Impact Wrestling Review, October 25th, 2018: The (Too) Late Show

Impact Wrestling aired its first episode in their new 10 PM time slot on Pop TV, if you couldn’t tell by how often I’ve talked about it already. If you made it the whole way, you would have seen Johnny Impact and Rey Fenix steal the show.

Impact Wrestling was back last night in a shiny new package – between ten o’clock and midnight. As a summation, the show was actually pretty solid; there wasn’t any filler sequences, and every match and promo served it’s purpose.

The thing is – I’m 26. I wake up early. I work. I go to the gym. I tried to find something to do to entertain myself before 10 o’clock and ended up watching a vampire documentary (happy Halloween!) and the Gilmore Girls, and by 11 o’clock, I was really debating whether or not I was going to make it.

I didn’t make it. I had my DVR recording the show in another room and finished the show this morning, because smart. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume I wasn’t the only one who found it a little inconveniencing that the show was going til twelve. Is that a sign of how things will fair for Impact now in terms of rating? It’s not impossible.

The action last, however, was full of energy. The show kicked off with Trevor Lee vs. Sami Callihan, the former of which was being scouting for a position being managed by Scarlett Bordeaux (swoon). I’m personally really digging the idea of Scarlett and Trevor; I think Trevor Lee is honestly too talented for the way he’s been used on Impact lately, and this could really amp up his character.

The Sami Callihan/Brian Cage feud hasn’t been as big of a heavy-hitter yet as I’d anticipated. Last night after the match with Lee, Callihan remained out in the ring as Cage descended upon him. Cage even handed Callihan back his bat to sort of even the odds between them, still leaving Callihan and OVE ultimately running out of the ring.

It sounds pretty good, but if I were Cage and I had my winning-streak snapped by Sami Callihan, a thorn in the side of literally everyone, I would be pissed, and I certainly would not care to give Sami any opportunity to get a shot in with that bat.

On the flip side, if I were Sami Callihan and OVE and I was going after Brian Cage, I would be torturing him actively, and not waiting for Cage to come to me. It’s still early, but this feud is still leaving a bit more to be desired.

We’ve got ourselves another Knockouts Championship match between Tessa Blanchard and Taya Valkyrie lined up for next week, which should be stellar again. I mean, I don’t know about Tessa, but the champ shouldn’t let someone say they’ll see her next Thursday and get away with it.

KM and Fallah Bah vs. Moose and Killer Kross was almost as wonderful and pure as I’d hoped it would be, the only downfall of course being that Kross made KM pass out, picking up a win for the… well, I shouldn’t really call them Aries Crew anymore. Is Killer Moose available?

Killer Kross notably will now have a championship match against Johnny Impact at “Final Hour” on November 8th. If I’m going to sit here and think this out long term (I am), I think it may be interesting to not ban Moose from ringside and have the two of them, effectively, defeat Impact for the World Championship.

This is mostly, of course, to rectify the weird booking of Kross and Moose, which I’ve discussed at length. Maybe if Kross has the title, we can finally get Moose back on track to being top babyface at Impact and then actually get him the championship he should have won at Slammiversary.

Even though you knew it’d ultimately be overshadowed by the latest development for Allie, Kiera Hogan vs. Su Yung was a solid match. Kiera Hogan is a hidden gem on the Impact roster, and I’m happy at the end of the match, Allie’s involvement was kept almost to a minimum.

We then of course have the main event, which, holy cow. Any match Rey Fenix takes part in is always lifted up by his performance, quite often literally. This match gave you the feeling of pure wonder that face-on-face matches often give you, where you literally couldn’t care less who wins because you’re just enjoying the match so much.

The inclusion of the OGz attack at the end is a wonderful segue for both the OGz and Fenix and Pentagon coming out of Bound For Glory. It’s new territory for the OGz to mess around in, and it’s the perfect new faction for The Lucha Brothers to whip into shape.

I really couldn’t be sure if the new time slot will work or not work for Impact. All I can say is that they’ve seemed to align their story booking in a way that reads as more cohesive and fun, so it may be worth pulling your eyes open to make it to the end of the show.