We get another fairly stacked week of TV specials or actual PPVs! Impact, AEW and WWE tried their hand at some bigger shows, and of course I went digging for some gold in Japan. So let’s see what I was able to come up with!

As usual, first we need to address last week’s vote. I’m happy that this match didn’t get lost in the collective outbursts of the main event, but, NJPW Dominion: NEVER Openweight Championship: Shingo Takagi (c) vs SHO, moves into the July pool for possible MOTY contenders! That puts two New Japan matches into the pool, so I guess you can say that people are happy that NJPW are running shows again.

Now let’s see where we stand this week!

Quick Top 5:

1. Impact Slammiversary: Vacant Impact World Championship 5 Way: Eric Young vs Ace Austin vs Trey vs Rich Swann vs Eddie Edwards
   Rating: **** 1/2
2. NXT: Double Championship Match: Keith Lee (c) vs Dominik Dijakovic
   Rating: ****
3. Impact Slammiversary: Motor City Machine Guns vs The Rascalz (Dez & Wentz)
   Rating: ****
4. NOAH Stay Together Forever!: Naomichi Marufuji & Keiji Mutoh vs Kaito Kiyomiya & Go Shiozaki
   Rating: *** 3/4
5. AJPW Chiba Extra Dream 24: AJPW World Tag Team Championship: Violence Giant (Shuji Ishikawa & SUWAMA) (c) vs Yankee Two Kenju (Isami Kodaka & Yuki Miyamoto)
   Rating: *** 3/4
6. NXT: NXT Women’s Championship: Tegan Nox vs Io Shirai (c)
   Rating: *** 3/4

Honorable Mentions:

• Impact Slammiversary: Knockouts Championship: Jordynne Grace (c) vs Deonna Purrazzo
  Rating: *** 1/2
• WWE Horror Show Extreme Rules: WWE Championship: Drew McIntyre (c) vs Dolph Ziggler
  Rating: *** 1/4
• AJPW Chiba Extra Dream 24: Akira Francesco & Kento Miyahara vs Hokuto Omori & Kuma Arashi
  Rating: *** 1/4
• NOAH Stay Together Forever!: KONGO (Kenoh, Nio, Haoh, Masa Kitamiya & Manabu Soya) vs Sugiura-Gun (Takashi Sugiura, Kaz Hayashi, NOSAWA Rongai, Kendo Kashin & Kazushi Sakuraba)
  Rating: *** 1/4
• AJPW Chiba Extra Dream 24: Hair vs Hair Match: Yusuke Okada vs Seigo Tachibana
  Rating: *** 1/4
• Impact Slammiversary: Old School Rules TNA Heavyweight Championship: Moose (c) vs Tommy Dreamer
  Rating: *** 1/4
• WWE Horror Show Extreme Rules: SmackDown Women’s Championship: Nikki Cross vs Bayley (c)
  Rating: ***
• AEW Fight for the Fallen: AEW Heavyweight Championship: Brian Cage vs Jon Moxley (c)
  Rating: ***
• WWE SmackDown: Intercontinental Championship: Matt Riddle vs AJ Styles (c)
  Rating: ***
• NOAH Stay Together Forever!: 3v3 Elimination Match: Stinger (HAYATA, Kotaro Suzuki & Yoshinari Ogawa) vs Daisuke Harada, Tadasuke & YO-HEY
  Rating: ***
• Impact Slammiversary: Impact Tag Team Championship: The North (Ethan Page & Josh Alexander) (c) vs Ken Shamrock & Sami Callihan
  Rating: ***
• WWE Horror Show Extreme Rules: SmackDown Tag Team Championship Tables Match: New Day (c) vs Cesaro & Shinsuke Nakamura
  Rating: ***
• IMPACT!: Rosemary, Taya Valkyrie, Kiera Hogan, Tasha Steelz & Kimber Lee vs Havok, Nevaeh, Susie, Kylie Rae & Alisha Edwards
  Rating: ***
• NOAH Stay Together Forever!: Full Throttle (Atsushi Kotoge, Seiki Yoshioka & Hajime Ohara) vs Katsuhiko Nakajima, Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi
  Rating: ***
• Impact Slammiversary: Knockout’s Gauntlet: Tasha Steelz vs Kylie Rae vs Taya Valkyrie vs Havok vs Katie Forbes vs Madison Rayne vs Kiera Hogan vs Rosemary vs Susie vs Nevaeh vs Alisha Edwards vs Kimber Lee
  Rating: ***
• WWE Horror Show Extreme Rules: Raw Women’s Championship: Asuka (c) vs Sasha Banks
  Rating: ***

4t. NXT: NXT Women’s Championship: Tegan Nox vs Io Shirai (c)

From Mitchell’s Coverage:

Tegan is beside herself but the crowd rallies up. Tegan CHOPS Shirai, and CHOPS and then rallies with clotheslines! She brings Shirai back up to whip, but Shirai reverses. Shirai runs in, Tegan goes up and over to uppercut back! Tegan sits Shirai down, runs and CANNON-BOARS! Shirai staggers while Tegan climbs, FLYING CROSSBODY! Cover, TWO!! Tegan wants to try again to make Kane proud! Choke grip, CHOKE SLAM! Cover, TWO!?! Shirai survives and Tegan doesn’t know what to make of it! Shirai crawls away but Tegan glares at her. Tegan runs in, corner uppercut! Tegan goes corner to corner, for another! And then corner to corner again, but Shirai dodges! Shirai waistlocks to CORNER GERMAN SUPLEX!

The crowd is thunderous again as Shirai goes corner to corner, SHINKANSEN! Shirai puts Tegan on the ropes, for the TIGER FEINT KICK! Tegan flounders, Shirai climbs up and leaps, missile dropkick! Tegan is in a daze as Shirai covers, TWO!! Tegan will not die! The crowd will not stop rallying, either, and both women slowly rise. Shirai drags Tegan into the underhooks but Tegan fights out to mule kick the bad leg! GOURD BUSTER! Tegan hurries up top as Shirai rises, MOLLY-GO-ROUND!! Cover, TWO!?!? The best moves of Tegan’s role models haven’t been enough, but she still has something of her own! SHINIEST- SHOTEI!! Then DESCENT INTO DARKNESS!! The Asai Moonsault hits, Shirai covers, Shirai wins!

Winner: Io via Moonsault

4t. AJPW Chiba Extra Dream 24: AJPW World Tag Team Championship: Violence Giant (Shuji Ishikawa & SUWAMA) (c) vs Yankee Two Kenju (Isami Kodaka & Yuki Miyamoto)

From My Results:

So initially the size difference is staggering to the point where you’d have to expect shenanigans or a surprise cradle/flash pin for Violence Giant to lose. Which funnily enough, Yankee Two Kenju focus heavily on Shuji’s left leg to bring the big man down to size. Miyamoto shows off a few interesting ways to set up submissions, including a back handspring, that instead of going into a back elbow, he extends for a drop toehold and manages to grapevine the worked over leg. Be it a save or a botch, it looked cool and was smart with the story of the match.

We saw Kodaka counter out of the Splash Mountain multiple times, once flipping through and hitting a Shining Wizard, and another time with a Sunset Flip pinfall attempt. After a tandem Meteora/Diving Knee, it looked like Yankee Two would pick up the upset, but SUWAMA broke it up. Shuji managed to hit the elusive Splash Mountain, but only for a near fall, having to bring out the big guns with the Giant Slam.

Winner: Ishikawa via Giant Slam

4t. NOAH Stay Together Forever!: Naomichi Marufuji & Keiji Mutoh vs Kaito Kiyomiya & Go Shiozaki

From My Results:

So it’s nice to see that Dad Jokes/Grandpa Humor is the same even in Japan. After starting against Kaito, Mutoh powders out to regain his bearings and sees the newer addition NOAH has made to commentary in the form of Jurina (some may remember when she did guest stuff for NJPW, Japanese Pop Idol who really likes wrestling). So Mutoh goes over to her to do the M Alliance finger symbol. This makes sense because a few weeks ago they claimed that if your name ends with, starts with or has an M in it, you’re part of the Alliance. Jurina’s last name is Matsui. So Mutoh gets cute and you see him motion to the ring and say “touch”, which in broken English wrestling direction is tag in, and nothing untoward. It was just an amusing interaction that really made me realize how similar dad humor is, the old “Get in there, you’re on my team” kind of vibe.

Aside from that, this was pretty awesome at setting things up. Mutoh and Kaito have a nice chemistry that will hopefully get better when Kaito remembers the leg Mutoh kicks is the one that goes back, not that you fall to. But Marufuji looked like one hell of a threat. Even with Shiozaki brushing off Marufuji’s chops and having his echo with every slap, Marufuji put together some great offense.

The corner combination into a flurry of Thrust Kicks + KO-OH attacks was nice. Plus Mutoh and Maurfuji showed decent tag chemistry doing a Shining Wizard/KO-OH combination on Go, followed by a KO-OH/Dragon Screw to Kaito’s right knee, before Mutoh locked him in the figure four.

Plus winning with the close range hammerlock variant of the KO-OH looked pretty damn effective.

Winner: Marufuji via True Tiger King

2t. Impact Slammiversary: Motor City Machine Guns vs The Rascalz (Dez & Wentz)

From My Results:

Rascalz issue the open challenge, and the Guns answer the challenge! This was a fun match, where it wasn’t classic MCMG, but it told the story of the current team dominating early and showing off a lot moves the Guns used to do. But as the match continued, you saw the Guns slowly start coming together.

A few tandem spots gave MCMG a way back into the match, but once Wentz tagged in Dez we saw a whole new level of athleticism. Shelley proved he learned from Kevin Nash during the Paparazzi Productions days since he was on a whole different level of arrogance. We saw some classic tandem moves from the Guns, including the Cravat/Sliding Dropkick combo. Guns finish things off with Dirt Bomb, and that seems promising. Promising from the angle of, I doubt the Guns would win if it was a one off.

Winner: MCMG via Dirt Bomb

2t. NXT: Double Championship Match: Keith Lee (c) vs Dominik Dijakovic

From Mitchell’s Coverage:

Keith drags Dijakovic up, puts him in a corner and hoists him to the top rope. The crowd rallies as Keith CHOPS Dijakovic then climbs up to join him. Keith sits Dijakovic up with a choke grip, but Dijakovic throws body shots back. Dijakovic headbutts Keith again and again, and again and again, until Keith flops to the mat! Dijakovic steadies himself, adjusts his position, and Keith stands for Dijakovic’s FLYING BLOCKBUSTER!! TWO!! Dijakovic keeps going, with a BOOT and rolling elbow! Dijakovic runs to spin, CYCLONE BOOT! Cover, TWO!! Dijakovic stays focused as he goes back up top. Dijakovic aims at “Keith Lee! Woop Woop!” and he leaps into GRIZZLY MAGNUM!

Lee pops Dijakovic up for the LIMITLESS SPINE BUSTER! Keith fires up, drags Dijakovic into a fireman’s carry, but Dijakovic elbows away. It’s not enough! BIG BANG CATASTROPHE!! Cover, Keith wins!!

Winner: Keith Lee via Big Bang Catastrophe

1. Impact Slammiversary: Vacant Impact World Championship 5 Way: Eric Young vs Ace Austin vs Trey vs Rich Swann vs Eddie Edwards

From My Results:

Anyway, so we get the originally scheduled five way, with an actual surprise. Then it turns into an old fashioned TNA X Division “oh my god moves and I’m covering my head”, kind of match. Trey tried to focus on Ace, but Fulton managed to make his presence known. So in a rare display of competence, we see a referee take control of the situation. He ejected Fulton and said if Fulton didn’t leave, he’d eliminate Ace. So Ace quickly made Fulton comply cause he can’t throw this chance away.

Again, this was an X Division style match, so there’s more moves than you can shake a stick at. EY hits the Piledriver on Trey to make sure his dumbass was eliminated first. Now hopefully he never sniffs the World title picture until he puts some bass in his voice and stops using potatoes and eggs in promos. Seriously, who signed off on that?

Eddie has Ace on the top turnbuckle, but EY rams Rich into them causing them to fly off into a nicely placed table. EY hits The Edge of Sanity, but this isn’t WWE, so that’s not a finish. Rich plays dead to counter two attempts at the Piledriver, and on the third attempt, he cradles EY for the flash win. This causes EY to get enraged and he snaps. Beating Rich with a chair, wrapping it around his ankle to re-injure the ankle he just returned from and just be an evil bastard heel.

Ace being an opportunistic heel takes advantage of the situation. Rich does a good job putting up a fight with one leg, but falls to The Fold. Which then leaves us with Eddie and Ace, the first really big feud that Ace had when he was trying to bang Alisha. Some great moments here, Ace kicks out of a Boston Knee Party, Eddie kicks out of a Fold; so both men need to go deeper into the playbook.

Eddie catches Ace with another Knee Party, and pulls out a move I haven’t seen him do since his run as GHC Heavyweight Champion, the Diehard Flowsion! Eddie Edwards is the new champion!

Winner: Eddie Edwards via Diehard Flowsion

Thoughts:

My main thoughts are really a lot of what has been echoed through Twitter, Impact Wrestling brought a hell of a show, and deserve praise and credit. They managed to secure some solid free agents, nice veterans from the infancy of TNA and put on a coherent show (a few technical hiccups aside). With all that said, the main event of Slammiversary was a great match, told a great story and gave everyone something to strive for.

If you’re pressed for time and need to catch up on shows, watch Slammiversary, it was the best show of the week; and in my opinion, the best PPV of the year so far.