Andrew’s Impact Wrestling Sacrifice Results & Match Ratings: 3.13.2021

World title unification main event tonight at Sacrifice! FinJuice tries to take the tag belts back to the New Japan Cup and Ace Austin wants to prove he’s inevitable. What goes down tonight in Impact land?

Aside from the title matches which don’t need extra hype we get to see if Brian Myers has anything left up his sleeve for a Hold Harmless match; and with Violent By Design working with two of the most accomplished Impact veterans, one has to think something big could come from this.

Get your Steiner Match ready, and let’s root on Moose (cause you know he’ll need it since Rich is probably going over), and enjoy Sacrifice!

Ratings:

• Decay (Crazzy Steve & Black Taurus) w/Rosemary vs Reno Scum: Taurus wins via Rodeo Driver – ***
• Havok & Nevaeh vs Kaleb & Tenille Dashwood: Tenille wins via Double Legged Cradle – * ½
• Violent By Design (Joe Doering & Deaner) w/Eric Young vs Beer Guns w/Jake Something: VBD wins via GORE – *** ¼
• Hold Harmless Match: Eddie Edwards vs Brian Myers: Eddie wins via Loaded Boston Knee Party – *** ¼
• Knockouts Tag Team Titles: Jordynne Grace & Jazz vs Fire N Flava (c): Kiera retains via Face the Music – ***
• X Division Championship: TJP (c) vs Ace Austin w/Madman Fulton: Ace wins via The Fold – *** ¾ – TITLE CHANGE!!
• Knockouts Championship: Deonna Purrazzo w/Kimber & Susan (c) vs ODB: Deonna retains via Venus de Milo – ***
• Impact World Tag Team Titles: FinJuice vs The Good Brothers: FinJuice wins via Doomsday Device – *** ¾ – TITLE CHANGE!!!
• TNA & Impact World Heavyweight Title Unification: Rich Swan (c) vs Moose (c):  Rich wins via Crucifix Jacknife Cradle – **** ¼ – TITLE UNIFICATION!!

Results:

Decay (Crazzy Steve & Black Taurus) w/Rosemary vs Reno Scum

Steve and Thornstowe started things off and Steve has done a great job showing off his in-ring ability as more than just a gimmick guy. Reno Scum felt like they were on the backfoot the entire match, until Luster seemed to ding up Taurus a little bit. Taurus started favoring his right arm before hitting an Escalera Twisting Body Press to get Steve back in the match.

Steve never stopped moving, strikes, sliding Flatliners, and good motion. It wasn’t until a poorly planned Plancha from Steve, that Luster caught him and we saw Rosemary get involved. She popped herself through the corner section tos stop Luster from ramming Steve and green misted him. A few quick strikes on Thornstowe, Cannonball followed by the Rodeo Driver and Decay win!

Pretty solid opener.

Havok & Nevaeh vs Kaleb & Tenille Dashwood

Nevaeh and Tenille actually started off pretty decently going back and forth, but the match did start to fall apart a bit. Kaleb would miss too high in some spots, he’d interfere and the referee  was looking right at him but ignores it and the finish was a mess.

The idea was there with Kaleb baiting in Havok to be able to reverse Nevaeh’s cradle so Tenille was on top. But it took a second, the referee reacted very slowly, and Tenille wrenched back a little late; so it just looked really awkward.

Whereas the match told a decent story, the execution was messy throughout.

Violent By Design (Joe Doering & Deaner) w/Eric Young vs Beer Guns w/Jake Something

Deaner and Sabin had a great start here. Deaner shows more of his technical ability mixed with the tough dirty shortcuts, and it’s much better than trucker caps and bad jokes. Doering did a great job at just being the muscle and we didn’t see him too often in the match. Doering did always make his presence felt though, especially after the skin the cat spot by Storm and Doering just lays him out with a lariat.

After Sabin and Storm hit a Perfectly Savage combo, we saw the Running Cross Body from Doering and Deaner hit the Diving Headbutt for a near fall. We eventually get the seconds involved when Brian Hebner gets wiped out, EY tries to Piledrive Sabin, but Jake takes his head off. A bit of a scuffle on the outside, VBD gets the best of it and slowly ascend the apron like SHIELD.

Rhino comes running out, we haven’t seen him in a few months. It looks like he’s charging at the ropes to take out a VBD member, but he slingshots and Gores Sabin! Deaner covers for the win!

Rhino is Violent By Design.

Hold Harmless Match: Eddie Edwards vs Brian Myers

The early dynamic was interesting given that Myers’ is “the most professional wrestler”. Because Eddie was dominating in the ring early, but once the ring steps and weapons got introduced, Myers started to take over.

Big bumps from both, we saw the return of Kenny the kendo stick, Myers was clever acting like he was trying to go under the ring to hide; but he just baited Eddie to grab for him, so he pulled Eddie into the apron. Hernandez came out to try and cash in on whatever Myers paid him for, but Matt Cardona equalizes things, hits Radio Silence on Hernandez to take him out.

The back and forth continues, Myers goes back to the reference from the guest referee match, grabs the object to load his elbow pad – but Eddie fires up. Return strikes, release Tiger Driver and the object is on the ground. Eddie sees it, loads his knee pad and connects with Boston Knee Party!

Knockouts Tag Team Titles: Jordynne Grace & Jazz vs Fire N Flava (c)

We got the expected dynamic from this match with Jazz and Jordynne overpowering the champions and generally taking advantage of situations well. But Fire N Flava did something they haven’t done much in previous bigger matches and that’s work through trouble with good tandem spots.

We saw a lot of help, a Stomp/Backstabber combo, multiple kick combinations that turned into a pinning predicament and things started to catch up with Jazz and Jordynne. The lack of team chemistry or time together bit them as Kiera managed to hit Face the Music on Jordynne to retain.

Pretty damn decent match on in-ring merits.

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

Madman Fulton played a little bit of an early difference maker, but for the better portion of this match, it was clean and very X Division.

Ace dominates the in-ring action until TJP gets some space, hits a Crossbody and starts finding different ways to work on the knee. TJP had the Knee Bar locked in multiple times, but Ace wouldn’t tap out. It wasn’t really until TJP went to the top rope for the Mamba Splash, and Ace put the referee in the way, that Ace had a clear path to victory.

Even if he didn’t immediately take control, TJP was suddenly rushed, misses a few moves, attempts the Knee Bar again but fails. Ace clocks him, and hits The Fold fairly suddenly. It was a really well done match, typical X Division style where there’s a lot of high spot action, TJP added the technical aspect and it was just really great to watch.

Knockouts Championship: Deonna Purrazzo w/Kimber & Susan (c) vs ODB

Early on we had a great game of cat and mouse. Deonna tried to trip up ODB early and go for the arm, but she retreats, Deonna got rocked by the big chest bump and retreated to the ropes to bait ODB for the previously mentioned attempt.

Once Susan and Kimber tried to get involved, the referee eventually saw things and kicked out Susan and Kimber instead of disqualifying anyone. ODB took the brief reprieve to slowly get some gas back and tackle Deonna down, but Deonna kept hunting for a limb. ODB got most of her moves in, but Deonna was clever and always looking for her moves.

Instead of the Dirty Dozen, Deonna retreats out of the corner, ODB feeds in and Deonna finally catches her. Gets ODB down, slaps on the Venus de Milo and ODB verbally submits.

Impact World Tag Team Titles: FinJuice vs The Good Brothers

We had a great story told in the ring, and D’lo added to it well on commentary, even using The Rock’s “Know your role and shut your mouth” line to get across a point.

The Good Brothers didn’t take the match seriously, but they did a great job at spending a good amount of time smacking Finlay around like a St. Patrick’s Day piñata. Much like his New Japan Cup match, Finlay does a good job at selling and bumping for his opponent, just to try and make a desperation play to stabilize. Our Bullet Club bald bros were doing great, until Juice got tagged in and tagged both Karl and Gallows with the Left Hand of God.

A Hart Foundation Backbreaker/Elbow got a near fall, but the Brothers almost pulled the victory off in spite of their own arrogance. Magic Killer was thwarted, Gun Stun was blocked, LG got wiped out, so we see the Electric Chair set up and FinJuice hits the Doomsday Device for the victory!

While the workrate didn’t set the world on fire, the story telling and pacing was pretty enjoyable. FinJuice winning I saw coming, but comes off as a big upset and the look on LG’s face was priceless.

FinJuice are the NEW IMPACT World Tag Team Champions. #Sacrifice pic.twitter.com/UPtdpv2cYv

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) March 14, 2021

TNA & Impact World Heavyweight Title Unification: Rich Swan (c) vs Moose (c)

Rich kicked off with a John Woo, and Moose returned with power, he nearly hit Go to Hell, but Rich countered. A little bit of counter punching sent them to the outside, and we got a lot of Moose catching Swann’s early high flying attempts, but Swann would always slip out before Moose could turn it into something. Rich drove Moose in 3 of the 4 ring posts, which rocked Moose early, and it took Moose popping up Rich and Hot Shotting him across the top rope to gain any level of space to breathe again.

The levels of psychology were actually really nice in this match. Moose was getting frustrated and fell back into old habits, much like EC3 did when Moose fought him to change his narrative. On top of that, the fact that Rich used the ring posts, Moose made sure to get a measure of revenge with the barricade and a very memeable reaction of Rich having his hair pulled within the barricade bars and twisted about.

The two big highlight reel spots are after Moose Pump Kick countered Rich’s Lethal Injection, he ran to the corner to do his Triangle Moonsault, but Rich reacted by hitting the ropes for an Oscutter, so we had a beautifully timed RKO style counter spot. Then after Rich fought Moose off the top rope, Rich was getting ready for something, but Moose leaps up, grabs Rich for an Avalanche Moonsault Slam which looked gorgeous. Just really nice big spots mixed within a tough match where both wanted to win, but Rich seemed to have a strategy where Moose was more and more frustrated as the match went on.

This gets punctuated with Moose forcing the Lights Out three times. Rich plays possum and it ends up in the corner where Moose put a chair early before the Brian Hebner talked sense into him. After eating the chair, Rich went for the Sunset Flip, but Moose resisted, powered Rich up, but Rich wasn’t havin that. Rich counters Moose with a Crucifix, then adjusts the pinfall into a Jacknife and barely holds Moose for the 3 count!

Looks like spoilers and conventional story logic prevailed in this one. Great match, just well, the wrong guy won.

Overall Score: 8/10

With the exception of one match, nothing scored below a 3. Hell even the one match still did what it was supposed to since we all knew a match with Kaleb and Tenille would be personality and story driven, not really a World of Sport banger.

Rhino joined VBD, Jazz and Jordynne probably start down the slope of feuding, Deonna looks unbeatable, Rich gets to job to Kenny next month and the Good Brothers should have Japanese plane tickets in the future to go chase their titles down.

Good matches, good stories, a lot of meat left on bones to get us to Rebellion at the very least; so really there ain’t no reason to be mad at this show. Yes Moose should’ve won. But if it follows what I was saying a few articles ago, Moose will be the one to win the Impact belt off of Kenny. So Mr. Impact Wrestling can play hero instead of American Psycho anti-hero.