IMPACT! Wrestling Review - March 23, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo def. Jazz (Non-Title)

Jazz is better limited in tag team matches at this stage of her career, but she's proven she can still hold her own in singles matches as well. It helps whenever she has a quality opponent and she definitely did here with Purrazzo. There wasn't a ton to the match, but I'm curious if they'll back to it since Purrazzo cheated to beat her. If Jazz isn't next in line for a shot, then I'm not sure who would be since she's already beaten almost everyone else who's relevant in the Knockouts division.

TJP def. X-Division Champion Ace Austin by Disqualification

These two had a killer match at Sacrifice, so I wasn't at all surprised they had another excellent match here. The disqualification was obviously disappointing, but it made sense in order to keep the feud alive and protect TJP in defeat. Ace had a really fun run as X-Division Champion in 2019-2020, so I hope he can have similar success this time around. This is the type of match I'm looking forward to seeing him have more of.

Rohit Raju def. Fallah Bahh

Raju is fresh off his split from Shera, so it was logical to re-establish him as a credible singles competitor. Bahh is perfect in the comedy role and his matches are always serviceable, so this was decent for what it was with Raju beating him relatively quickly. Fingers crossed Raju ends up in another story soon because he turned a ton of heads while X-Division Champion and should remain relevant.

AEW World Champion Kenny Omega and Don Callis Addressed Impact World Champion Rich Swann

This marked Omega's first appearance in the ring on an episode of IMPACT! Wrestling. Remember, during the buildup to Hard to Kill, he only ever appeared in his trailer and in backstage segments, so this was cool. Omega and Callis are a money pairing and I love how Omega emphasized that no one kicks out of the One-Winged Angel (even though Kota Ibushi did a few years ago and it'd be amazing if Ibushi pops up one of these days and reminds him of that). Swann vs. Omega already had a big fight feel on paper, but the hype so far for the Rebellion main event has been terrific.

Trey Miguel def. Acey Romero

Miguel was fuming coming off his loss to Sami Callihan last week and XXXL were the first people to bother him backstage. I like XXXL, but they don't need to be protected on their own and thus I was fine with Miguel putting Romero away in a matter of minutes. Interestingly enough, Callihan saved Miguel from getting attacked afterward, so we'll see where that goes. Even if they do wind up teaming, I hope it's short-lived because Miguel just got out of a team with The Rascalz.

Karl Anderson def. Eddie Edwards

Both of these guys are great, but this felt like a random main event. Even the X-Division title match had more of a story behind it, but I understand not wanting to close the show with that because it ended in a disqualification. That said, Anderson winning and then being mocked by FinJuice on the big screen wasn't a very exciting ending, either. At the very least, this was an entertaining encounter. I don't know what you do with Edwards now that he's wrapped up his rivalry with Brian Myers.

Overall Show

Aside from the anticlimactic conclusion, this was another rock solid edition of IMPACT! Wrestling. Anderson vs. Edwards and Austin vs. TJP were two quality matches, the Omega appearance was notable, and the other matches were what they needed to be. We also got effective storyline progression as well matches advertised for next week (per usual), so I was left satisfied. More eyes will be on Rebellion than most IMPACT pay-per-views because of Omega's involvement, so I hope they go all out and put together a stacked card.