) Also, Sami is on fire as a heat magnet in this segment. And it starts with the crowd cheering his name.

Literally a month ago, past Impact recapper and general delight Danielle Matheson and I were talking about TDT’s debut in Impact Wrestling. (Taping schedules!) At the time Danielle jokingly offered to write a glowing guest paragraph on the duo. So of course I decided to seriously take her up on the offer, and she decided to give them more them a paragraph:

Hey kittens! LaToya graciously let me hijack her column (which, by the way, how great is she at reviewing Impact??) so I can try to force each and every one of you to love Tabarnak de Team. TDT are two Quebecois beef boys who dress like lumberjacks, have an insane amount of core strength, and are — without my usual hyperbole — the best Canadian tag team in the world.

I first saw them in the long, long ago in a dark match before a Ring of Honor PPV. The plaid and suspenders hadn’t shown up yet, and neither had Mathieu St. Jacques’ and Thomas Dubois’ impressive beards. The crowd was, of course, completely terrible, but I was immediately impressed with how they worked the small anglophone pre-show crowd into a lather with French cusses and undeniable in-ring ability. My favourite TDT matches come in their longstanding series against forever faves Team Tremendous in places like C*4, Interspecies Wrestling, and IWS, but in all honesty if it were up to them they could get a great match out of almost anyone (see: this match).

On a more personal note, I do have a lot of feelings wrapped up in TDT. At this point I’m on my fifth consecutive concussion in two years. After my first two, the injuries were so severe that I was convinced that I would never get better. Concussions can rob you of control over your feelings, and at that point I was in such a deep depression I was positive that would just be my life going forward. You can put on all the brave faces you want, but the claustrophobic feeling of not being in control of your brain and your body is inescapable. Without going into much more detail, it’s the absolute worst, but I’m pretty sure TDT saved my life.

I made the arduous journey to Toronto’s east end — anything west of Yonge is basically anathema for a Parkdale scumbag like myself — to see some friends and reunite with my favourite Quebec wrestlers. I stayed pretty quiet during the show, because working up a reaction to almost anything was incredibly difficult. TDT’s match came around, and I reacted with as much excitement as I could muster at that point. I’ve seen them enough to know when they’re going to hit certain spots, and yet when St. Jacques hit his spinebuster I involuntarily and joyously cheered. It was then that I realized two things: 1) what I considered happiness before then wasn’t actually very happy at all, and 2) if I could react that way, then there was a chance I could feel that again. No single moment in the past two years has given me that much hope for my recovery, and I’m honestly not sure where I would be without it.

In all honesty I’ll never be able to thank Thomas and Mathieu for putting joy and hope back into my life, so I’m honestly just going to shout their praises any chance I get. You won’t be able to catch them in the US anymore thanks to terrible border policies, but I genuinely encourage everyone to seek them out wherever you can. Get them to England. Send ’em to wXw alongside Speedball Bailey and let them go toe to toe with the Ringkampf boys. Bring Buxx Belmar along and complete the perfect Quebecois carload. Appreciate them for being two genuinely great dudes, and let yourself fall in love with their incredible wrestling. If you’re still slogging through Impact on a weekly basis, believe me, you deserve it!

Just from my outsider’s perspective, the impression I got from TDT is that they’re the French-Canadian equivalent of “street.” And that was enough to sell me. That and them beating the ever-living crap out of oVe after Sami tells them to “speak ‘merican.” Like, they seriously destroy oVe. It’s a more hilarious version of oVe being the less impressive team in all of their squash matches. But then Sami gets a Singapore cane and everything goes to hell for TDT. It’s also about to go to murder, but known murderers LAX show up to save the day and:

EH: Just Don’t Say Anything At All

During that segment, JB says Sami’s “just returning from New Japan Pro Wrestling.” It’s cool they want to address other promotions and all, but the World Tag League tournament is still going on. He literally could not have just flown to Ottawa just for this segment then gone back to Japan for the tournament. Just don’t even bother to pretend this is the case.

ACE: IT’S MY TIME

That might be the actual video of what Gail Kim said to Allie, but this is all I saw:

EH: Don’t Call Me A Loser

KM’s obsession with American Top Team has now caused him to force an Impact Wrestling cameraperson to follow him to some random Canadian gym as he assaults a bunch of people who don’t know how to run (despite looking right at him as he assaults people in front of them). He’s still trying to “prove” himself, and once all the crime is done, he shrieks “Is that enough?!?” over and over again.

Meanwhile, American Top Team doesn’t see any of this because they don’t watch the product and none of this stuff is broadcast in the venue anyway. Also, they don’t care. Also, why doesn’t he try proving himself by performing some mixed martial artistry? Because professional wrestlers are all clowns and all that jazz.

Can’t this intensity be directed elsewhere?

EH: “I Eat Pieces Of Shit Like You For Breakfast” … But Bad

Chris Adonis: “You see something, Petey. I’ve had bigger chunks of guys than you in my stool.”

Even Eli Drake looks at him like, “What the hell does that even mean?” Then Adonis says “‘aight,” and Eli’s half of the interview can’t save any of this. Sorry, McKenzie Mitchell.

EH: The Punchline Is The Impact Grand Championship

Fallah Bahh now gets to be a guest judge for the Grand Championship title match, despite the fact he just lost a Grand Championship title match. They don’t even play up the tension of him possibly wanting revenge. But the thing is, is this not proof enough of how much of a joke the title is that it lets a joke of a character (not that there’s anything wrong with being a joke of a character, in Bahh’s case) be a judge for no reason other than “lol BAHH?”

Again, we’re not given any reason to believe any of these judges are actually unbiased or impartial, despite how nameless/faceless they are for the most part. Especially when Matt Sydal starts off buttering them all up with handshakes before the match and EC3 makes sure to rudely deny them all the same. The match itself is good about making sure the in-ring work translates into the appropriate judge scores — remember how that never happened when Aron Rex was the champion — but then again, the judges never even look at the actual match. Bahh at least remembers to do so, but the others spend the entire time writing whatever they’re supposed to write.

ACE: It’s Still EC3 And Matt Sydal

Like I said, EC3 and Sydal do a good job making sure you don’t question the scoring in this match, which is an important part of this whole gimmick. I imagine the booking for these matches can get a bit headache-y at times because of this. The first round goes to EC3, finally getting the advantage (and keeping it) after both men are pretty much at a standstill in the beginning of the round. EC3’s delayed vertical suplex to end the round is a brilliant tactic too. (But then you have to ask why he doesn’t just always go for that tactic.)

Round two goes to Matt Sydal, because it’s at that point he realizes the rules of the match means he’s not supposed to dazzle, he’s supposed to stay on his man and fight. But then you have EC3 cheapshot him after the fact; commentary says the judges should dock him a point, but we don’t know if the judges dock him a point. Round three is an even match up that ends with a draw, so EC3 wins.

Also, I guess this means EC3 was right about Matt Sydal not being able to get it done. Alright then.

ACE: “WHY IS DADDY CHEATING?”

I mean, I didn’t expect to see James Storm bleeding like he was Shawn Michaels in 2004, but I’ll take it. Especially out of the context of the actual Bound For Glory 2012 card and aftermath. Could’ve left the trash can head shots out of it, even though King Mo’s reaction at the time was priceless.

ACE: Who You Gonna Call?

Fun fact: Apparently Impact Wrestling lanyards still say “TNA” on them. Also, who has ever called a piece of meatloaf “succulent?” Damn Chandler Park, you’s a freak.

EH: This Match Seems To Last 40 Days And 40 Nights

This match is a mess (early on, Lashley stops starting a spot twice because he’s waiting for Moose to be ready for a clothesline), the referee is a mess, JB keeps calling the little guy “JOSH Hartnett” and ATT superfan Josh Mathews somehow never corrects him. (I just learned his name is “JOHN Hartnett,” so I’m going to address this, obviously.) Josh would rather plug FUTURE LEGEND merchandise. Not in an official plug from Impact Wrestling either. At least James Storm puts on Lashley’s headband, but that’s gotta sting for Lashley almost as much as Dan Lambert getting the pin on Storm does.

ACE: At Least It’s Not The Other Tag Team Match

I guess the ring announcer got told Johnny Impact actually weighs 225 pounds and bills him as such this week.

This main event tag match obviously has to be better than the American Top Team tag match and it is. It’s a perfectly serviceable main event tag match, and it highlights the “log jam” in the title scene right now. It also scarily shows that the Impact Wrestling pseudo-main event model is the same thing: So I wonder who will be the next Garza Jr./Petey Williams. (Whoever it is, I hope they realize Johnny Impact is not their real friend.)

EH: A Poor Man’s Poor Man’s Dan Hedaya

The worst referee in Impact Wrestling right now isn’t the child ref, it’s the one who looks like a Poor Man’s Todd Susman. And because I couldn’t remember Todd Susman at first or where I knew him from, in my mind, I just placed him as a Poor Man’s Dan Hedaya. So that’s why this referee is a Poor Man’s Poor Man’s Dan Hedaya. Also, he’s an actively bad referee during this show. His biggest problem in the American Top Team match is just always being two seconds from getting run over by the wrestlers, but in the main event … woof.

There’s a bizarre exchange that happens in the main event — other than the one where Johnny tries to come in the ring as the frustrated face when Eli and Adonis are doing the dastardly tag team move of tagging in and out — that starts when Johnny Impact kicks Chris Adonis straight in the face. The referee sends Johnny out, as Adonis has to roll away (holding his nose) and Eli gets in with no tag or fake tag to attack Petey. Then the referee turns around and sees Eli in the ring but doesn’t react and just lets Eli walk away as Adonis gets back to the match. Then Johnny calls the referee over for a heart-to-heart:

And then he turns around to see Eli officially tag in. It’s the weirdest 20 seconds of the match, and you really have to see it to believe it.

EH: Great, Alberto’s Here

If you were wondering where Alberto El Patron’s promised chaos was in this match, I have it for you. Post-match. Oh yeah. He jumps Eli from behind and Petey Williams holds Johnny back from doing anything. That’s it, that’s the end of the show. In theory, all this chaos is good, but in practice: It’s literally everything about Alberto El Patron right now. And that’s not good at all. Just uncomfortable. And embarrassing, to be perfectly honest.

Now it’s your turn. Please don’t forget to share this recap, because otherwise I won’t be able to keep these up. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go take a lot more medicine and hope this was all a fever dream.