IMPACT! Wrestling Review - August 31, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Alisha Edwards Won an Impact Knockouts World Championship No. 1 Contender's Battle Royal

I feel like I've seen a million Battle Royals in WWE and AEW this year, but I'll give IMPACT a pass because they barely do them. That's not to say this was anything special, though. It was a fairly basic Battle Royal with some of the eliminations setting up different matchups. Alisha wasn't the most exciting choice to go over, mostly because she's been positioned as an enhancement talent for a majority of her IMPACT run, but I suppose she'll be a a fine filler feud and an easy opponent for Trinity to run through at Victory Road.

"Speedball" Mike Bailey def. Crazzy Steve by Disqualification

Steve immediately got himself suspended by attempting to gauge the eyes of Bailey in the corner before shoving the referee. This marked his first match since his sit-down interviews with Tom Hannifan, so it made sense that he'd be, well, crazy if that's the direction he's taking his character in. I'm definitely down for him getting a renewed singles push because he's been a non-factor for so long, and having him turn on his Decay partner Black Taurus gets that going.

Eric Young def. Kon

Hannifan mentioned on commentary that prior to this match, Kon had been pinned only once this year and it was back at No Surrender. I'll take his word for it, but I feel like he loses constantly and has been pinned more than that. Nonetheless, this was perfectly fine for what it was. They tried to make Kon look credible in defeat, but I just don't care about him or The Design (assuming that's still a thing). Hopefully this means Young can finally move on to something new.

Chris Sabin def. Impact World Tag Team Champion Zachary Wentz

The rematch between Lio Rush and Sabin is inevitable, but that feud's being put on hold while Kushida challenges Rush for the Impact X-Division Championship at Victory Feud and The Motor City Machine Guns set their sights on The Rascalz. Alex Shelley already didn't defend his Impact World Championship at Emergence, so I'm not a fan of him not defending for a second straight event. As for this match, it was as entertaining as you'd expect, with Sabin's win apparently being enough to earn him and Shelley a shot at the Impact World Tag Team Championship at Victory Road.

Tommy Dreamer Challenged Impact Digital Media Champion Kenny King to a Title vs. Career Match at Victory Road

I often say that Dreamer does not need to be a regular part of the show at this stage of his career, and his feud with Bully Ray lasted way longer than it needed to, but it would be sad if he did indeed retire at Victory Road. He mentioned it'll be in the same building he saw his first wrestling show in, so I suppose it'd be fitting. He was the first wrestler I ever met back in 2008 and we've talked several times since then. He's a genuinely dude. This was a good segment to set that match up and both guys played their roles well, but Dreamer in particular was great.

Jake Something, IWGP World Heavyweight Champion SANADA and Frankie Kazarian def. Brian Myers, Moose and Eddie Edwards

This was similar to the multi-man tag team match we got at Emergence in terms of its layout, but at least it was equally enjoyable and didn't last as long. It felt like most main events we've gotten on Raw recently in that it didn't really accomplish anything storyline-wise, but everyone had their time to shine and worked well together and the crowd was into the action. It's cool that SANADA stuck around for this and I liked Something picking up the win for his team.

Overall Show

We had Multiverse United two weeks ago, Emergence last weekend, and Victory Road next Friday. That's in addition to the thousandth episode of IMPACT! Wrestling airing in two weeks. There's a lot to be excited about if you're an IMPACT fan, but some stuff is bound to get lost in the shuffle. For example, they had to put together a Victory Road card quickly on this episode, and they did as effective of a job as they could in building it up. This was a solid effort on the whole.

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