TNA iMPACT! Review - June 6, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Jake Something def. Kon; Eric Young Addressed the Audienece

Kon isn't awful in the ring by any means, but he's incredibly boring and TNA has better big men on its roster (such as Something). It's also impossible to take the guy seriously when he loses almost every match he has. This was decent, but it felt like it only existed to set up Young saving Something afterward and addressing the audience on TNA iMPACT!'s 20th anniversary, which you could've done without the match.

Gisele Shaw def. Shazza McKenzie 

Shaw's last match took place back at No Surrender in February where she failed to win the TNA Knockouts World Championship from Jordynne Grace. There have been some interesting video packages in recent weeks where Gail Kim convinced her to come back and it looks like she'll be a babyface going forward. It's a role she's never been in before (at least in TNA), so it's worth a shot. This was a solid return for her. Now the question is if she can actually win when it matters most, which she hasn't been able to do in the past.

Speedball Mountain def. Champaign Singh and TNA X-Division Champion Mustafa Ali

Have I been misspelling Singh's first name as Champagne this whole time? Oops. Anyway, this was a logical match to do after Singh interfered in Trent Seven vs. Mike Bailey last month. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary about it, but it was well worked and Seven pinning Singh for the win was the correct outcome. Despite that, I still don't see Seven beating Ali for the TNA X-Division Championship at Against All Odds.

TNA Knockouts World Champion Jordynne Grace def. Allysin Kay

I thought this would be saved for Against All Odds when Kay attacked Grace a few weeks ago, but obviously not since they're advertising an open challenge for the championship on that show instead. That almost guarantees it will be a WWE/NXT talent answering the call. That made the outcome of this contest incredibly obvious, but they had a good match, nonetheless. By the way, is Grace the first person ever to wrestle on WWE TV and TNA TV in the same week? That's pretty cool.

A.J. Francis def. Laredo Kid to Win the TNA Digital Media Championship

Kid winning the Digital Media title when he did was random, but it makes sense in retrospect. He did next to nothing as champion, so it's clear he was meant to be a transitional champ to lose it to Francis. The match was whatever, but at least they kept it short and sweet. With the amount of exposure Francis has at the moment in TNA, MLW and the NWA (though I haven't seen him wrestle there since the one match he had a month or so ago), it's a no-brainer to put the undercard championship on him.

Nic Nemeth def. Frankie Kazarian

I love that we're getting all these first-time-ever matches with Nemeth against TNA talent. This was the enjoyable main event you'd expect from these two and it was fitting that Kazarian competed in the main event of iMPACT's 20th anniversary show. Post-match, The System laid out the Nemeth brothers as well as Joe Hendry. Matt Hardy didn't make the save (probably because Moose attacked him at the end of last week's episode), but he did send in a video inviting Moose to The Hardy Compound next Thursday.

Overall Show

This was billed as the 20th anniversary episode with iMPACT! premiering almost exactly two decades ago. It wasn't remotely as special as the two-week celebration for the 1,000th episode last fall, but the throwback graphics and music were nice touches. It was a thumbs-up episode between the main event, the title change and Grace vs. Kay. Mostly everything else served a purpose. I'm looking forward to seeing how the renewed attention on TNA thanks to the NXT partnership affects Against All Odds next Friday.

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