Last week's Slammiversary PPV was a great show. Well worth the buy. GFW seems to have added a lot to its production budget.
The intro to the show featured a rare (first ever?) on-screen appearance by the deep voiced hype video guy. As always he provided much gravitas.
We also were treated to an actual owl flying around the Impact zone.
Robert Flores (some baseball guy) and Don West were the commentators for the show. They made a surprisingly good team.
1. GFW (and Impact?) Tag Team Championship: Lucha tag rules Naomichi Marufuji and Taiji Ishimori (NOAH) vs. El Hijo del Fantasma and Drago (AAA) vs. Garza Jr. and Laredo Kid (Crash) vs. LAX (Ortiz and Santana (w/Konnan, Homicide, and Diamante), GFW) (c)
Amazing match. For workrate fans, this was probably worth the price of the show on its own.
The lucha rules were just that tagging was less required so long as 'one man enters the ring when another leaves'. Drago is a cool dragon looking guy.
Before the match representatives of NOAH, AAA, Crash, and GFW appeared on stage to welcome the competitors. Ed Nordholm is the new President of GFW. No idea who he is. I had assumed that the President was one of the members of the Court of Owls (Bruce Prichard, Dutch Mantell, Karen Jarrett, Jeff Jarrett, etc.) The last official onscreen President was our much beloved and missed Commissioner Music Guy (Billy Corgan) in late 2016.
In all of the title matches only the GFW Championship logos were shown before the match, but presumably in all cases the Impact belts were also on the line.
Winners: LAX retains
2. Eli Drake and Christopher Adonis vs. MOOSE and DeAngelo Willams (w/Gary Barnidge, Austin Dillon)
Team NFL defeated team Impact. The justification here was that Drake and Adonis did not take the match seriously enough to train for it. Instead they just did posedowns around India last week.
Williams did better than expected, but unfortunately when he did the photo-op tablespot, the table failed to break. He seemed injured as a result, but he managed to recover shortly thereafter. Moose redid the tablespot after the match to achieve any photo-op requirements.
Cody Rhodes was not present, so his GFW Next-Gen title remains missing.
Winners: MOOSE and DeAngelo Williams
3. Pinfall Style Strap Match: "Corporate Cowboy" James Storm vs. Ethan Carter III
Storm got vengeance for the 31 lashes Carter gave him a few weeks ago, by delivering 32 lashes to Carter.
Weak finish with Storm just collapsing midring.
Winner: Ethan Carter III
Bruce Prichard was missing, so Karen Jarrett and Dutch Mantell were worried. This mystery was not resolved on Impact, as Bruce returned without comment.
4. No DQ: Jeremy Borash and Joseph Park vs. Josh Mathews and SCOTT STEINER
This match was as amazing as we dreamed of.
It turned out to be set in the BROKEN UNIVERSE.
There was a musical score, a chase with golf carts, fire extinguishers filled with what Steiner thought was tapioca, a fight underwater in the Pool Of Resurrection where Shark Boy lives, and a guy whose truck got stolen by Steiner and Josh (I think it was the guy who always gets beatup in the Broken Universe).
The "old friend" who Joseph Park predicted would help turned out not to be Janice, but rather was Father James Mitchell.
Mitchell seemed to summon Abyss who wound up pinning Josh.
Winners: Jeremy Borash and Abyss
On Impact Josh complained a bit that Abyss's pin shouldn't count, since Joseph Park claims to be a different person from Abyss. But that minor point aside, the announcer feud is officially over.
The Broken Universe match was the high point of the show.
5. Mixed Gender Full Metal Mayhem: Davey Richards and Angelina Love-Richards vs. Eddie Edwards and Alisha Edwards
Winners: Eddie and Alisha
6. X-Division Championship: Two out of three falls: Low Ki v. Sonjay Dutt (c)
Winner: Sonjay Dutt retains (two falls to one)
7. GFW Womens Championship vs. TNA Knockouts Championship: Unification Match: Sienna (GFW c) v. Rosemary (TNA c)
With Laurel Van Ness and KM around, and only Allie on Rosemary's side, the numbers game favored madam pinkie.
Good match. Sad to see Rosemary lose.
Gail Kim was there to welcome the competitors. Apparently, at some point she will give them the new unified title belt. As of Impact however all of the unified titles are still using the double belts.
Winner: Sienna
Jeff Jarrett came out for the first time in two years. The crowd seemed burnt out by now, and didn't give much of a reaction. His segment seemed rushed and didn't accomplish anything. Presumably it was originally going to be the TNA Hall of Fame announcement, which was apparently cut due to lack of time.
8. GFW World Heavyweight Championship vs. TNA World Heavyweight Championship Alberto el Patron (w/ his father Dos Caras and another luchadore) (GFW c) vs. Bobby Lashley (w/ King Mo) (TNA c)
The pre-match ceremony made the match feel like a big deal. The match itself wasn't too legendary. Dos Caras got to chop King Mo. Mo sold the shot well.
Winner: Alberto el Patron
There wasn't the big heel turn of the Court of Owls this time, so I guess we will be getting that at Bound for Glory.
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Impact 7/6
The crew is back from India, so they are back to using the regular intro and logo colors.
Lashley interrupted Alberto's celebration ceremony to request a rematch.
Bruce Prichard told all three announcers to stop feuding. Pope was upset that he was included in the chastisement. Of course, as we remember from a few months ago, the entire announcer feud was his fault, since Pope kept trolling Josh about the imminent Owls arrival being bad for Josh's job, which led to Josh turning superheel as a defense mechanism.
Bruce's bodyguard is still Tyrus. Glad to see the big man back.
Tyrus was previously Eli Drake's bodyguard, but Bruce wanted some muscle, and to weaken the rebellious Drake, so he seems to have bought "The Fixer's" services.
When Commissioner Music Guy was the TNA President, he used Aiden O'Shea as his guard. When the Dixie v. Corgan legal drama intensified, Commissioner Music Guy stopped making on-screen appearances and all management edicts were delivered instead by Aiden O'Shea. O'Shea claimed that the edicts were coming from "The Boss".
This tradition puts Tyrus in a good position to one day become a pseudo authority figure as well. Hopefully, Tyrus will avoid getting fired as O'Shea was once Commissioner Music Guy was completely forced out of power.
There were some bodybuilders in attendance to hype another Pop show.
1. Sonjay Dutt defeated Caleb Konley in a nontitle match.
Afterwards Trevor Lee stole the X-Division title belt.
2. Eddie Edwards, Crimson, Wilcox, and Grado defeated Eli Drake, Chris Adonis, Mario Bokara, and Fallah Bahh.
Afterwards Joseph Park gave some legal papers to Grado. Is Grado getting fired again? Shades of Commissioner Music Guy once more!
3. Matt Sydal defeated Braxton Sutter (w/ Allie)
Afterwards Braxton was grumpy about this upset.
Jeremy Borash introduced the X-Division Cup 2017 tournament.
4. Dezmond Xavier (Impact) defeated Idris Abraham (GFW and Scott D'Amore's Canada Dojo) via pinfall to advance in the Super X Cup Tournament
That loss was a shame. Abraham has the cooler look.
Gail Kim announced to interviewer McKenzie Mitchell that Kim would soon be making an announcement.
EC3 was upset that a Japanese Champion will be getting a shot at MOOSE's Grand Championship.
5. Sienna (w/ KM) defeated Rebel in a nontitle bout
6. Bobby Lashley challenged Alberto el Patron (c) for the unified GFW/TNA Championship. Lashley was about to win when LAX attacked for the apparent No Contest. Afterwards LAX claimed that the unconscious Patron was their new member.
Thread rated: 4.56
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