IMPACT! Wrestling Review - September 29, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Taya Valkyrie and Rosemary def. Nevaeh and Havoc

It's cool to see Valkyrie and Rosemary working as a team. If it continues, I can definitely see a case being made for why the Knockouts Tag Team Championship should return. I was never fan of the titles, but IMPACT has more women's tag teams now than ever before, so I would understand them being brought back. Unfortunately, the match itself wasn't great. It solely existed to set up Valkyrie and Rosemary against Kiera Hogan and Tasha Steelz, who attacked the babyfaces afterward.

Jordynne Grace def. Tenille Dashwood

I'm surprised IMPACT didn't waste any time to do the rematch, but I guess it was done on purpose so a rubber match could happen at Saturday's Victory Road special. This was damn good stuff and on par with their original encounter. Grace was more aggressive than usual and looked like she had something to prove, which she did after suffering some significant losses lately. Their upcoming clash at Victory Road should be just as physical.

The Good Brothers def. The Rascalz (Dez and Wentz)

As fun as The Rascalz are, my biggest issue with their matches is that they never seem to win whenever it matters most. They always look good in defeat, but if they can't win, it gets more and more difficult for viewers to take them seriously in situations like this. On the bright side, this was a nice little sprint with both teams having excellent showings. The Good Brothers are building a strong case for why they should be next in line for a shot at the Impact World Tag Team Championship.

Fallah Bahh def. Johnny Swinger

The winner of this match would earn the right to be John E. Bravo's best man in his wedding with Rosemary. I guess Miro wasn't available? In all seriousness, this was exactly what I expected it to be in that it was pure comedy filler. It didn't last longer than it needed to, so I can't complain. Swinger won originally, but Bravo had the matchup restarted after he spotted Swinger cheating from ringside.

Ken Shamrock Attacked Eddie Edwards

If you watched IMPACT! Wrestling all the way through last week, you would've seen Edwards get attacked as he was leaving the building. The big question coming into this show was who did it. Sami Callihan denied doing it so many times that you had to know he had something to do with it, and sure enough, it was revealed he apparently instructed (or something) Shamrock to attack Edwards before doing the same thing here. Callihan was seemingly a babyface in his recent rivalry with Rob Van Dam, and Shamrock was a babyface the last time we saw him at Slammiversary, so this came completely out of nowhere to me.

The North def. Ace Austin and Madman Fulton

​We had the battle of the babyfaces in the tag team division earlier in the evening, so it was only fitting that the two top heel teams in IMPACT faced off on the same show. It was wise to put this in the main event slot because it wound up being the better bout. The heel vs. heel dynamic hardly mattered as they beat the crap out of each other, delivered a hard-hitting match and made every minute matter. Austin and Fulton need some notable wins as a team, but I understood The North winning coming off their loss of the Impact World Tag Team Championship two months ago and subsequent failure to regain them.

Overall Show

I give IMPACT plenty of credit for building up Saturday's Victory Road special extremely well these past two weeks and making it feel like it's an important event ahead of Bound for Glory in late October. I don't normally check out the Impact Plus specials, but I may watch that one. This edition of IMPACT! Wrestling succeeded as a go-home show for that event and was a breeze on the whole. Some of the stuff in the middle was questionable, particularly Shamrock going after Edwards, but otherwise, this was an easy thumbs-up episode.