IMPACT! Wrestling Review - July 14, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Impact World Champion Josh Alexander and The Motor City Machine Guns def. Violent By Design (Eric Young, Joe Doering and Deaner)

We got a variation of this match last month when Alexander teamed with The Briscoes against all of Violent By Design and this was equally entertaining if not better. Everyone had their time to shine, the action was fast-paced and exciting, and they furthered teased tension within the ranks of Violent By Design. It was announced later that Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin will go one-on-one next week to determine the number one contender to the Impact World Championship at Emergence, which sounds amazing.

Steve Maclin def. James Storm

Maclin has killed it with pretty much every match he's had in IMPACT over the last year, and when he's up against an opponent the caliber of Storm, you can expect an enjoyable outing. Sure enough, that's exactly what this was. It wasn't on the same level as the opener, but both guys worked hard and delivered a very good match. It's nice to see Storm sticking around in IMPACT for a little longer, but this might have been his swan song for now.

Chelsea Green def. Mickie James

The kisses these two exchanged early on were obviously inspired by James' iconic storyline with Trish Stratus, which the commentators even acknowledged. What's interesting is that Green has gone on record in interviews saying they wanted to do this same storyline in WWE and now we're seeing it play out in IMPACT. At any rate, this was a top-notch match and probably Green's best in IMPACT. While I wish it was saved for one of the live specials, they had a hell of a television match and Green winning allows them to come back to this down the road.

Masha Slamovich def. Tenille Dashwood

Slamovich put Dashwood on notice a few weeks ago. Dashwood was easily the most credible competition Slamovich has faced since re-debuting in IMPACT, so I figured this would last a little longer than your average Slamovich squash. Obviously, that was not the case. Slamovich beat her as quickly as she would any other enhancement talent, which was impressive. They're really making Slamovich out to be a dominant force, so it's going to mean something when she eventually enters the Impact Knockouts World Championship picture.

Honor No More (Eddie Edwards, Kenny King, Matt Taven and Mike Bennett) def. Bullet Club (Impact World Tag Team Champions The Good Brothers, Ace Austin and Chris Bey)

Coming off their recent losses at Slammiversary and Against All Odds, this was a must-win situation for Honor No More. Honor No More and Bullet Club have established issues from a few months ago and this was a slight variation on their other encounters with Austin replacing Jay White. We see so many multi-man matches on IMPACT! Wrestling nowadays that this largely followed that same formula, but it was fun and there was never a dull moment. I'd like to see Taven and Bennett get an opportunity at the Impact World Tag Team Championship coming out of this.

Overall Show

IMPACT! Wrestling is consistently strong from an in-ring standpoint, but this episode in particular was just terrific. The only match that wasn't above-average was the squash for obvious reasons, and even that was effective in building up Slamovich. This was a wonderful show that had a lot of stuff that piqued my interest and had me hooked throughout. It's arguably the best weekly wrestling show from start to finish each week and this edition once again reinforced that.

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