GFW Impact Review - July 27, 2017

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Ethan Carter III, Eli Drake and Chris Adonis def. Impact Grand Champion Moose, Marufuji and Eddie Edwards

Moose has been feuding with all three members of the heel team in recent months, and even had a match against Marufuji a few weeks back, so this match made sense from a storyline standpoint and was entertaining to boot. Edwards felt like the odd man out, though he had a solid showing as well. EC3 cheating to pick up the victory by pinning Moose successfully set him up for a title match with Moose on next week's show. By the way, it should be noted that the commentators played up Drake as the future of GFW. Are they finally going to start getting behind the guy?

Matt Sydal Attacked Lashley

Sydal has been killing it since coming to GFW and I'm glad Lashley's attack on him last week wasn't forgotten about. Instead, Sydal came across like a fighting babyface by standing up to Lashley, refusing to back down and ultimately laying him out. Understandably, Lashley wants another shot at the GFW World Heavyweight title, but I like how he'll first have to go through Sydal at Destination X next month in order to get it.

Taiji Ishimori def. Davey Richards in a Super X Cup First Round Match

Once again, the stars of the X-Division shined in the final first round match in the Super X Cup. We already knew all about Richards, so it was nice that we got to know a little about Ishimori's background in the NOAH promotion and what he brings to the table. He impressed me here with his outing and he's already off to a strong start in GFW with a win over an established star in Richards. Speaking of whom, it'll be interesting to see whether this was Richards' final televised match with GFW considering he recently announced his departure from the promotion to focus on other endeavors.

Unified GFW Knockouts Champion Sienna def. Rosemary in a Last Knockout Standing Match

I was slightly disappointed by their Slammiversary encounter given they are the two best women's wrestlers GFW has (aside from Gail Kim), so thankfully this was a vast improvement over that. Both Sienna and Rosemary put forth an excellent effort by taking their fight all around the arena and enduring some pretty big bumps. Rosemary has always risen to the occasion in these type of matches and this was no exception. Sienna only won after interference from KM, so I assume the feud is not yet over, especially since Rosemary herself said afterward that she still wanted the title and that Sienna's victory was tainted.

Octagoncito def. Trevor Lee by Count-out

Lee pretending to be the X-Division Champion despite never actually winning the title from Sonjay Dutt remains the best thing he has done in the last year and a half, in my opinion. As soon as Octagoncito was announced as his opponent, I was worried this would turn into a joke and any good work GFW has done with Octagoncito up to this point would be erased, but rather he scored some offense over Lee and ended up forcing him to flee from the ring, so this was well done. Also, Dutt emerged from the back afterward to further his feud with Lee.

Grado Proposed to Laurel Van Ness

Although this screams sports entertainment, it's probably the perfect use of Grado, to be honest. Yes, he can go in the ring and can be taken seriously as a competitor when he wants to be, but he's already been labeled as comic relief, so he might as well run with it. Additionally, I've surprisingly liked the combo of him and Van Ness, but Kongo Kong interrupting was predictable. The question is whether she would have said yes before Kong came out. Maybe Kong wants her to himself even though it hasn't been documented he loves her?

Unified GFW World Heavyweight Champion Alberto El Patron def. LAX in a Gauntlet Match

This whole show was going just fine up until this match. Nothing compares to how little I care about this program between El Patron and LAX. I'm not even exactly sure where's supposed to be leading considering he already beat the tag team champs two weeks ago and he defeated all three male members of the group here, making them look weak in the process. Hell, Homicide lost in a matter of seconds! If El Patron vs. Konnan is the endgame, God save us all. Meanwhile, it appears LAX vs. Veterans of War is happening soon, but it's weird they didn't go in that direction after LAX beat them for the GFW World Tag Team Championship last month.

Overall Show

Basically, everything on this show was solid other than the main event. That is one storyline I just can't get into at the moment and I hate that it is headlining each of these episodes. On the bright side, the X-Division is the best it has been in some time and I'm enjoying the angle with Lashley and Sydal as well as the Super X Cup. The Grado and Van Ness storyline is dumb fun, and the women stole the show with a great Last Knockout Standing match. Check this episode out when you get a chance, but feel free to skip the main event.