With Sacrifice behind us, Impact Wrestling is on the road to Rebellion! New unified champion Rich Swann will celebrate a little, a 12 Knockouts tag match and Sami Callihan will try to prove to Trey that he can’t cut it!

There’s a lot of possibilities available tonight with a few titles changing hands at Sacrifice, and you have to assume we’ll find out the next ImpactPlus App event before Rebellion. So much to think about, and hopefully we get some answers!

Oh look, here’s a little clarity on the X Division!

The challengers are lining up for @The_Ace_Austin – with @MegaTJP up first next week. #IMPACTonAXSTV @Walking_Weapon @DashingChrisBey pic.twitter.com/Ut8wyjvhDp

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) March 17, 2021

Ratings:

• XXXL vs FinJuice: Finlay wins via Acid Drop – ** ¼
• Violent By Design (Rhino w/Joe Doering, Eric Young & Deaner) vs Jake Something w/Chris Sabin & James Storm: Rhino wins via Gore – N/A
• Rohit Raju vs Shera: Rohit wins via Dirty Pin – ** ½
• Tenille Dashwood w/Kaleb, Kiera Hogan, Tasha Steelz, Deonna Purrazzo, Susan & Kimber Lee vs Jordynne Grace, Jazz, Nevaeh, Havok, ODB & Alisha Edwards: Jazz wins via STF – ***
• Sami Callihan vs Trey Miguel: Sami wins via Package Piledriver – *** ½

Results:

XXXL vs FinJuice

As much as I love the gimmicky camera shake in the XXXL entrance, they aren’t a formidable tag team. Finlay and Juice gave a little bit, Acey used his size to just not move during some tandem move attempts; but divide and conquer worked wonders. Juice wiped out Acey and Finlay hit the Acid Drop on Larry D for the warm up win!

The Good Brothers come out, blaming each other a little and then saying they weren’t prepared cause they were busy.  Finlay and Juice retort back with Finlay punctuating it nicely.

.@MachineGunKA and @The_BigLG will get their rematch against FinJuice on April 24th at #IMPACTRebellion! #IMPACTonAXSTV @ScottDAmore pic.twitter.com/3Fal8qI7nz

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) March 17, 2021

Violent By Design (Rhino w/Joe Doering, Eric Young & Deaner) vs Jake Something w/Chris Sabin & James Storm

So this was purely a beat down spot dressed as a match. Jake and Rhino started off okay enough, but very quickly Deaner hops on the apron, Jake knocks him down, Sabin and Storm start fighting EY and Doering, then as Jake turns around he eats a GORE!

VBD beat the holy hell out of our 3 babyfaces and stand tall going into the commercial.

The name @TenilleDashwood and The Followers doesn't seem to be going down so well. #IMPACTonAXSTV @DeonnaPurrazzo @Kimber_Lee90 @realsuyung @RealTSteelz @HoganKnowsBest3 pic.twitter.com/8XQ7tcRNOf

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) March 17, 2021

Dammit, I wanna hear the quote now too!

Rohit Raju vs Shera

Rohit did a great job showing Shera’s inexperience in the ring. Shera is a powerhouse, but Rohit’s done a good job at billing himself as a counter puncher. Sure, Rohit got caught by a few big Lariats, a backbreaker. Rohit baited Shera into charging the corner, rolled him up and put his feet on the ropes.

Wiley Rohit continues to shine like the sun!

"You're a once in a decade talent, @KennyOmegamanX is a once in a millennium talent. You're a superstar Rich, but Kenny Omega – he's a god of pro wrestling." @TheDonCallis plans to make history again at #IMPACTRebellion! pic.twitter.com/f7mrtLdMw0

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) March 17, 2021

Callis’ promo was fantastic. It was old school where he told truths, put over Rich, but injected his bias. Plus his classical style music theme song made it feel like a scene from The Godfather.

Tenille Dashwood w/Kaleb, Kiera Hogan, Tasha Steelz, Deonna Purrazzo, Susan & Kimber Lee vs Jordynne Grace, Jazz, Nevaeh, Havok, ODB & Alisha Edwards

Alisha had her moments where she proved she’s learned a little more wrestling, probably not enough to pull off a competent singles match, but she’s gotten better. The only real stupid spot in this match was before the commercial Tasha and Jordynne were brawling, and then stop to Dive into the other 10. It’s just too stupid and cooperative for my liking.

Shenanigans ensue, as expected in a 500 person tag turmoil locomotion match. The finish isn’t bad where we get a big signature spam and it ends with Jazz tapping out Kimber with an STF. So after their brief in-ring interactions, we might be building to Jazz versus Deonna at Rebellion.

The match was entertaining, just a lot going on, but nothing was awful. Most of the gimmicks got a chance to shine.

Sami Callihan vs Trey Miguel

Trey rushes the ring, and we get to the brawling aspect that falls into Sami’s wheelhouse. This works well into story telling since Sami has been prodding at Trey for the last few weeks. Things go to the outside, and Sami tries to limit Trey by wedging his foot in the ring post stirrups and then trying to break it.

So with Trey getting progressively more banged up, Sami even applying a Boston Crab within the corner ropes, this was him trying to work through the punishment, both physical and mental. Trey had a nice flourish and goes to the top rope, most likely for the Meteora, but Brian Hebner was poorly positioned, which gave Sami enough time to use it to his advantage, grab Trey, and hit the Package Piledriver.

A pretty solid match, I just personally have no love for Trey. His lack of ring psychology just makes his moves spotty, he’s a dork and he’s really just like a Dollar Tree version of Ricochet.

Overall Score: 7.25/10

My feelings about Trey aside, this was an interesting episode. We found out that Hardcore Justice is the next app event on the 10th of April, The Good Brothers might want to take matters into their own hands with FinJuice doing a few Korakuens, Rohit and Sami are building nice mid card feuds away from titles to keep some things interesting. On top of that we had Don Callis’ promo school, even if I’m not a fan of Kenny Omega or the whole partnership execution so far, that promo was a masterwork.

Also not to be outshined, the Knockouts division isn’t clear, but that does make everyone seem fairly even. So things could really get interesting in the coming months.

Plus even if some didn’t like it, I appreciated protecting VBD as just doing the beatdown thing right now. It lengthens possible matches, and maybe gives an opportunity for a 4th to return to help Jake and Beer Guns, maybe Alex Shelley?

ANYWAY! Lots of good building blocks, intrigue, and reasons to tune in next week…ended with a solid main event. So no real complaints other than Trey still sucks.