IMPACT wrestling Turning Point gets a late start, but we’ve got 5 title matches! The main event is a Full Metal Mayhem (TLC) match for the World Championship! Does Moose retain in his first defense?

You know we’ve got quite a number of title matches, but I’m honestly starting off salty that this show is starting at 10pm eastern. Yes yes, first world problems because most PPVs start at like 2am in the UK, I know, I know. But it just sets things off on the wrong foot.

Let’s just get to the card and see if anything really gets shaken up as we get close to the end of the year!

Ratings:

• Ace Austin vs Chris Sabin: Sabin wins via Cradle Shock – ***
• Violent By Design (Eric Young & Joe Doering) vs Heath & Rhino: VBD win via Casey Jones Mask – ** ¼
• VSK w/Zicky Dice vs Rich Swann w/Willie Mack: Swann wins via Phoenix Splash – ** ¾
• Massive Cassidy vs Matt Cardona: Cassidy wins via Moose’s Lights Out – ***
• Knockouts World Tag Team Title: The IInspiration (c) vs Decay: IInspiration retain via Feet on Ropes Cradle – *
• X Division Championship: Trey Miguel (c) vs Steve Maclin vs Laredo Kid: Trey retains via Meteora – ***
• Knockouts Championship: Mickie James (c) vs Mercedes Martinez: Mickie retains via Mick DDT – *** ¼
• World Tag Team Championship: The Good Brothers (c) vs Bullet Club (Hikuleo & Chris Bey w/ELP): Good Brothers retains via Rope Trip – **
• Full Metal Mayhem: Impact World Championship: Moose (c) vs Eddie Edwards: Moose retains via Lights Out – ****

Results:

Ace Austin vs Chris Sabin

The early going is very much Ace trying to get in Sabin’s head while they both go for counters and slip outs before Sabin gets the best of Ace with a Rolling Arm Drag, which Ace powders, Fulton makes sure Ace can’t get dove on but Sabin just hits the Soccer Ball Kick from the apron to Ace’s chest.

Sabin keeps the pressure up after the kick, but Ace eventually turns the tide with a middle rope Flatliner, Which is a little more impress since he missed his footing and did it basically on one leg. The match becomes more competitive with Sabin coming back after absorbing a few attacks and really rocking Ace. Ace eats multiple strikes, Powerbombs and Sabin even tries for Cradle Shock but it’s blocked. A stereo spot happens where both hit Enzuigiris laying both men out for a little. Sabin charges, Ace starts utilizing his speed and athleticism to dodge and land kicks from different angles.

Ace hits a few Fold set up moves, but tries a pinfall before the Fold. He even hits a Springboard Triangle Fame-Asser, but Sabin kicks out at two. Ace goes back to the ropes, Sabin counters with a Superplex and tries to put some offense together. But once Sabin goes back to the ropes, Fulton makes his presence felt and Ace takes advantage. Lucky for Sabin he blocks Ace’s attack and wipes out Fulton.

Fulton doesn’t stay down, throws in the “I Beat Chris Sabin” shirt, while the referee is distracted, Fulton grabs Sabin to get clotheslined by the ropes. Ace puts the shirt on, tries to go for a big punctuation mark, but Chris counters, Cradle Shock, and Sabin wins!

Violent By Design (Eric Young & Joe Doering) vs Heath & Rhino

Rhino and Doering start off, it’s fairly even, but Rhino’s early intensity gives him an advantage. Heath comes in and keeps on top of Doering, so we get a brief view of Doering in distress…but then Deaner picks the ankle. After a small pause, the referee throws out Deaner to cheers from the crowd, but Doering has recovered and takes Heath’s head off once he turns to face his opponent after the throw out.

Eric Young finally comes in, and they beat on Heath. Young seemingly wants nothing to do with Rhino, maybe not out of fear but more out of disinterest. The disrespect is real, and VBD do a great job at keeping Heath isolated even during small openings. But finally, Doering misses his Reverse Elbow, EY tries to stop Heath from tagging out but Heath kicks him off and Rhino gets the hot tag. EY tries one more attempt at mind games, Rhino cleans house. Heath misses in the corner and posts himself, so when Rhino almost has things handled, Eric Young hits Rhino with the Casey Jones mask and picks up the win for VBD.

VSK w/Zicky Dice vs Rich Swann w/Willie Mack

This was a match built off of Brian Myers just being a dweeb and avoiding conflict. But the fun thing here is that Rich Swann was VSK’s first opponent a few months ago during this Learning Tree story. That match lastest maybe 4 minutes. So we see a lot of growth from their first match.

VSK fights back, lands a few high impact moves and actually puts Rich on the back foot. Some thanks can be given to Zicky Dice’s interference, but it’s still fairly competitive. VSK’s closest nearfall came from when Rich was getting back in the ring, a Hanging Codebreaker or something looked cool. After that though, Rich ran circles around the kid. Rolling Thunders, Lethal Injection, Five Star Frog Splash and then Phoenix Splash ends things, giving Rich the win.

Massive Cassidy vs Matt Cardona

Cassidy throws his power advantage around for the first few moves before Cardona finally finds a few ways to use Dropkicks, Enzuigiris and Wrecking Ball Dropkicks to shake up the big man. Cassidy powders and grabs Cardona through the ropes, pulls him out, and just bounces his skull off the floor and the steps. Punctuates it all after getting back in the ring and hitting a Running Big Boot into Cardona’s head spilling him back out through the ropes.

Cardona beats the 10 count and gets mugged. A brief chance with a Missile Dropkick, but Cassidy keeps beating on Cardona. Every time Cardona gets a move or two in, Cassidy just counters and tosses Cardona into the lights. Cardona moves though, and Casisdy crashes into the corner, eats a Reboot and gets sent out. That was enough time to regroup, as Cassidy uses the ring as a weapon and then lands a Chokeslam right onto the apron before rushes him into the ring and getting a near fall.

Radio Silence first attempt, misses and then Cassidy slams Cardona into the referee. Cardona hits Radio Silence for the visible pinfall, but no referee. As Cardona goes to check on the referee, Moose hits the ring, Lights Out on Cardona, and then Cassidy gets the pinfall thanks to Moose.

Knockouts World Tag Team Title: The IInspiration (c) vs Decay

Decay attack as soon as the bell rings, and it takes the IInspiration a little bit of time to get some offense, but when they do, it’s not bad. Great tandem spots from the Aussies, including a kind of cool Double Footstomp to Rosemary’s previous injured arm.

This definitely wasn’t a believable match when Havok is twice the size of all the other competitors, but The IInspiration found shortcuts and retained with assisted feet on the ropes pinfall. So the match won’t win any awards, but hopefully it gets them away from Decay. IInspirations personality and charm kept this match moving, because Rosemary and Havok just haven’t been good wrestlers most of this year. Rosemary ain’t what she used to be since the knee surgery.

X Division Championship: Trey Miguel (c) vs Steve Maclin vs Laredo Kid

Well this goes the normal way Triple Threats do, everyone does stuff early, then it gets boiled down to moments of 1v1. Maclin cuts off Trey at multiple times with grounded counters to aerial attempts, and then when Laredo gets time with Trey it’s more of a Lucha/Cruiserweight style we expect.

Laredo kits gets a nearfall after hitting a Poison Rana on Maclin, then the Laredo Fly on Trey. Laredo kid really starts taking over the match after being dismissed early on as the odd man out. Laredo starts focusing on Maclin, 450 into knees, Mayhem for All on Laredo Kid, Trey hits the Diving Meteora and then goes for the Double Pin. Maclin gets his shoulder up at 2, but Laredo doesn’t so the referee keeps counting even though technically that should be contact to break up a pinfall. Trey retains but is mad he didn’t break Maclin’s “Un-pinned and Un-submitted” streak.

Knockouts Championship: Mickie James (c) vs Mercedes Martinez

This match had a really quick pace to it. Mickie hit a few Split Kicks, a few fast strikes and then Mercedes came back nicely and it was a lot of trading blows. Mercedes had a really big chance after the Spider German Suplex sent Mickie crashing.

Mercedes goes for what appears to be a Surfboard/Romero Stretch, Mickie blocks, tries a few times for the Mick DDT, after a few blocks she finally hits it and retains!

Deonna runs in immediately, beats down Mickie and enacts her rematch clause for Hard to Kill.

World Tag Team Championship: The Good Brothers (c) vs Bullet Club (Hikuleo & Chris Bey w/ELP)

Chris Bey and Karl Anderson start off, and Bey really starts off with more speed than Karl can handle. Leap Frogs, Drop Toe Holds, quick moves and some solid showboating give Bullet Club an early advantage. But Bey takes it too far when he comes back in, Gallows gets brought in and Bey finds a way out pretty quickly. Hikuleo puts the boots to Gallows real quick, Bey wants back in and then he gets rag dolled.

After Hikuleo hits a Running Power Slam, Bey looks to end things in style. He goes to the middle rope for either an Art of Finesse or maybe a Lionsault and gets tripped up in the ropes. Bey crashes, and the Good Brother take advantage for 3 and steal the win.

Josh Alexander hits the ring to air some frustrations, discuss that he’ll watch the main event and then Jonah’s tron and music play, he hits the ring and starts dismantling Josh. I personally don’t care about fka Bronson Reed, but we’ll see if anything comes from this. They definitely gave him the monster entrance treatment though.

Full Metal Mayhem: Impact World Championship: Moose (c) vs Eddie Edwards

Match starts with a flurry of Forearms, into Chops and they are both just taking it to one another. It feels very much like a puroresu match. A contest of toughness, and then more high impact moves start slowing down the speed but keeps the aggression going. Moose charges at Eddie, Eddie Backdrops him over the ropes and through a table that wasn’t in the camera shot. So the surprise of the table being there was kinda cool.

Eddie uses a trash can next, they go in the ring then Eddie dumps Moose back out. Eddie tries the Dive, but Moose catches his with a cookie sheet. But it only stalls Eddie and he goes for the Dive again. Eddie lights up Moose with a few cookie sheets, Eddie charges and Moose catches him, Powerbomb onto the ramp. Moose starts throwing Eddie around a little until Eddie catches Moose and Death Valley Driver’s him into the apron.

The shots are very back and forth, one eats the apron, and then the other pays it back. I mean Moose Apron Powerbombs Eddie before Powerbombing him through a table, so they really are doing a great job at matching one another with the weapons. Double tables, double apron, multiple cookie sheets and this has been rough.

Moose tries to Powerbomb Eddie through the ladders, but Eddie blocks and drops a Senton through Moose and the ladder. Then they climb up and Eddie hits the Tiger Driver from the ladder. Eddie grabs a chain, wraps it around his knee like he did against Cassidy for the Boston Knee Party. Moose blocks, then drops Eddie, goes for Lights Out, but Eddie blocks and controls Moose down as he peppers in knee strikes with the chain. One more Knee Party attempt, Moose catches him, Powerbombs him into the Ladder and Eddie bounces off the ladder and hits a short Knee Party. Moose kicks out, they both powder exhausted, grab kendo sticks and we get a samurai duel!

Kendo sticks for everyone, when they both fall down Massive Cassidy comes out, Big Boot then he holds Eddie for the Lights Out and Brian Hebner is reluctant to count. And due to the stall, Matt Cardona comes out to pull Hebner out of the ring. Moose is irate, Eddie regains his composure, hits a Kobashi Style DDT when Moose turns, for a near fall!

Moose is still down and Eddie goes to get a pair of scissors, cuts the chords holding the apron and tarp down and he’s exposing the wood under the mat. Eddie is taking a long time exposing the ring, so it’s hard to believe this will work out well for Eddie. They struggle, Eddie goes for the Tiger Driver, Moose blocks, Moose goes for the Uranage, Eddie blocks. Moose catches Eddie, hits the Uranage on the exposed wood, then we get Lights Out to retain!

Overall Score: 6/10

Let me lead with saying, NO MORE 10 PM Eastern start times! It’s nearly 1 am and I don’t really want to be typing. So I’m taking points off for an awful start time and frankly a mediocre show that just had a really entertaining main event.

The thing I liked the most, was how they kept a thread moving in the show itself without needing the previous weeks of TV to make it make sense. Moose helping W. Morrissey become number one contender shows he may be an asshole, but he’s good to his word. Morrissey coming out in the main to repay the favor continues the “honor amongst thieves” concept. Cardona sticking his nose in because he got screwed earlier is also logical. Also Maclin getting his moral victory of still not officially eating a fall was a good way to keep stories moving.

But really the rest of the matches felt a little rushed or lame. Mickie and Mercedes I feel was less than 10 minutes. IInspiration and Decay was hard to watch, though IInspiration tried to make it at least entertaining. VBD was just a stock filler match to keep the feud going and The Good Brothers won in such a lame fashion it killed the rhythm the match had going.

So either way, the main event was great and the opening match was pretty fun. But the rest was pretty damn forgettable. Made me stay up past midnight for this? Pfft…poor form Impact, poor form.