IMPACT! Wrestling Review - April 19, 2018

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Su Young and Braxton Sutter def. Kiera Hogan and Fallah Bahh

The storyline relationship between Young and Sutter has yet to be explained to my knowledge, but nonetheless, this was a good, well-wrestled opener that served as hype for Sunday's Impact Knockouts Championship match between Young and Allie. Bahh is always useful for comedic relief and we hadn't seen too much of Hogan in the ring up to this point, so credit to them for holding their own here. I also appreciated Allie emerging afterward and showing some fire ahead of her upcoming title defense.

Brian Cage def. KM

You could see Cage answering KM's open challenge coming from a mile away, but I still enjoyed KM's promo before the bout more than most of the promos he cuts. The match itself, as you would probably expect, was a total squash in favor of Cage, as it should have been. Cage has rolling through people left and right since arriving in IMPACT, and I have no doubt he'll win that random six-way match at Redemption.

Johnny Impact vs. Kongo Kong Ended in a No Contest

The whole premise of this feud has basically been Jimmy Jacobs accusing Impact of being "pretty," hence why Kong attempted to smash his face in with the steel steps. The non-finish didn't bother me because it was likely designed to set up a rematch for Redemption. Kong does nothing for me in the ring, but I thought Mundo carried him to a solid match here with Kong largely on offense throughout.

Overall Show

This Sunday's Redemption pay-per-view looks strong on paper, but I'm not sure this edition of IMPACT did anything to make me more excited for the event than I was before. After all, this show largely consisted of video packages, pointless replays (why Kurt Angle vs. Bobby Roode from Bound for Glory 2011 of all matches?), and backstage interviews. The matchups that remained were decent, yet nothing worth going out of your way to see with the exception of Austin Aries vs. Pentagon Dark vs. Fenix from the IMPACT vs. Lucha Underground event earlier this month, which you can read my review of here.