IMPACT! Wrestling Review - August 9, 2019

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Impact X-Division Champion Jake Crist def. Aiden Price

I would have held off on doing this match until Price was built up a bit more. Going into this match, many fans felt Price had zero chance of capturing the championship because we know nothing about the guy. Despite that, he had a strong showing and contested a quality matchup with Crist. It helped that the Canadian crowd was behind him throughout, making this a very enjoyable opener.

Ace Austin def. Eddie Edwards by Disqualification

This was less of a match and more of an opportunity for Edwards to exact revenge on Austin for him hitting on his wife a few weeks ago. Edwards had the matchup won before Austin started taunting him about Alisha, causing Edwards to lose his cool (if he ever had it to begin with) and get himself disqualified. Why is so Alisha so concerned about Austin? Doesn't she know he's a dirtbag? Why she didn't just answer Eddie's question about whether she was with Austin? Couples can be confusing, man,

Madison Rayne def. Alexia Nicole

Nicole had a run-in with Rayne and Kiera Hogan backstage on last week's episode. Josh Mathews discussed her background beforehand, but I can't say anything she did particularly impressed me. The match was perfectly fine but largely served as a showcase for Rayne. Meanwhile, Kiera Hogan did very well on commentary and I've been loving her new heel character. She and Rayne seemed to be on the same page during their beatdown of Nicole afterward before Jordynne Grace made the save.

Impact Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie vs. Havok Ended in a No Contest

I'm not sure who the fans were supposed to cheer for here with both of these women being heels, but it did play out exactly how I figured it would with Valkyrie trying to dodge Havok and Havok ultimately dominating most of the match. Su Yung "returned" and confronted Havok, so the contest was thrown out. I understand why Yung would want to get back at Havok for what happened between them, but that's not a feud that excites me in the slightest.

Stone Rockwell vs. Nate Madsen Ended in a No Contest; Rhino and Michael Elgin Brawled

You had to know this match wasn't going to end well for either one of these men when neither of them received televised entrances. It was incredibly random, so random that it was obvious someone would interfere at some point. Sure enough, Rhino emerged to lay out both Rockwell and Madsen before calling out Elgin. Their brawl was great and honestly made me look forward to an eventual match between them, even though I still feel like it's a small step down for Elgin after recently competing for the Impact World Championship.

Impact World Tag Team Champions The North def. Ortiz and Daga

It's a shame Santana is out injured at the moment (I'm not positive whether that's legitimate or not), but Daga was definitely a worthy replacement. He didn't have a ton of charisma from what I saw in Lucha Underground, but he seems to be a much more well-rounded performer these days. This was a very fun main event and The North continue to deliver every time the titles are on the line. This also marked the second time they've headlined IMPACT! as World Tag Team Champions in the last month alone. Now it's just a matter of finding more competition for them.

Overall Show

With three championships up for grabs, I'd consider this a newsworthy edition of IMPACT! Wrestling, even though none of them changed hands. I really liked the main event and the opener and thought everything else filled the television time nicely. Several feuds were furthered and, as always, matches were announced for next week's show. Props to IMPACT for putting together a real solid show.