IMPACT! Wrestling Review - November 17, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Black Taurus def. PJ Black in an Impact X-Division Championship Tournament Semifinal Match

I know Black won his quarterfinal match on Before The Impact, but since I don't watch that show, this was my first time seeing him in action in quite a while, probably since Ring of Honor shut down late last year. Longtime IMPACT fans will remember when he briefly appeared on this program in 2015 as part of the GFW "invasion." This wasn't much more than your typical spot-fest with no real story, but it did make for a nice opener.

Bullet Club (Ace Austin and Chris Bey) def. Aussie Open, The Motor City Machine Guns, and Raj Singh & Mahabali Shera in a Four-Way Tag Team Match

Although this wasn't a number one contender's match, you have to assume the winners will be next in line for an Impact World Tag Team Championship opportunity coming out of Bound for Glory. There wasn't really a reason for this match other than to showcase several of IMPACT's top teams (with the exception of Singh and Shera), but for what it was, I thought it was fun with everyone working well together. Let's get going with Austin and Bey, please. They've been spinning their wheels for some time.

Impact Knockouts World Tag Team Champion Taya Valkyrie def. Tasha Steelz

The Death Dollz will defend the Impact Knockouts World Tag Team Championship against Steelz and Savannah Evans at Overdrive, but do we know which two members of Death Dollz it will be or is it all three of them? I'm not a fan of the Jessicka crap in the slightest, so I hope it's Valkyrie and Rosemary representing their trio. At any rate, this was way too short to really mean anything and was essentially a waste of time. This was the usual booking of the women's tag titles and it wasn't overly interesting.

Steve Maclin def. Tommy Dreamer in an Old School Rules Match

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but it is absolutely unnecessary for Dreamer to be wrestling regularly on any major platform in 2022. Hardcore matches are apparently all he's good for and even this one wasn't all that great. That (attempted) diving elbow off the top (middle?) rope in particular looked awful. Yes, Maclin won as he should have, but honestly, does he gain much from it? Bully Ray and Tommy Dreamer emerged afterward and brawled to hype their match for Overdrive.

Rich Swann def. Laredo Kid

I'm curious what's next for Swann. He was briefly involved with Callihan and Young coming out of Bound for Glory, but he's already feuded with both of them in the past, so I have no desire to see those storylines revisited. He's won almost all of the titles in IMPACT and doesn't have much more to do, so he's stuck in a holding pattern for now. This merely existed to give him a win, but it was well wrestled for as long as it lasted.

Sami Callihan def. Eric Young in a Death Machine's Double Jeopardy Match

Per the stipulation, Callihan and Young had to make the other bleed before they could pin or submit them, and everybody was barred from ringside. This was basically the Old School Rules match from earlier but on steroids with far more blood, as you could imagine. It's not my cup of tea, personally, but if you like that sort of stuff, you probably enjoyed this more than I did. My biggest issue with it is that we've seen so many hardcore matches in IMPACT this year (specifically with Callihan) that they all eventually blend together and mean less and less with the more of them that are done.

Overall Show

This was a bizarre go-home show. Overdrive is tomorrow night and I can't say this show did anything to make me any more excited for the event than I was previously. It looks like a solid card on paper and I'm looking forward to Josh Alexander vs. Frankie Kazarian for the Impact World Championship, but that feels like it's taken a backseat to the Bully Ray stuff lately. This episode having two hardcore matches wasn't needed, so after a strong start, my interest faltered as it progressed.

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