Hello, and welcome to weekly Impact Wrestling coverage on With Spandex. And also welcome to me, LaToya Ferguson, your recapper and friend.
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Previously: Johnny Impact beat Alberto El Patron up with the power of PARKOUR and the spirit of R-Truth’s water bottle. Patron somehow came out on top though. Also, Sami Callihan made oVe actually worth the hype, and Jimmy Jacobs was better at Jeremy Borash’s job than Jeremy Borash. And EC3 joined in on mocking Matt Sydal for being a choke artist.
ACE: (Total Nonstop) Actions Have Consequences
One of the first things we hear this episode is that “Patron and Impact … [are] banned from the building.” And you know what? Good. Because actions should have consequences, and they just tried to destroy each other up and down the Canuck Zone. Ugh, fine — the Impact Zone. (Stupid Sami Callihan confirms there is no name change this week. Thumbs down indeed.)
ACE: Where The Big Boys Play
As the main event of this week’s show is Petey Williams challenging Eli Drake for the Impact Global Championship, we also get a head-to-head video package from the two men, hyping up the match. And oh hey, they’ve got new Global Chamber Rooms! They definitely look less like a hostage situation, so that’s nice. Also nice is just how cocky Eli Drake is, as he’s got big man cockiness going here. It’s not even that Eli Drake is a “big guy;” he just is compared to Petey Williams. (And that beautifully comes into play during the main event.)
In classic Eli Drake fashion, he pretends to be respectful, saying he doesn’t want to ignore or put down Petey Williams’ X-Division accomplishments … “But maybe you stay in your own lane. Maybe you stay in your playground. Maybe you hang out with the X-Division guys.”
Eli also suggests Petey isn’t so much a challenger as he is Impact Wrestling brass just sending out someone to get some “buzz” with the “local crowd.” The one disappointment of no Jim Cornette — or apparently any authority figure running this asylum — is that now Eli Drake’s complaints about the officials conspiring against him probably won’t ever have a pay-off. But even in a match against Petey Williams, he still finds a way to make that argument.
EH: Second Verse, Same As The First
“Personally, what I think of Eli? I don’t think he deserves to wear that Impact Global Championship. He’s everything that a champion shouldn’t be.”
Petey, sweetie. This is the same talking point you had when you were challenging Trevor Lee for the X-Division Championship. And it was BS then, especially every time they show footage of you when you were a scumbag in Team Canada. There’s got to be another perspective you can bring up here. Oh wait …
ACE: The Biggest Maple Leaf Muscle Of All: Petey’s Heart
This airs later in the episode, before the main event, but it’s the segment that works instead of his attempt to call out an unworthy champion. This match-up plays with the narrative that Petey Williams is fighting to become a Canadian hero, and this is the segment that goes along with that. None of this “unworthy champion” crap. Just a man who believes this wrestling company is his home and wants to win the biggest championship he possibly can in front of a home crowd.
EH: Third Generation Wrestler, One-Armed Man
Garza Jr. wrestling with one arm? Literally, one arm? I don’t think it’s as cool or admirable as Impact Wrestling is trying to pretend it is, especially since it’s: 1. Adding to how exposed as Not Ready that Garza Jr. has been since his mini-main event push. 2. The type of thing that calls attention to wrestlers (in-story) not being cleared to wrestle for much less. Impact Wrestling allowing him to wrestle when he can only use his both arms for his pants spot is a bad look. It’s like, for once, Impact realized that out of sight could mean out of mind, so they’re refusing to let Garza Jr. stay out of sight during this injury.
ACE: Every Man With Two Arms
Since Garza Jr. being the weak link in an X-Division match has become the norm regardless of the number of arms he has in commission, it doesn’t hurt the rest of the match, which seems to set up something pretty interesting. (Another thing that doesn’t hurt the match: the fact that Josh Mathews still doesn’t quite understand what the tag situation was in the X-Division Championship match at Bound For Glory. lol you know?) Particularly the Ishimori situation.
It makes no sense why he’s teaming with Trevor Lee and Caleb Konley, since as far as I know, he’s not a heel. It technically makes more sense for Ishimori to fill the Garza Jr. role, team-wise. Sure, he eventually joins in on some heelish double team when Trevor Lee shouts at him to, but earlier in the match, he’s having respectful athletic competition with Sonjay Dutt until Caleb Konley tags himself in to put a stop to it.
The problem is, Trevor Lee and Caleb Konley try too hard to control Ishimori and take over the entire match. During Garza Jr.’s entrance, Trevor is already yelling at Ishimori to follow his lead and step aside to start the match. And then they end up losing the match because Caleb insists on doing it all for Trevor (“YOU KNOW I GOT THIS,” he yells to Trevor at one point), tagging himself in, and then accidentally crotching Ishimori before eating the pin off Xavier’s (siiiiiiccck) Final Flash.
It’s a situation that actually could’ve gone either way. Trevor Lee’s a charismatic cult leader, right? Imagine if Ishimori teaming with him turned into Ishimori falling under his spell? Imagine if anything about Cult of Lee boiled down to more than just “NORTH CAROLINA.” But now Ishimori has a reason to be upset with the Cult — and the Cult will probably be mad at him, even though Caleb lost the match — and feud with them. Because it’s not like Dezmond Xavier is ever going to get any success out of winning the Super X Cup. The guy he beat to win it, on the other hand …
ACE: OSCAR. VICTOR. ECHO. oVe.
Last week, oVe had one of these Shield segments but they didn’t say anything. This time, The Lunatice Fringe Big Dog Architect (because let’s be real — he literally has to be all of these things for oVe) Sami Callihan actually speaks. He’s hyping us for this week’s oVe versus LAX six-man tag match, calling it “gang warfare” and “family versus family.” He also finds time to make sure we know those oVe tweakers are not feuding with LAX because of any racial things — I don’t think anyone was really thinking that way, but in retrospect, it kind of makes sense for that to be a motivating factor — but because they’re “equal opportunity haters.”
Then Sami and the Crists keep shouting “EVERYTHING,” which is a choice.
EH: Rolling Stone says: “No.”
Let’s see …
- The ring announcer does not know how to pronounce Fallah Bahh, as evidenced by him introducing the man as “FAH BAHH.”
- The fact that Fallah Bahh has an Impact Grand Championship match means there is literally no actual way to determine contenders for this toy title, other than maybe a text asking, “u up [in Canada]?”
- During the first round, it doesn’t actually appear that Fallah Bahh even gets this format, as he’s playing around. Though he wins the first round, because EC3 is just pathetic during it (first not taking Bahh seriously, then … failing against him).
- Ring Announcer: “Round one goes to Fallah Bah.”
Crowd: “BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” - EC3: “Score that 6,000 points for EC3!”
A Non-Actor In The Crowd, I Assume: “That’s not how it works!” This and EC3 doing snow angels on the ramp are the best things about this match. - EC3 has to put his legs on the rope to beat Fallah Bahh. And while that goes with what he said to Matt Sydal about how he’ll win at all costs, that doesn’t make it any less embarrassing.
ACE: Absolute Garbage
Please believe me when I say: This match is absolute garbage. Now please believe me when I also say that’s a good thing. This match is non-stop junk food in wrestling form, and it’s awesome. The crowd is absolutely right when they chant “THIS IS AWESOME” after Santana kicks out of a piledriver from Jake Crist. Because sometimes wrestling junk food is just plain awesome. Awesome. Again, I can’t praise the inclusion of Sami Callihan in oVe enough, as it finally brings a sense of urgency the Crist brothers have lost since they began in Impact Wrestling.
Also awesome is Homicide throwing chairs at Sami Callihan. Homicide knows about chairs.
EH: Who Know Knows
Commentary seems to think this is just a straight up brawl, even though it’s advertised as a standard six-man match, and the majority of the match seems to agree with that assumption. Josh Mathews even goes on about how there won’t be any or many wrestling moves in this match and gets so smug when he counts the “first” move of the match way deep into it. Of course, one of the first things that happens in the match — in the ring, between Santana and Sami while everyone else is at ringside — is Santana hitting a cutter on Sami. The entire first half of the match is a brawl at ringside, but it all happens when there are concurrently two men in the ring to spam a bunch of high impact moves.
And because commentary starts selling this as something other than a regular match, it’s really frustrating when the child referee arbitrarily decides to stop LAX from coming into the ring without tagging in. Again, half of the match was this tornado tag-esque melee.
EH: The American Top Team Story Is Still Awful In Canada, Pass It On
Let’s see …
- Lashley’s music and Tron hit, and of course Dan Lambert is the first one out. In fact, he’s the only one out. What is a Lashley?
- He’s “here to say I told you so” about professional wrestling, even though Impact Wrestling still exists and so does professional wrestling, so what was the point?
- He also brings up how “Bret screwed Bret,” because even though this is a completely different company, only one thing has ever happened in Canadian professional wrestling. So, um, congrats to insulting Canada?
- Lambert actually brings up one good point, which is the reminder that Impact Wrestling and Jim Cornette don’t know what the word “unconditional” means when it comes to “unconditional release.”
- The show opens with Dan Lambert and all of American Top Team entering the building together, so we get another reminder Moose is an idiot when he comes out and says Lambert “gave [his] boys the night off.” Even considering it was just a backstage clip he wouldn’t have seen, it was all of American Top Team. They’re both big and loud — someone in catering would have mentioned them being around.
- Moose gets punked out again, because, in the immortal word of James Ellsworth: “Duh.”
- Moose literally does nothing but stand around after James Storm comes to save the day, and I’m really wondering if someone backstage hates him?
ACE: JAMES MOTHER F’ING STORM
“That is professional wrestling,” James says. That was a wrestling promo, I say. This. I’ve been writing about how James Storm can sell just about any damn thing in Impact Wrestling, but here we go.
Here is something worth selling on his end, which is of course professional wrestling. And it all starts with him single handedly taking out American Top Team — thanks for nothing, Moose — taking out the little guy in the process:
My own words can’t do this promo justice, but the gist is that James Storm tells the story of his entire professional wrestling career, from student who was told he couldn’t do it to American’s Most Wanted to “BEER!” “MONEY!” and why professional wrestling is so special. “We live for the moment … for the cheers … for the boos … ‘THIS IS AWESOME’ chants … ‘YOU DESERVE IT’ chants … ‘HOLY SHIT’ chants …” He talks about how he knows the name of everyone in the back, from the talent to the crew to the PAs — and then he starts naming some of ‘em just for fun. He talks about pride and respect, and … Ugh, I’m going to miss James Storm saving so many things on this damn show with his promos.
EH: “Get Back To The Circus, Bozo.”
Great, KM is now part of the American Top Team stuff. Plus side, Sienna — wherever she is — just lost 238 pounds of dead weight. But now it’s latched on to this dead-eyed storyline.
ACE: Talk Talk
The way McKenzie Mitchell rolls her eyes when Eli Drake says “Let me talk to ya.” — like she’s thinking, “Um, that’s the point of this whole interview.” — is so, so special.
ACE: Thank You, Gail
Gail Kim’s retirement and title relinquishment segment honestly isn’t presented with very much fanfare. It’s actually kind of a quick segment, in and out. It’s surprising, given Gail Kim, but it’s also for the best. We don’t need all the pomp and circumstance — technically she already got that for the Hall of Fame — and Gail has gotten more than enough time when it comes to the Knockouts division.
The music video highlight package before the segment is a Greatest Hits for Gail, from her TNA beginnings to the feud with Awesome Kong to the feud with Taryn Terrell and then her Hall of Fame induction, and that’s really all there is. Gail Kim made history, and now she’s done. It’s been real.
From EH to ACE: The Mountie Is A Hero To Us All
Once Bound For Glory and Impact Wrestling became Canada-based, the assumption was that Grado would lose the Monster’s Ball match against Abyss (which he did) but still stick around in Impact, because the whole thing was for a United States Visa, not a Canadian one. And this segment looks like it’s about to go that route as well, as Grado is hanging out in catering with some other talent. However, the fact that this segment ends with a Mountie deporting Grado — because while Joseph Park apologizes and gives him his Visa, it’s still not a Canadian one — transforms it to ACE. It makes the storyline actually have consequences, even if they’re going to be temporary. Please don’t be temporary.
Also, this segment has Joseph Park having had an epiphany, admitting that he knows he’s Abyss and that Abyss is to blame for the dark turn he took. I don’t recall Abyss having a thing for women and money, but who knows. The one really good part of this, however, is that Park is upset Abyss made him hurt the one woman (besides Janice) he’s ever even cared about in Rosemary. That’s oddly sweet, you know?
From EH to ACE: The Unprofessional Jimmy Jacobs
“It’s unprofessional to take a selfie at the announce table.” 1. Shut up, Josh. 2. You already took the selfie last week, so bringing up the “unprofessional” buzzword when it comes to Jimmy Jacobs asking you to post it means nothing. 3. Please stop trying to be cool, Impact Wrestling. We’ve talked about this.
But hey, Jimmy Jacobs on commentary this week? He doesn’t have a Diva moment and stays for the whole main event. And like he was last week in just a few seconds of play-by-play, Jimmy Jacobs is great at commentary. In fact, he actively makes the match better with his insights, especially since Petey Williams is a contemporary of his and they’ve known each other for about 16 years. For whatever reason though, Jeremy Borash just can’t accept that a guy who keeps coming to commentary and doesn’t get taken away by security probably does work at the company.
Instead, when Jimmy gives good color to the story by talking about how Petey told him that this is the biggest match of his career, JB can only say: “What are you, talking to our talent? What are you doing? You haven’t answered the question: What are you doing here?” Even if we’re supposed to believe Jimmy isn’t signed to Impact Wrestling, what is supposed to be so “unprofessional” about Jimmy Jacobs talking to his friend, someone he’s been up and down the roads with? But as I wrote this is From EH to ACE, so Jimmy Jacobs quality commentary maintains on top of all of this.
ACE: “LET’S GO PETEY”
“If you can last three minutes … then I’ll tell you what: After three minutes, you will be a Canadian hero. But what you won’t be, you won’t be the Impact Global Champion.” This is what Eli Drake says during the interview with McKenzie Mitchell.
Well I guess this makes it official: Petey Williams is a Canadian hero. Obviously, he lasts more than three minutes. In fact, he spends the first few minutes of the match dominating Eli Drake. Of course, he ends up paying for moments like hyping up the Canadian Destroyer (instead of just hitting it, so Eli gets out of it) or just getting attacked by Chris Adonis as ringside when the referee’s back is turned. But the story of the match is in Petey’s favor: Not only has no one ever kicked out of the Petey Williams version of the Canadian Destroyer, after the Sonjay Dutt/India X-Division Championship win, favor is on Petey’s side.
This match also gets a “THIS IS AWESOME,” though it gets it for being a very good competitive match, not just junk food. Going up against an X-Division guy, Eli Drake works as a big man, with the catching and the power moves. I’m pretty sure he’s just trying to make a pizza out of Petey Williams at times during this match. But at the same time, going against guys like Johnny Impact and Garza Jr., Eli Drake’s style has clearly adapted and expanded. He’s showing off more athletic moves, and while they don’t always land — like the springboard moonsault here — it’s something to note.
While the beginning of Eli Drake’s title reign was about how he’s going to make his opponents wrestle his style, his success has come in adjusting to their style. Becoming champion has caused Eli Drake to be a more well-rounded champion, basically showing how he’s swimming instead of sinking. Yes, he still has Chris Adonis, but considering the timing of the Adonis interferences in this match — and when Petey gets in a zone to finally take him out — it’s all Eli Drake and his own ability that gets him the win here.
Chris Adonis definitely isn’t the reason Eli Drake kicks out of the Canadian Destroyer, that’s for sure. Poor Petey. And poor Canada. But they should all be proud of the match.
Oh, and one last thing: Given this Photoshop job, Impact Wrestling really didn’t mean to zoom in on the GFW plates last week. And yet.
Now it’s your turn. Please don’t forget to share this recap, because otherwise I won’t be able to keep these up. This is the second episode in a row that’s been relatively good, so let’s keep this ball rolling.
