IMPACT! Wrestling Review - February 2, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Bullet Club (Ace Austin and Chris Bey) def. Kushida and Kevin Knight

Both of these teams picked up wins last week and also have history from last year's NJPW Super Junior Tag League. Kushida and Knight work really well together and although I'd like to see Kushida positioned more as a singles star, I'll take Kushida in anything if it means him sticking around in IMPACT for a little while. This was an enjoyable opener with the right outcome as Austin and Bey are seemingly being built up for another opportunity at the Impact World Tag Team Championship.

Gisele Shaw def. Savannah Evans

Evans blamed Shaw for Tasha Steelz walking out of IMPACT. Shaw's new gimmick is that she has killed several of IMPACT's women's tag teams including The Influence, VXT and now Steelz and Shaw. She's calling herself "The Black Widow" of IMPACT and I think that nickname works for her, especially after her interaction with Tara last week. I haven't seen anything special in Evans so far, so unsurprisingly, this was a mediocre match.

Crazzy Steve def. Sheldon Jean

This was a standard squash for Steve. It lasted about two minutes and was pretty much what you'd expect with Steve mostly on offense. This existed so Steve could get a win before he presumably challenges Trey Miguel for the Impact X-Division Championship. Speaking of Miguel, he ran in afterward, but Steve thwarted his attack. That seems like a likely match for No Surrender, though it hasn't been officially announced.

Tommy Dreamer Saved Impact Knockouts World Champion Mickie James From Bully Ray and The Good Hands

I thought the stuff with Bully and James would be limited to the six-person tag team match from two weeks ago, but apparently not. That said, I'm perfectly fine with it because it's clearly building to Bully and Masha Slamovich (who James is defending against at No Surrender and Bully courted backstage later in the show) against Dreamer and James on IMPACT! Wrestling before No Surrender. The only thing I don't like is that Bully and Dreamer are feuding in 2023, but I guess it makes sense after what happened at Hard to Kill. This was a solid segment to progress the storyline.

Kenny King def. Johnny Swinger

This was even more of a squash than Steve vs. Jean earlier in the episode as this was even shorter. However, I'm not complaining because Swinger is obviously a comedy character and it would have been ridiculous for King to have a competitive match with him. King is coming off his Pit Fight loss to Mike Bailey, so this helped him get back on track. Post-match, he made it clear he has his sights set on gold but didn't specifiy which championship.

The Design (Deaner, Kon and Angels) and Callihan def. Impact World Champion Josh Alexander, Rich Swann, Frankie Kazarian and Yuya Uemura

The Design have done nothing to prove themselves so far, so it was imperative they won here and thus this was the correct outcome. That said, the group shouldn't be anywhere near the main event. Callihan's involvement helps, but Deaner, Kon and even Angels aren't at that level in my opinion. This received plenty of time and featured some star power (by IMPACT standards), but I couldn't get into it, personally. It was a well-worked match, if nothing else.

Overall Show

I'm looking forward to Alexander vs. Swann at No Surrender, but that main event accomplished nothing for them other than to kill time in the build to their match. The rest of the show was serviceable, but after a string of stronger episodes coming out of Hard to Kill, this was an off week. The opener was easily the best bout of the night. At least the card for No Surrender is coming together nicely.

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