TNA Impact Wrestling Review - December 8, 2016

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Drew Galloway Confronted Impact Grand Champion Moose​

It's good to see Galloway back on TV after a long layoff. He was just starting to hit his stride as a heel when he was injured prior to Bound for Glory. He was a bit over-the-top at certain points here, but I suppose that's part of his heel shtick, so it was a solid promo on the whole. Aron Rex coming out to interrupt both men made sense given his history with Galloway and it was a nice transition into him invoking his championship rematch clause against Moose.


Impact Grand Champion Moose def. Aron Rex

Of course, their initial encounter where Moose won the championship was a mere minute long, so this was an obvious improvement, but I actually enjoyed this match. Rex came across as more aggressive than we have seen him since coming to TNA, and Moose sold well for his offense despite having the size advantage. Now that Rex's rematch is already out of the way, I wonder what's next for him in TNA. So far, despite becoming the inaugural Impact Grand Champion, I'd say his tenure in TNA has been a bust. His character just has yet to click with me.

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Mandrews def. Aiden O'Shea

What a weird match to do coming off Mandrews' heel turn last week. The crowd was quiet for this match and understandably so, because there was no one for them to cheer here. The David vs. Goliath dynamic would have worked better had Mandrews not just turned, and we didn't hear anything from his former friends DJ Z or Braxton Sutter. That was also very odd. By the way, there was a hilarious edit during O'Shea's entrance where you hear Josh Mathews say, "The enforcer..." and then "from Chicago!" is immediately edited in because he was once the enforcer for Billy Corgan, who is now gone from the company. Something similar happened during Matt Hardy's promo later on, too, when he was talking about various wrestling promoters. Only in TNA.


Mahabli Shera and Al Snow def. The Tribunal in a Double Strap Match

Strap matches are bad enough, but they're even worse in TNA because the ring has six sides. And this one was a tag team match, so both members of the team had to touch all the corners. It didn't help that I currently could not care less about this feud. Ugh. This lasted longer than it needed to, but on the bright side, I'm hoping Shera and Snow (what a rub he gets from emerging victorious in this match!) brutalizing The Tribunal and winning as decisively as he did means the program can mercifully come to an end.


Gregory Shane Helms and Decay Interrupted World Tag Team Champions The Broken Hardyz

This "Total Nonstop Deletion" episode coming up next week has me pumped for what we might see, and if it's anything like Final Deletion, Delete or Decay, or The Great War, then it should be a blast. It was only logical to add The Helms Dynasty and Decay to the tag title mix considering they're among TNA's last remaining tandems, and I hope we see The Broken Hardyz enter a rivalry with The Helms Dynasty at some point because those matches could be a lot of fun.


Allie def. Laurel Van Ness

If Allie has been training in wrestling in storyline, why didn't she bother to wear actual gear here? At any rate, I like how they explained Allie all of a sudden knowing how to wrestle by saying she had been training with Sutter and she could have been training this entire time. Thus, this was a nice little match, and now that Allie appears to finally be on the same level as the rest of the Knockouts, she can become a full-fledged part of the Knockouts division. Her in-ring experience as Cherry Bomb should lead her to the title in no time, and I hope she's the one to eventually take the title from Rosemary.


TNA World Heavyweight Champion Eddie Edwards vs. Ethan Carter III Ended in a Draw

TNA always does an excellent job of giving their world title matches a big fight feel and that definitely came across for this matchup. I could be wrong, but these two had never done battle before one-on-one, so that sense of freshness certainly added to it as well. The early goings were a bit slow, but once they picked up the pace in the second half of the bout, it was entertaining. My gut feeling was that EC3 would turn heel to regain the gold, and that still might happen considering the non-finish. I don't know why they wouldn't have just restarted the match, but it does keep the feud alive for a few more weeks at the very least.


Overall Show

Once again, TNA delivered a quality edition of Impact Wrestling featuring a very well-wrestled main event title match, a cute angle with Allie, and strong build for next week's Total Nonstop Deletion special, which I am anxiously anticipating. Mandrews vs. O'Shea was strange, and the Double Strap match didn't do much for me, but the good outweighed the bad on this show in my opinion.