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 Allie returned to save Madison Rayne from Su Yung and her Undead Bridesmaids, and Sami Callahan unmasked Pentagon Jr.
Without further ado, here’s the Knockout Report for July 5, 2018.
Madison And Allie Are Teaming Up
The show opens with Alicia interviewing Madison Rayne and Allie about their upcoming tag team match. Madison basically says that she has no idea how to beat Su Yung because of that whole thing where Su’s a mysterious undead creature who has weird mystical powers, whereas Madison’s a human wrestler. Fortunately, Madison has the support of Allie, who has survived Su’s darkness.
Allie didn’t win her last match against Su, but Su failed to kill her and that’s something. Allie seems to have balanced out since that match. She’s not dressed like Rosemary anymore, but she’s still wearing black. She’s back to being an adorable bunny, but she’s got a bit more of an edge, and makes more angry faces (which are also adorable).
Allie And Madison Rayne Defeated Su Yung And An Undead Bridesmaid
A tag match in the lead-up to a PPV singles match for a title is a wrestling mainstay for a reason: You get the champion and the contender in the match together for an exciting moment or two, but having other wrestlers involved means you can limit their contact and avoid giving away the big money match. So we all get what this is supposed to be. Unfortunately, it’s kind of a problem with somebody like Su Yung. Su’s not human, in the traditional sense, and she can’t believably have friends or partners who are. Tessa Blanchard’s the other top heel in the division right now, but last week made it pretty clear that she’s as scared of Su as anybody. So if you want to have Su in a tag match, the only partner who makes sense is one of her undead minions.
The minion in question, referred to as the Undead Maid of Honor, is played by Canadian wrestler KC Spinelli. I don’t know Spinelli’s other work, but I’m hesitantly to blame her for how stiff she seemed in this match, because it’s entirely likely that she was told to act like a zombie. Regardless of her performance, it’s difficult to have a good match when a quarter of the participants literally has no personality. Despite that, there were still some good moments, and mostly it was just great seeing Allie back in the ring.
The highlight of the match was when the aforementioned Tessa Blanchard ran out dressed like a Double Dragon character (which I guess is what passes for street clothes when you’re Tessa Blanchard) and beat down Madison while the recently kicked ref was two feet away rubbing his eyes. Allie made the save and brawled with Tessa outside the ring. I’m excited about the match between these two that this was clearly setting up, which will hopefully be at Slammiversary (as much as I’d enjoy watching it next week).
Katarina Defeated Rebel
Katarina, the Knockout formerly known as Winter, and also known as Grado’s girlfriend, returned to the ring in a match against Impact’s #1 Jobber to Recently Returned Knockouts, Rebel. The match was nothing special, and the real story seems to be about Grado centering himself in Katarina’s in-ring career, even though he didn’t even know she was a wrestler until last week. Also she introduced him to singing wrestler Joe Hendry, in a backstage segment that seemed like a complete non sequitur. Hendry seems fun, though.
Meanwhile, In Guyville
Fenix Defeated Rich Swann
Unsurprisingly, the battle of the misspelled birds had no shortage of flying. The crowd loved it, even chanting “Fight forever,” which seemed like a bit much to me, but I appreciates their enthusiasm. After the match, oVe went after Fenix with Sami Callahan disguised as Pentagon, which is a great move. If a heel’s going to tear the mask off a guy’s face, he should at least use the mask to trick that guy’s brother for laughs. Swann and the real Penta helped free Fenix, setting up a big trios match for next week, on the way to the Mask vs. Hair match at Slammiversary.
Killer Kross Defeated Fallah Bahh
Killer Kross is a big mean scary dude, so putting him against the big nice dude in his debut match makes perfect sense. Also, a man Fallah’s size getting choked out is an unsettling sight to see, and Kross should be unsettling. He also choked out KM (who’s back to being Fallah’s friend now, I guess), before Petey Williams finally managed to chase the big man off with multiple chair shots, setting up a match that I feel like is not going to go well for poor Petey.
Desi Hit Squad Is Training Hard
Gama Singh doesn’t hesitate to slap his guys in the face, which says a lot about the kind of manager he is. He’s also Jinder Mahal’s real-life uncle, which isn’t even vaguely relevant to this segment, but it’s a fact I just learned.
Austin Aries Was Born To Be A Pro Wrestler
In a video promo, Aries basically gave a TED Talk about why he’ll retain the title at Slammiversary, because he’s a veteran who dreamed of wrestling from birth, while Moose is a retired ball player. As he made this argument, how good he was at making it compared to Moose, who’s still a bit awkward on the mic, just seemed to reinforce how right Aries is.
Tommy Dreamer Is Too Old For This Stick
Tommy Dreamer was so mad about getting attacked by Eddie Edwards that he just started dropping names like he was Tahani Al-Jamil. The upshot, which we all knew was coming, is that he and Eddie have a House of Hardcore Match at Slammiversary.
Brian Cage Defeated Kongo Kong
I’ve been trained by WWE’s storytelling to expect feuds to be artificially stretched out, and I’m relieved and delighted every time Impact doesn’t do it that way. Like when Kong started messing with Cage, I sort of thought “Oh, there’s the next three months of those guys’ lives,” but no. They had a great match, Cage defeated Kong, and now everybody gets to move on. Nice work.
LAX Has Splintered
Konnan promised he had proof that King ordered him attacked in a move to take over LAX. He never actually offered any proof, but it’s okay because King admitted to it pretty quickly thanks to some vaguely homophobic needling by Konnan. King said that Konnan’s the past (which is true) and he’s the future (which is maybe less true). When Santana and Ortiz sided with Konnan, Hernandez and Homicide showed up and joined King to beat the other three down. So now there are two LAXes, who are definitely about to fight for the Tag Team Titles. Meanwhile, Diamante is still MIA, but I guess she’s going to have some stuff to react to when she gets back.
That’s all for this week’s Knockout Report. Join me next week, when oVe faces the Lucha brothers and Rich Swann in a trios match (because I guess Fantasma and the other lucha guys are busy or something).
