Andrew’s Impact Wrestling Results & Match Ratings: 3.23.2021

Impact Wrestling is promoting having Don Callis and Kenny Omega on the show tonight, an X Division Championship rematch and an announcement for who will be James Storm’s 1000th match for the company!

With a bunch of matches and set ups that feel like they’re purely building blocks, this could be more of a filler episode. I suppose one interesting thing could be seeing how the Good Brothers and Kenny Omega interact now that they lost the tag titles.

Either way, Johnny Swinger shows off that NWA aren’t the only ones that can do campy and throwback!

Try your luck at Swinger's Palace. #IMPACTonAXSTV @swinger_johnny @MrsAIPAlisha @JohnEBravo1st pic.twitter.com/PcndBJ2ztS

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) March 24, 2021

Ratings:

• BTI: Alisha Edwards vs Tasha Steelz w/Kiera Hogan: Tasha wins via The Drop – * ¾
• Deonna Purrazzo w/Susan vs Jazz w/Jordynne Grace: Deonna wins via Roll-Up – ***
• X Division Championship: Ace Austin w/Madman Fulton (c) vs TJP: TJP wins via DQ – ** ¾
• Rohit Raju vs Fallah Bahh: Rohit wins via Roll-Up w/ Tights – **
• Acey Romero w/Larry D vs Trey Miguel: Trey wins via Meteora – *
• Karl Anderson w/Doc Gallows vs Eddie Edwards: Anderson wins via Spinebuster – ***

Results:

BTI: Alisha Edwards vs Tasha Steelz w/Kiera Hogan

Now I’m not always home in time to catch BTI, but I caught the back half with the match. This match did a good job at showing Alisha’s improvements as a wrestler, but she’s still not even in the same stratosphere as Tasha and Kiera (who many consider to be weak wrestlers in their own respect).

A few early spots were clunky, but when Alisha made a little comeback after dipping through the ropes to hit a School Boy into a Sliding Flatliner, then a low corner turnbuckle Dropkick. Things were looking rocky for the champions until Kiera did slow Alisha down when she was going to the top rope, so Tasha got herself an advantage, then ended it with her Falcon Arrow she calls The Drop.

Deonna Purrazzo w/Susan vs Jazz w/Jordynne Grace

Jazz and Deonna play a little game feeling out early on, Jazz shows a few early slips from Deonna’s attempted mat techniques and quick submission attempts. Susan did make her annoyance known early and it distracted Jazz just enough a different points to give Deonna some nice advantage.

Trying the comeback, Jazz hits the X Factor and goes for the pin too close to the ropes, so Susan puts Deonna’s foot on the bottom rope. Jordynne comes over to try and enforce her dominance, Susan, sidesteps and she’s very proud of herself. Jazz reaches over, which causes some chaos, Deonna distracts the referee, Susan clocks Jazz with her shoe and Deonna gets the Roll-Up for the win!

.@TheEddieEdwards has made it clear @MachineGunKA and @The_BigLG are not welcome in the locker room and Decay are very amused. #IMPACTonAXSTV @WeAreRosemary @steveofcrazzy @Taurusoriginal pic.twitter.com/vHLDRUxan1

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) March 24, 2021

X Division Championship: Ace Austin w/Madman Fulton (c) vs TJP

We get some great counter punching action, early on trying to go move for move with one another. Big counters and big high flying moves turn the tide for each man. TJP does the Otani style Boot Wash, then he hits a Wrecking Ball Dropkick to the outside to try and take out Fulton.

Ace takes advantage of the small distraction; his face jam move leads to an attempt at The Fold. TJP catches him, Detonation Kick, Mamba Splash, and TJP is NEW – NOPE! Fulton slides in to break up the pin and obviously interfere to save Ace’s title.

Fulton then lays out TJP, both he and Ace look to beatdown TJP, but Josh Alexander comes out with a chair to make the save.

An alright match, far from their last match, but it’s obviously building to a bigger angle.

.@TheMattCardona has challenged @Myers_Wrestling to a match! #IMPACTonAXSTV pic.twitter.com/en3cM8fcL0

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) March 24, 2021

Rohit Raju vs Fallah Bahh

We saw this get set up earlier in the show when Rohit found Fallah living in the studio because he’s lost all his money at Swinger’s Palace. So Rohit poked the Panda, and the Panda challenged him to a match.

Rohit does a great job staying a step ahead early on, but the size and power difference shows up when Rohit goes for a Top Wristlock for no real reason. Fallah has a nice advantage, pulls him into the corner for a BAHHnzai Drop, but Rohit moves, hits a Dragon Stomp, big jumping knee strike; when Rohit goes for another Knee, Fallah catches him, but Rohit slips it, dodges the sit down, rolls the big man up with the Crucifix and then pulls some tights as he adjusts his position in the Roll-Up.

Callis and Omega come out to cut their terrible long, droning, incessant promo. This is the equivalent of a verbal circle jerk, and just shows that Omega has the charisma and verbal capabilities of Sid Vicious. God this was insufferably self-absorbed and went on for literal ever. Then Omega proves how much of a nerd he is by quoting Thanos about the whole “Historic day for you but for me it was Tuesday” line.

Everything Callis did right last week in the promo with Rich, this was the complete opposite. This best part was when it was over.

"He was born Violent By Design, it's in his DNA." @TheEricYoung has reawakened the War Machine. #IMPACTonAXSTV pic.twitter.com/JbyTDwqQK2

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) March 24, 2021

Acey Romero w/Larry D vs Trey Miguel

Oh was I supposed to care or believe Trey was going to lose? XXXL hasn’t won much more than a free small fries on the McDonald’s Monopoly game in the last 6 months.

Acey had one cool spot where he countered a Springboard move by Pouncing Trey across the ring. Trey kicked out, stuff happened, he hit the Meteora, I fell asleep. Larry D did the usual “attack for heat” thing, but Sami Callihan shows up, makes the save for Trey and then disappears leaving his bat and Death Machine hat.

Getting to the Sami save spot was the only thing that mattered in this match, and at least that’s interesting.

Karl Anderson w/Doc Gallows vs Eddie Edwards

Hey look! It’s someone successful in Japan…and the Good Brothers!

This match sadly went the way I anticipated and that ruined whatever decent ring work went on. We see Gallows almost get involved early but Brian Hebner pulls out a chair and tells him to sit down and shut up. We see some solid back and forth, good rope running segments, Blue Thunder Bombs, Backpack Stunner, Enzuigiris, Gun Stun attempts, it was mostly what we expect.

But the rub came from Eddie trying the O’Connor Roll, Hebner takes a weird angle to see if Karl’s shoulders are down, so Karl kicks him off, toward the ropes and into Gallows with a chair. So a Chairshot plus a Spinebuster, pick up the win for Anderson.

An alright match, but the shenanigans finish was seen a mile away.

Overall Score: 5.5/10

Welp much like I feared, this was the definition of a filler show. Deonna got a cheap win over Jazz, so that could continue, Tenille is stirring the pot with Havok and Nevaeh, Sami and Trey have a new layer to their dynamic and Ace wins in such a way that you have to figure TJP is going to deserve another shot. This show set the table for how the story players will align moving toward Rebellion, but on its own merit, it’s insanely weak.

Also the fact that the Callis & Omega promo was God awful doesn’t help. I also realized how apropos the verbal circle jerk comment I made was, when they said something like “69 me” a few weeks ago, and now this. It’s just annoying since Callis knows how to cut promos, last week was great, his part today wasn’t exactly trash, but Omega added nothing and made the quality “drastic go down”, if you know what I mean.

While there are some fun storytelling elements, this episode was entirely unnecessary.