Welcome Impact fans and curious rubberneckers to my first recap of Impact Wrestling on Pop. With nothing but respect for my predecessor Latoya Ferguson, I’m reformatting this column to give it my own spin. My first idea was to focus specifically on the Knockouts, Impact’s women’s division, because I think we all know they’re the No. 1 reason to watch Impact. That doesn’t mean I’m ignoring the men, just putting the spotlight where it belongs.
Of course, once I made that decision, it was inevitable that my first episode would be one with no Knockouts matches. There were still some pretty exciting segments with the women, however, so I’m sticking with it. Because let’s be honest, there were some perfectly good wrestling matches on Impact this week, but none of them were quite as exciting as one woman looking into a mirror. We’ll get to what that means in a moment.
I’m Elle Collins, by the way. You can follow me on Twitter here, With Spandex here, and Uproxx here. You can watch Impact Wrestling on Pop every Thursday at 8 p.m. Then on Fridays, read this column and share it with everyone you know.
Without further ado, here’s the Knockout Report For May 24, 2018
Tessa Blanchard Is A Born Heel
Frankly, it’s amazing Tessa Blanchard turns 23 this summer. I’m not saying she has nothing to learn, just that how good she’s going to get as she learns it is inestimable given how great she already is now. My colleague Brandon Stroud likes to call Tully Blanchard “dirt mall Ric Flair,” but Tessa’s not exactly dirt mall Charlotte. She’s definitely more dangerous and less elegant than Charlotte, though. She’s not a tall, statuesque, Amazonian beauty with muscular arms. She’s more like a slab of solid granite who is somehow still, also, beautiful.
Tessa is Tully’s daughter, but she’s also Magnum T.A.’s stepdaughter, and I have this theory that she’s actually the living human incarnation of the shard of wood from the Starrcade ’85 Steel Cage “I Quit” Match. She was born to do violence in a wrestling ring, and she’ll be the first one to tell you how great she is at it. She’s an instrument of destruction, but not in a chaotic Nikki Cross sort of way. Her destruction takes place between the ropes, and at least makes the effort to appear to be within the rules. She is a third-generation wrestling monster in every sense of those words.
Madison Rayne is also here, having returned just last week. I’m guessing she’s around for a Mickie James-esque run of putting over younger talent, and while she seems very nice and all, watching Tessa Blanchard mash her is going to be a lot of fun.
Allie Is Mourning And Possibly Possessed
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Rosemary is dead. Su Yung killed her, put her in a coffin, dragged that coffin out into the woods in the middle of the night, and set it on fire. That’s it, no more Rosemary.
(As for the real living woman behind Rosemary, she’s apparently out with an ACL injury, but that’s not the story we’re telling here.)
So Rosemary’s dead and her beloved bunny Allie, who is also the Knockouts Champion, watched it happen even though Rosemary told her not to go near the ring that night. Since then, all Allie’s done is stare into the mirror. When she stared this week, it was Rosemary staring back. Or rather, it was Allie in Rosemary’s gear and facepaint.
We don’t know yet what’s going on exactly. Allie might be adopting Rosemary’s darker persona to honor her, or as a tactic to defeat the even darker Su Yung. Or the hive of demons who previously inhabited Rosemary may have moved into Allie, literally making her the new Rosemary. All we know for sure is that Rosemary Classic warned Allie not to let the darkness consume her, and yet that’s exactly what’s happening.
Allie has been one of the brightest, cheeriest characters in wrestling, and despite her association with Rosemary, seeing her become a darker more monstrous character herself is surprising. It’s also exciting to imagine what her match against Su Yung next week is going to look like. With Rosemary out of the picture for a while, this is a great way to keep her around in spirit until her eventual physical resurrection.
Alisha Edwards Is Upset
I can’t be the only one who watches Alisha’s recent interactions with Eddie Edwards and just thinks about Heidi Gardner’s SNL character, Every Boxer’s Girlfriend From Every Movie About Boxing Ever. I keep waiting for Alisha to tell him that she’s taking the kids to her sisters’ (to my knowledge they don’t have kids, but that’s beside the point). This is, of course, part of the larger storyline where Sami Callahan pushed Eddie Edwards over the edge until he beat Sami bloody with a stick. That’s the sort of thing Sami Callahan will always deserve, but the problem is now Eddie can’t get enough of hitting people with sticks, especially Sami. He also accidentally hit Alisha that one time and put her in the hospital.
Katarina Is Secretly A Former Knockouts Champion
So Grado, a goofy-looking Scottish man, suddenly has a super-hot girlfriend named Katarina who nobody trusts. What nobody has pointed out so far is that way back in 2011, Katarina was named Winter, and she was a two-time Knockouts Champion, as well as a Knockouts Tag Team Champion with Angelina Love. I don’t know where the romance angle with Grado is headed (and I’m not super-enthused to find out), but given her history it seems likely that Katarina will find her way back into the ring at some point. Until then we just have to listen to everybody question why a woman who looks like her would date a man who looks like Grado.
This week that fell to KM, who it turns out never really swore off fat-shaming, he just stopped fat-shaming Fallah Bahh specifically. Honestly, the only part of this segment I really liked was Grado refusing Katarina’s offer of an apple by mumbling, “Nah, cheat day. Cheat day.”
Meanwhile, In Guyville
oVe (W/Sami Callihan) Versus Aerostar & Drago Ended In A Schmoz
This match fell victim to Eddie Edwards and his kendo stick obsession, but it’s always fun to see the Lucha Underground guys on Impact. I feel like Aerostar has a lot of potential to really make an impact on Impact. He might not be the World Champion like Pentagon Jr. is right now, but he could definitely be a contender in the X Division. I don’t mean any disrespect for Drago, but his level of SFX-makeup dragony-ness feels like a lot in this context, whereas it fits right in at the Lucha Temple.
The Cult of Lee Defeated LAX
The Cult of Lee feels a bit adrift right now, despite the impressive talent of Trevor Lee in particular. Commentary acknowledges this during the match, with Don Callis pointing out that they might need a manager like Jimmy Jacobs. On the other hand, despite their recent losses, I’m enjoying LAX a lot more without their mentor Konnan around to make the kind of jokes you call out your Uncle for making at holidays. A returning Eddie Kingston shows up later to tell Ortiz and Santana that Konnan is safe after being attacked, but that they need to start winning again pretty soon.
Matt Sydal Defeated El Hijo Del Fantasma To Retain The X Division Championship
The Sensitive New Age Guy gimmick Matt Sydal is doing these days is some of my favorite heel behavior in any company right now. I’ve met that guy. We’ve all met that guy. And we all want to punch him in the face. Fantasma gets to do that this week, but Sydal managed to roll him up to keep the belt. I guess the problem is that even if Fantasma got his third eye open, he’d need an extra eyehole in his mask before it did him any good.
Dezmond Xavier Defeated Petey Williams For The Right To Face Brian Cage
Brian Cage isn’t currently holding a title, but by winning this match, Dezmond Xavier became the No. 1 Contender for fighting Brian Cage. I can’t imagine why you’d want that, since Cage is a huge terrifying machine, but good for Dezmond if that’s what he’s into. Also, is he the guy who’s attacking everyone backstage? Since the attacker is leaving what look like evil X-Men logos, it seems like they at least want us to think of Xavier, but I remain unconvinced.
Moose Defeated Kongo Kong
I’ve never found Moose particularly exciting, but I want to like him. I did enjoy seeing him face Jimmy Jacobs’ throwback of a monster. Kongo’s great at what he does, although it’s kind of weird that anybody’s still doing it. Jimmy Jacobs, of course, is the real star here. He gave a promo earlier in the show about how he’s not the bad guy, he’s the good guy, which is always a great thing for a bad guy to say. But considering he got the latest backstage beatdown after this match, complete with the “X” calling card, it’s looking like there’s a worse guy around than Jacobs after all.
That’s all for this week’s Knockout Report. Join me next week for Under Pressure, a special TV event named after my favorite duet of the 1980s, in which a whole bunch of feuds come to a head.
