Andrew’s IMPACT Results & Match Ratings: 2.10.2022

Another episode with NJPW talent, ROH talent, WWE references and build towards the Moose vs Cass clash! What else happens tonight?!

ROH continues to have a presence be it flag bearers like Jonathan Gresham or Cary Silkin himself; and let’s not forget Honor No More…which still should be attributed a bit to the ROH brand. NJPW is in full effect with Jay White bringing G.o.D. to IMPACT, which should be interesting to see how that shakes out.

We’ve also got the Bhupinder Gujjar situation that might be turning into a decent initial undercard feud for the Indian sensation.

Let’s get to the show!

"These girls are BAD!"@JessicaMcKay @CassieLee @MadisonRayne @kalebKonley
#IMPACTonAXSTV pic.twitter.com/qcQddrxZ50

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) February 11, 2022

Ratings:

• Open Challenge: Deonna Purrazzo vs Santana Garrett: Purrazzo wins via Arm Capture Leg Clutch – **
• Chelsea Green vs Mickie James: Chelsea wins via DQ – **
• OGK w/ Honor No More vs Rhino & Rich Swann w/ Chris Sabin & Eddie Edwards: Taven wins via The Climax – ***
• NO DQ Match: Brian Myers w/The Learning Tree vs Massive Cassidy: Cassidy wins via BQE – ** ¾

Results:

Josh Alexander comes out to stake his claim. He feels like there’s more behind his lack of chances at the Heavyweight Championship. After about a 5 or 6 minute rant, he basically says he’s done waiting but then we hear music. Big Kon walks down to the ring (Konnor from the Ascension). Josh says he’s not waiting a week or any time, he wants the match now, demands a referee and taps out Konnor after taking a few early shots but barely working up a sweat.

Security comes down, Josh tosses them, Scott D’Amore hits the ring and Jos shoves him. Scott winces a little and the crowd chants that Scott deserved to eat the bump because of how he’s been jerking around Josh. More talking…Jesus. 15 minutes of talking just to get to the point where Josh is doubling down on his frustration and Scott takes him off the No Surrender team and tells Josh to go home until further notice.

15 God Damned Minutes though. Christ…too much talking. And then a recap off the commercial so we’re looking at 20 minutes into the show and no in-ring action. This is surpising since they don’t do this often…and hopefully they don’t do it again any time soon. Also don’t try to argue that Konnor crap Squash thing as anything more than a pause in all the talking. Big oof.

Open Challenge: Deonna Purrazzo vs Santana Garrett

Why does Garrett keep getting bookings? She’s aesthetically pleasing but she is a pretty terrible wrestler…but she chooses the ROH Women’s title for the open challenge.

Early on they keep things on the mat with some cradle counters and close action, because as soon as Santana tries to go the offensive, it looks…bad. She sells a dropkick off the apron pretty terribly as well. A few basic strikes followed by the Back Handspring from Santana takes us to a pinfall attempt, a poorly done Lucha hand hold break which Santana takes her sweet time floating it into a Chinlock . Everything Garret does that isn’t a basic strike or a gymnastic move, takes forever and looks bad. Deonna pulls out a Koji Clutch, Garrett turns it into a pinfall attempt, so Deonna kicks, Queens Gambit, blocked, a quick move and then an attempt off the top rope, Deonna catches her arm and tries to break it.

Garrett tries to fight back, Deonna transitions things into a Prawn Hold/Leg Clutch of sorts, but it looks awkward at best. Santana stayed limited as to not look TOO bad, but she’s really an embarrassment to how long she’s been in the business.

Chelsea Green vs Mickie James

Tasha Steelz is out on commentary for this match. The match itself is fairly paint by numbers, a lot of smiling from both since it’s supposed to be a “respect” match. Both faces have a few words for Tasha at commentary, and Chelsea decides to take the fun a little too far by using the Okurrr. Tasha takes offense, throws a trash can in the ring, then throws a trash bag in Chelsea’s face before Savannah trips her up and causes the disqualification.

Things are heating up between VBD and The Bullet Club and The Good Brothers were not far behind! @JayWhiteNZ, @Tama_Tonga, @TangaloaNJPW @DashingChrisBey @TheEricYoung @CodyDeaner @TheEricYoung @bigjoedoering @The_BigLG @MachineGunKA #IMPACTonAXSTV pic.twitter.com/fc1l9utZhw

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) February 11, 2022

We have more talking here after Bullet Club comes out. Jay White gets a huge pop and does most of the talking. He has a solid back and forth with Eric Young, but once the Good Brothers come out the mic goes to Tama and we see the perfect way to punctuate this segment. Tama and Jay are masters of the microphone and they carried all the important points to being one hell of a moment.

OGK w/Honor No More vs Rhino & Rich Swann w/ Chris Sabin & Eddie Edwards

Maria joins commentary and Tom makes a joke about having issues with her last name in the past. Taven starts off the match against Rich Swann and it’s pretty well done. Taven has started to win me over in the last few weeks sadly. The seconds at ring side get kicked out, and Bennet and Taven try to keep Rhino out of the match.

Rich shows a lot of resiliency and single handedly gets the team back into the match. Rhino gets a hot tag, but even though he runs Bennet into Taven, Maria gets out from commentary. Maria uses Mister Fuji’s Racist Salt! OH NO! Taven hits The Climax and OGK wins.

OGK harasses Cary Silkin, they look to attack him, but Steve Maclin’s music hits and he makes the save for Silkin. He drops Taven, Bennet retreats back into the ring, and a still recovering Rhino sees Bennet and turns him inside out with a Gore.

All of this was to get us to Maclin basically being Team Impact’s last option to fill Josh Alexander’s spot.

NO DQ Match: Brian Myers w/The Learning Tree vs Massive Cassidy

VSK and Zicky Dice try to attack Cassidy before he’s even down the ramp yet. Cassidy throws Myers around until Zicky and VSK get involved again. But this time VSK hits a Bicycle Knee and Myers chops down the big man with The Roster Cut!

Instead of pinning him, Myers and VSK decide more punishment is needed and tables are gotten! Zicky and VSK set them up outside, then Zicky is immediately put through his table. VSK and Myers seem to be a decent duo, but Cassidy eventually turns it around and VSK goes through his table.

This match was a lot of Myers finding an angle to catch the big man off balance. So Myers has a good portion of the match where he’s in control. He has Cassidy tied to the middle rope and he can’t get out of the corner. Myers pulls off the Coast to Coast with the trash can, and the only thing that really takes away from this is how Cassidy sells through the onslaught. It’s a little dumb looking to be honest.

Myers sets him free thinking he can get the pin, Cassidy kicks out, fires up and hits a BQE on Myers. But then he goes to get some tacks. Another BQE on the tacks, then he rolls Myers through, and one more BQE on the tacks!

Post-Match Moose hits the ring for the beatdown, which is fair since they’ve been trading mugging one another. Moose gives the big man the steel chair necklace and crashes into him with another chair a few times.

Overall Score: 5.5/10

This is one of the harder episodes for me to get through. It’s like they decided to funnel all of their talking and promo segments into the same episode so this felt really REALLY padded out with a lot of talking. Granted, I love the Bullet Club/VBD & Good Bros segment, The IInspiration are charming beyond words and I suppose with the Josh Alexander stuff it made sense, just too damn much talking. Gisele Shaw didn’t really come off great in that first promo. She looked more like someone trying to believe what they’re saying instead of a diva bitch. Also the Maclin stuff was awkward at times, a lot of people who aren’t used to the “acting” aspect of wrestling were way too visible in some of these pieces.

So not outright awful, just a lot of things I personally don’t like and this episode had me watching the clock more often than usual. When there’s like 40 minutes of talking in a 90 minute show (YouTube starts at 8:30 because they don’t have to tolerate the 30 mins of AXSTV commercials), that’s bad. Especially when the matches you do have aren’t really bangers; so the ring work was an after-thought this episode.