IMPACT! Wrestling Review - June 17, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

TJP def. Black Taurus

From a storyline standpoint, I'm not really sure why this match happened other than to set up TJP and Fallah Bahh vs. Decay for a future episode. That said, it was a quality opener. I was expecting a little more given that both guys are great, but what we got was good. The tag team division needs more teams, so TJP leaving the X-Division for the foreseeable future to reunite with Bahh makes sense. Moose came out afterward and laid out TJP and Bahh, which led to the return of Chris Sabin. They'll go one-on-one at Slammiversary. It makes sense since Moose previously put Sabin on the shelf, but Sabin isn't a main event player in IMPACT, so it doesn't feel Slammiversary worthy. Hey, I guess it's an improvement over Tommy Dreamer, who Moose faced at least year's installment.

Impact X-Division Champion Josh Alexander def. Madman Fulton (Non-Title)

Fulton went after Alexander last week, so this was a logical way to follow that up. We don't see Fulton in action a ton, which is why I'm surprised he loses clean as often as he does. I mean, Ace Austin attacked Alexander immediately afterward, so could they not have had him do that before Fulton ate the pinfall loss? Other than that, this was a pretty good match. We found out that Alexander will defend the Impact X-Division Championship in an Ultimate X matchup at Slammiversary.

Steve Maclin def. Jason Page

Maclin is the former Steve Cutler from WWE. He was in NXT for the longest time before being called up to SmackDown last year and eventually released, but I honestly haven't seen too much of what he's capable of on this own. He always screamed generic to me, but I'm glad he's at least getting a chance in IMPACT. He had a solid showing here and I liked the aggression he showed. Hopefully we'll find out more about him in the weeks to come.

Tenille Dashwood def. Rachael Ellering

Dashwood beat Jordynne Grace in a damn good match at Against All Odds. This was equally enjoyable and received an ample amount of time to boot. I thought Ellering would win to tell the story that she could get a win against Dashwood when Grace couldn't, but I liked how Dashwood won instead to keep her momentum rolling. I just don't know where she goes from here considering she faced Deonna Purrazzo for the Impact Knockouts Championship a few months ago and lost. As for Ellering and Grace, they're clearly headed for a split.

Satoshi Kojima def. Impact World Tag Team Champion Rhino

Kojima is 50 and Rhino is 45, yet this was a fun match and not nearly as slow as you'd expect. They made the most of the time they had and the stipulation gave it more meaning. With the win, Kojima and Eddie Edwards will now be able to fight for Violent By Design's Impact World Tag Team Championship on next week's episode. I'm surprised they're doing it next week and not saving it for Slammiversary, but maybe they have something else in store for the pay-per-view.

Tommy Dreamer Fired Don Callis

The hook throughout the show was what would happen to Callis, who "fired" Sami Callihan at Against All Odds. It was said that Anthem was sending a representative to the building to deal with the situation, which ended up being Tommy Dreamer. I like the dude, but that was disappointing. I was hoping for a bigger name and someone who isn't on the show almost every week, but I can see how it makes sense given the role he's played in the Callis and Scott D'Amore drama in recent months. The end result, as we all expected, was Callis getting "fired" as an executive from IMPACT. I don't think he's had that role in real life for a while, so it was only inevitable. With Callihan officially reinstated, he'll be fighting Kenny Omega for the Impact World Championship at Slammiversary. I get the sense that the AEW/IMPACT angle is about to wrap up and that's where Omega will drop the title.

Overall Show

Not everyone is going to feel this way, but in my opinion, IMPACT has done an excellent job on their end with this Omega and Callis angle, making it the most important thing on the show and keeping me hooked from week to week. Callis getting canned as an executive was certainly notable and sets up the big Slammiversary main event. We got two other Slammiversary announcements on this show (Ultimate X and Moose vs. Sabin) as well as hype for next week. Everything made sense and it continued the streak of solid episodes of IMPACT! Wrestling. I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the card for Slammiversary will end up looking like.

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