Hello Impact fans and curious rubberneckers! I’m Elle Collins, and this is the Knockout Report. I’ll fill you in on everything that happens in Impact Wrestling, but I’m always going to lead with the Knockouts Division, because they deserve it. 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.
Last week Moose became the Number One Contender for the Impact World Championship, and Taya Valkyrie returned to challenge Madison Rayne.
Without further ado, here’s the Knockout Report for June 21, 2018.
Madison Rayne Defeated Taya Valkyrie
Taya dominated for most of this match, just like Tessa Blanchard did when she faced Madison Rayne. But just like that match, Madison pulled out the victory at the last second. In the world of wrestling, luck is a real thing, and some babyfaces just have it. They can fight bigger, stronger, more skilled opponents, but their pluck and heart gives them an advantage that unfortunately does not exist in the real world, which lacks the cosmic balance of a well-booked wrestling promotion.
Madison Rayne is actually a couple of years younger than Taya Valkyrie, but she former nevertheless feels like a throwback to an earlier version of the Knockouts Division, or even a whole different era of women’s wrestling. Into a society of demons, zombie brides, flame-haired anime protagonists, and unbelievably muscular superwomen comes a nice lady who’s athletic but not jacked and wears shiny bikini gear that flatters her without placing her within the context of any sort of genre fiction. In short, Madison Rayne is fully human, and that’s just not as common as it used to be.
Su Yung Is The Arena You’re In
The least human Knockout of all is the Champion, the Blood Princess Su Yung. She still wasn’t around this week, but she was watching nonetheless. During the Rayne/Valkyrie match, an inset picture showed Su clutching her title and observing. Being Su Yung, she wasn’t standing backstage, watching a monitor from a weird angle—she was in more of an undefined void. Josh Matthews on commentary said she was watching from the rafters, but I saw no evidence that’s where she was. For all we could tell, maybe she was still out in the woods. Does Su Yung live in the woods? Or possibly in the rafters? These are questions for another time.
After the match, Madison cut a promo revealing that Impact Management had told her that if she beat Taya, which she did, she’d get to face Su Yung for the Knockouts Championship at Slammiversary in July. She said she’s not just doing it for her, she’s doing it for her daughter and for all the fans (like I said, she’s a nice lady). That’s when the lights suddenly turned dark and creepy, and unhinged female laughter echoed through the arena. Madison visibly braced herself, expecting the Undead Bride to appear, but Su was everywhere and nowhere at once. Matthews started talking about “mind games,” which we all know is wrestling code for “literal magic is happening.”
I don’t know if Madison’s babyface luck is going to be enough to defeat Su Yung. I also don’t know how long we can have a monster who doesn’t talk and doesn’t have a manager as the Knockouts Champions. I do know, however, that I’m looking forward to the match.
Meanwhile, In Guyville
LAX Defeated Z & E For The Tag Team Championships
Leaving aside all of the trappings of LAX and their current manager situation, Santana and Ortiz are great wrestlers and always fun to watch in the ring. I’m glad to see them with the belts again.
Jimmy Jacobs Is Sick Of Brian Cage
Jimmy Jacobs is a princess and always gets what he wants. I’ve always loved the way that he calls himself a princess without the slightest hint of self-mockery. Princesses are powerful, and Jimmy knows it. He and Kongo Kong sabotaged Brian Cage last week to prove that Cage isn’t unstoppable, and naturally they both want Kong to be the one who stops him. Also Kong’s changed his hair. It looks nice.
Scott Steiner Defeated KM On Behalf Of Fallah Bahh
KM was meant to fight his former temporary best friend Fallah Bahh, but Fallah came out and gave him a note that explains that he doesn’t want anything to do with KM and somebody else would be filling in for him in the match. KM expects it to be Dick Justice, but then Big Bad Booty Daddy comes out and wrecks him. I didn’t realize Steiner was still hanging around, but since he is, you could do a lot worse than having him teach lessons to unlikable guys.
Austin Aries Merged His Two Championships
This happened at the Slammiversary Press Conference, from which clips were aired on this episode. Since the Impact Grand Championship has never really amounted to much, A Double is merging it with his Impact World Championship, to become the undisputed champion. He went on to cut a promo on Moose, who was standing right there. Pointing out that he was learning and paying his dues in wrestling while Moose was trying to be a pro football player is perfectly Aries, and also, you know, true.
Eddie Edwards Is All Alone
Eddie Edwards went back to his house (which we got to watch on Impact because Impact is weird) and found it empty, with even most of the furniture gone. After flipping out for a while and having a vision of Sami Callahan in the mirror, he decides it’s all Tommy Dreamer’s fault, and that Dreamer has probably stolen his wife too. Honestly, it’s been telegraphed for weeks that they’re building to an Edwards/Dreamer match, and that’s fine, I just hope Eddie turns out to be wrong. It’s one thing for Tommy Dreamer to be a friend and help out Alisha Edwards while her husband is compulsively hitting people with sticks. If they actually (in storyline) turn out to be involved though, that will be a pretty bad look.
Konnan Is Back
Konnan returns to the LAX clubhouse, and he has some questions for King. I’m personally not a big Konnan fan, and I was more interested in the story of King’s duplicity when Diamante seemed to be the protagonist of that story. If it becomes King versus Konnan, I’m immediately less invested. Also I still want to see Diamante gets some Knockouts matches, but we’ll get there when we get there I suppose.
Killer Kross Speaks
Honestly, I found this promo pretty uninspiring. Kross is a scary guy and he attacked all those people to instill fear. Let’s be real here: On a show with people like Sami Callahan, Su Yung, and Pentagon Jr, how scary is Killer Kross supposed to be, comparatively? On the other hand, he does say, “There is no continuity in this universe. There is only mayhem,” which sounds like he’s been watching Impact Wrestling for a while.
Pentagon Jr. And El Hijo de Fantasma Defeated oVe
Pentagon and Fantasma pull out the win over the Crist brothers despite Sami and his bat getting involved every time the ref blinked. Then of course Sami full-on attacked Penta with the bat, as he does, and all three of the oVe guys try to tear off Penta’s mask, because unmasking luchadors is apparently what they’re into now. There was definitely one shot where you could fully see the side of Pentagon’s face, which I feel like was probably unintentional and I hope Penta’s not too mad about it. Ultimately Fantasma makes the save with a steel chair, and oVe slinks away creepily.
That’s all for this week’s Knockout Report. Join me next week, when the build to Slammiversary continues.
