Impact Under Siege

Overall Rating: ★★★●★★☆

I enjoyed the whole show this time. Not a bad match in the whole thing. Probably nothing that I'll be thinking about much beyond today, but it was well worth watching.

Impact Rebellion

Overall Rating: ★★★●☆☆☆

Started really well but then got kind of boring. If you watch the first three matches and then stop, you'll have a great time.

IMPACT Multiverse of Matches

Overall Rating: ★★★●★☆☆

A little slow at times and suffering from a few technical issues: most notably microphones not being turned on before people started talking and some of the music not sounding right (I think maybe they were just picking it up from the microphones in the room instead of from the source). There was also a disappointing lack of crossovers, unless you count people who've already been on regular episodes of IMPACT recently, like Jay White. And Rehwoldt seemed to be a bit off his game on commentary. But mostly it was decently entertaining.

IMPACT Sacrifice

Overall Rating: ★★★●★☆☆

Unfortunately, kind of a backwards show; started with the best match and gradually wound down from there. If the first half had been an entire show on its own it would have been fantastic, but unfortunately it kept going and the second half just wasn't very good. Nothing terrible and no matches I had to skip though.

Impact No Surrender

Overall Rating: ★★★●★☆☆

Good solid show over all, with fun moments and interesting hooks for future stories. As usual, there's stuff I'd have done differently, but I've got no major complaints about this one - aside from the two people who shouldn't be on the show at all, but that's a bigger issue than just this specific event.

IMPACT Hard to Kill

Overall Rating: ★★★●☆☆☆

The low score here is not actually reflective of the show I saw; the problem is that they insist on featuring people I refuse to watch on moral grounds. Two matches I have to skip out of seven really drags the score down. The ones I watched were very good though.

The ROH invasion was cool, but I'm not sure it makes sense. Maria Kenellis, Mike Bennet and Matt Taven, sure. But why are Vincent and PCO teaming up with them? And if it's a full-on ROH invasion, seems weird to do the show of friendship with the championship match in the same show. And then Rok-C was present for the women's championship match, but just to watch?

IMPACT Throwback Throwdown

Overall Rating: ★★★●★☆☆

Well, this was extremely silly, but quite entertaining. A bit slow in places, and a little too long, but over all pretty good.

IMPACT Turning Point

Overall Rating: ★★★●★☆☆

I've given this show an extra point because of the bit where Jonah showed up. It was cool and I like him. And honestly, skipping two of the matches made the show a better length. X Division delivers, as usual, and the Iinspiration are still the best, but the main event was a real slog. 

IMPACT Bound For Glory

Overall Rating: ★★★●★★☆

I was really looking forward to seeing the Iinspiration, and I'm glad they were right at the start so I could enjoy that and not be distracted waiting for it. Because the rest of the show was also very good. Especially the X-Division championship, but really almost the entire show. A couple of low points, but honestly nothing terrible. I definitely recommend watching this one.

IMPACT! Knockouts Knockdown

Overall Rating: ★★★●★☆☆

I had been looking forward to this one, but it ended up being a bit boring. I'm not a big fan of the one-night tournament format. It feels lazy, from a planning/writing perspective, and doesn't allow for people to go as hard as they can if they're only wrestling one match. I'd much rather see a battle royale of some kind. Especially if you're going to have a bunch of "outsiders" involved who no one really believes can win it.

iMPACT! Victory Road

Overall rating: ★★★●☆☆☆

On the one hand, I want to give this show more credit because I wasn't really in the mood for it, so that certainly brought the score down. But on the other hand, how much credit do they deserve when they insist on trying to make me watch guys who were fired from WWE for assaulting their girlfriends and general arseholery? Do you know how many professional wrestlers there are in America who haven't been arrested for domestic violence? Hire some of them instead.

iMPACT! Emergence

• Singles (Matt Cardona vs. Rohit Raju): 4/7. You know what? I don't think I care about Matt Cardona. I don't know why I'm supposed to like him or what his deal is. He had that sort of half-arsed feud with Brian Myers that dragged on and fizzled out, and now he's got Chelsea Green with him, but I don't what that does for either of them, story-wise.
• Intergender Tag (Tasha Steelz, Savannah Evans, Fallah Bahh & No Way vs. Decay): 5/7. I don't like 4-on-4 matches and I don't like ad-hoc tag teams, but I do like Decay a lot, and there were some cool moments.
• Singles (Steve Maclin vs. Petey Williams): 4/7. I don't know who either of these guys are. They're vaguely familiar, but that's it.
• Singles (Taylor Wilde vs. Madison Raine): 5/7. Tenille Dashwood and Kaleb with a K are always good entertainment and their new alliance with Raine is going well.
• #1 Contender Four-Way (Moose vs. Ace Austin vs. Sami Callihan vs. Chris Sabin): 6/7. Moose and Austin are always entertaining.
• X-Division Championship (Jake Something vs. Josh Alexander): 6/7. Two big beefy boys hurling themselves and each other about the room. Nice. I've been wondering though: what is the "X division"?
• Intergender Tag (Deonna Purrazzo & Matthew Rehwoldt vs. Trey Miguel & Melina): 6/7. Purrazzo and Rehwoldt are very good and they work very well as a tag team.
• Men's Tag Championship (Good Brothers vs. Violent By Design vs. Rich Swann & Willie Mack): 2/7. I don't like tag team triple threats. I don't like Rich Swann. I don't like Rhyno as a heel, and I don't like VBD as a faction; they just come across as all talk, even when they're winning. I'm sick of the Good Brothers and the current direction of the entire Elite faction.
• World Championship (Brian Myers vs. Christian Cage): 4/7. I Find Brian Myers confusing. I can't tell if he's supposed to be (annoyingly) as good as he thinks he is, or if he's supposed to be a delusional narcissist. I feel like he's stuck somewhere in between.

Overall rating: 5/7. There were definitely some good matches and moments, but also some stuff that I didn't care for or could have skipped. And unfortunately, the last two matches (which ideally you'd like to be the best part of the show) were some I'd have been just as happy not to see. Especially that tag championship. I almost did skip that one. But I am very glad to see Matthew Rehwoldt doing well. I always liked him in WWE.

iMPACT! Homecoming

• Homecoming Tournament Round 1 (Hernandez & Alisha vs. Deonna Purrazzo & Matthew Rehwoldt): 5/7. Nice to see Rehwoldt (formerly Aiden English) again, and the match was decent. Seemed like they were probably holding back though, because they still have to wrestle again later.
• Homecoming Tournament Round 1 (Thicc Mama Pump & Little Petey Pump vs. Matt Cardona & Chelsea Green): 6/7. I got a laugh out of Jordynne and Petey's Scott Steiner gimmick, and the bit when they had to help each other to lift Cardona was good too. Plenty of really good, fun tag teaming throughout.
• Homecoming Tournament Round 1 (Tommy Dreamer & Rachael Ellering vs. Brian Myers & Missy Hyatt): 4/7. The joke was ok, but it dragged on a bit.
• Homecoming Tournament Round 1 (Decay vs. Fallah N Flava): 4/7. Why would Fallah agree to be in an intergender match if he's not willing to fight a woman? That's just dumb.
• Singles (Willie Mack vs. Deaner): 4/7. To be honest, I wasn't really paying attention to this one. I don't care about these guys and I was just waiting for the next round of the Homecoming Tournament.
• Homecoming Tournament Round 2 (Deonna Purrazzo & Matthew Rehwoldt vs. Matt Cardona & Chelsea Green): 5/7. Felt like a bit of forced gender segregation in this one, but it was quite good regardless.
• Homecoming Tournament Round 2 (Decay vs. Tommy Dreamer & Rachael Ellering): 5/7. The bit where they were all biting each other was hilarious. Otherwise it mostly felt like filler.
• X Division Championship (Josh Alexander vs. Black Taurus): 5/7. This probably deserved a higher rating but I just wasn't really here for it. I just want more Homecoming matches.
• Homecoming Tournament Final (Deonna Purrazzo & Matthew Rehwoldt vs. Decay): 5/7. The best part of this tournament was the comedy bits and this match was a little lacking in those. It was a decent match though.
• Hardcore (W Morrissey vs. Eddie Edwards): 2/7. Didn't really pay any attention to this one but I left it on in case anything cool happened. It didn't.

Overall Rating: 5/7. I've got to compare Homecoming to WWE's Mixed Match Challenge and it comes up short. Of course, MMC was a whole series and not just a single event, so there was more time to establish the teams and do more with it, but even as far as the matches went I feel like this was something of a missed opportunity. There were definitely some fun bits and some good wrestling, but it could have been much better than it was.

iMPACT! Slammiversary 2021

• Ultimate X X Division Championship (Trey Miguel vs. Ace Austin vs. Petey Williams vs. Rohit Raju vs. Chris Bey vs. Josh Alexander): 7/7. Basically Money in the Bank but with scaffolds and ropes instead of ladders, and for the championship. It's a fun gimmick. Getting rid of the ladders is a good for a change because, well, if you've read my previous reviews you know how I feel about ladders in wrestling. The match itself? A lot of fun moments and some good wrestling. Exactly what you want from this kind of special event.
• Mixed Tag (Bryan Myers & Tenille Dashwood vs. Matt Cardona & Chelsea Green): 6/7. This match was announced as Cardona teaming with a mystery partner. If I'd known he was engaged to Chelsea Green that would probably have been a pretty big hint, but I was curious to see who it was going to be, and the answer was underwhelming. I know Green from NXT, where she was part of the Robert Stone Brand, but I don't really recall anything about her herself. Mixed tag is always fun, even if the gender segregation is dumb and unnecessary, but the finish raised an odd point; apparently a low blow is only a disqualification if it's done to a man? Weird rule.
• Singles (W Morrissey vs. Eddie Edwards): 1/7. Skipped.
• Tag Team (Shera and Madman Fulton vs. FinJuice): 2/7. Pointless, but short.
• Singles (Moose vs. Chris Sabin): 4/7. This match, along with the previous two, could have been scrapped in favour of the Knockouts Tag Team Championship, which was on the pre-show for some reason.
• Four Way Tag Team Championship (Violent By Design vs. Rich Swann & Willie Mack vs. No Way & Fallah Bahh vs. The Good Brothers): 4/7. No Way (Jose) seemed like he was supposed to be a surprise, but one of the commentators kind of spoiled it on the previous episode, so that was weird. Also, he's got the exact same gimmick from WWE, including the conga line, which I didn't get the impression was ever particularly popular or successful, and now just seems like he's got no other ideas.
• Knockouts Championship (Deonna Purrazzo vs. Thunder Rosa): 4/7. Thunder Rosa was another mystery competitor, and this one was actually a surprise - and a welcome one. I like Thunder Rosa and I feel like she was mostly wasted on AEW. That said, the match was just ok.
• No Disqualification Impact World Championship (Kenny Omega vs. Sami Callihan): 5/7. There were some good bits, but it was too long and just too much. The blood was badly done and unnecessary, and the sheer number of different weapons they brought in felt like they were running through a checklist.

Overall Rating: 4/7. This show seemed to be more about revealing new and returning characters than anything else. On top of Chelsea Green, David Finlay, Juice Robinson, No Way and Thunder Rosa, we also had Mickie James and Switchblade Jay White show up between matches. I don't know why you'd want all of those reveals on one show; it's just distracting and waters down the impact each of them can have. And it's a real shame that the best match of the show was also the first match of the show, and that the Knockouts Tag Team Championship changed hands on the pre-show.

iMPACT! Against All Odds

• Tag Team Street Fight (The Good Brothers vs. Tommy Dreamer and Sami Callihan): 4/7. Not enough build-up in either the story or the show. Even if I'd cared about this match, which I didn't because I don't know why it was happening, it should have been later in the show.
• Singles (Joe Doering vs. Kojima Satoshi): 5/7. I think the main draw for this match is just seeing Kojima, but I don't know who he is so that's not doing it for me. It was an ok match though?
• X-Divison #1 Contenders Match (Petey Williams vs. Trey Miguel vs. Ace Austin vs. Chris Bey vs. Rohit Raju): 6/7. I wasn't too impressed with this match (although it did have a few cool moments) until the ending. Which was fantastic. Bumped it up a whole point.
• Singles (Rich Swann vs W Morrissey): 1/7. Skipped.
• Singles (Tenille Dashwood vs. Jordynne Grace): 4/7. I like Tenille but I'm not really sure what's going on with Jordynne and Rachael Ellering at the moment.
• Knockouts Tag Team Championship (Fire N Flava vs. Kimber Lee & Susan): 4/7. A bit slow.
• Men's Tag Team Championship (Decay vs. Violent By Design): 5/7. Some cool bits.
• Knockouts Championship (Deonna Purrazzo vs. Rosemary): 5/7. Solid.
• Men's Championship (Moose vs. Kenny Omega): 5/7. Another slow one, and no surprises.

Overall Rating: 4/7. Felt like everything was basically just in a holding pattern. Nothing really happened.

iMPACT! Under Siege

• Singles (Brian Myers vs. Black Taurus): 4/7. I don't remember why these two are fighting. It was ok.
• Tag Team (Kimber Lee & Susan vs. Taylor Wilde & Tenille Dashwood): 5/7. I don't know where this story is going, but the match was surprisingly straight-forward and good.
• Men's Tag Championship #1 Contenders (Ace Austen & Madman Fulton vs. TJP & Petey Williams vs. XXXL vs. Rohit Raju & Shera): 4/7. Too many people involved, and the stupid "only two wrestlers legal at a time" rule is still bad.
• Singles (W. Morrissey vs. Willie Mack): 2/7. Don't like Morrissey; don't like his gimmick.
• Knockouts Tag Championship (Jordynne Grace & Rachael Ellering vs. Fire N Flava): 5/7. Weird ending. I like Rachael Ellering though.
• X Division Championship (Josh Alexander vs. El Phantasmo): 5/7. I like El Phantasmo.
• Knockouts Championship (Deonna Purrazzo vs. Havok): 5/7. A bit slow, but not bad.
• Six-Person Tag (Kenny Omega & the Good Brothers vs. Eddie Edwards & FinJuice): 5/7. I would rather have watched just the Good Brothers vs. FinJuice again.
• Impact Championship #1 Contender (Chris Sabin vs. Chris Bey vs. Sami Callihan vs. Matt Cardona vs. Trey Miguel vs. Moose): 5/7. Should have been an elimination match. Why don't they do more elimination matches?

Overall Rating: 4/7. It was an ok show, but pretty low-key. Basically just a regular episode.

iMPACT! Rebellion 2021

• X Division Championship Triple Threat (TJP vs. Josh Alexander vs. Ace Austin): 5/7. Just a good match.
• Eight Person Tag (Violent by Design vs. James Storm, Chris Sabin, Eddie Edwards & Willie Mack): 1/7. Too many dicks on the dance floor. And I'm not thrilled to see William "Big Cass" Morrissey again.
• Brian Myers vs. Matt Cardona: 4/7. After all the build up, this was just ok.
• Knockouts Tag Team Championship (Fire N Flava vs. Jordynne Grace & Rachael Ellering): 5/7. This was a good one, and I like Rachael Ellering.
• Last One Standing (Sami Callahan vs. Trey Miguel): 7/7. Forget the barbed wire and blood, this is how you make a match seem brutal.
• Men's Tag Team Championship (FinJuice vs. the Good Brothers): 6/7. Two great teams doing some great wrestling.
• Knockouts Championship (Deonna Purrazzo vs Tenille Dashwood): 6/7. Tenille was robbed!
• Title vs. Title AEW & iMPACT Men's Championship (Kenny Omega vs Rich Swann): 6/7. Very nice to hear Mauro Ranallo on commentary again. He's really very good at it.

Overall Rating: 5/7. If it weren't for the fact that I don't like those big multi-person tag matches, I'd have nothing much to complain about here. Good show.

iMPACT! Hardcore Justice 2021

•  Triple Threat Tag (Ace Austin & Madman Fulton vs. TJP & Fallah Bahh vs. Josh Alexander & Petey Williams): 5/7. It's always annoyed me that only two teams are legal at any given time but now that WWE's given up on that nonsense it's going to annoy me even more that other shows are still doing it.
• Chairly Legal Match (Shera vs. Hernandez): 5/7. The gimmick was supposed to be "chairs are legal", which would at least have distinguished it from a regular no-DQ match, but as usual it turned out to just be a standard no-DQ match with themed props around the ring.
• Doc Gallows vs. Black Taurus: 5/7. Given that the Good Brothers have a championship rematch coming up, the outcome of this match was pretty easy to predict.
• Mystery Crate Match (Johnny Swinger vs. Matt Cardona): 2/7. I'm never sure how ironic the "Swinger's Palace" segments are supposed to be. Is it dumb and shitty on purpose, as a joke, or is it just dumb and shitty? And does it matter?
• Flashback Moment of the Week (Rob Van Dam vs Sabu): 6/7. It was half a match from ten years ago, but it was still one of the bext parts of the show. Some creative use of chairs.
• Sami Callihan vs. Sam Beale: 3/7. Filler.
• Hardcore Blindfold Match (Bryan Myers vs. Jake Something): 5/7. Didn't mind this one. It was something a bit different.
• #1 Contender Weapons Match (Jordynne Grace vs. Susan vs. Tenille Dashwood vs. Havok vs. Rosemary vs. Alisha Edwards): 6/7. I always love some supernatural shenanigans, and the actual match was good too.
• Old School Rules Title vs. Career Knockouts Championship (Deonna Purrazzo vs. Jazz): 6/7. Good match, believable stakes.
• Eight-Man Hardcore War (Violent By Design vs. Team Dreamer): 4/7. WarGames is dumb, but you're not going to improve it by half-arsing it.

Overall rating: 5/7. Should have gotten rid of Johnny Swinger and ended on the Knockouts Championship. But mostly just get rid of Johnny Swinger.

iMPACT! Sacrifice 2021

• Tag Match (Decay vs. Reno Scum): 6/7. Decay are really growing on me. I don't know what this match was about or why it was happening, but it was cool.
• Intergender Tag Match (Tenille Dashwood & Kaleb with a K vs. Havok & Nevaeh): 4/7. Tenille and Kaleb are the kind of bad guys who get beaten up a lot and win by sneaky cheating. And that's fine. But this didn't feel like a PPV match. I'd probably have rated it higher if it was on a regular episode.
• Tag Match (Violent by Design vs. James Storm & Chris Sabin): 4/7. I guess Rhino is joining VBD? Okay. I feel like this storyline is going nowhere though.
• Hold Harmless Match (Eddie Edwards vs. Brian Myers): 3/7. I liked how Matt Cardona interfered to keep it fair after Hernandez interfered first, but otherwise I didn't really care about this one. Are they building up to a Myers vs. Cardona match? Why? Just do it.
• Knockouts Tag Team Championship (Fire 'N Flava vs. Jordynne Grace & Jazz): 4/7. I didn't think Jordynne and Jazz would win and they didn't.
• X Division Championship (TJP vs. Ace Austin): 5/7. I like both of these guys but I just wasn't feeling it.
• Knockouts Championship (Deonna Purrazzo vs. ODB): 4/7. What was the point of Deonna's friends being banished? It didn't seem like it made any difference.
• Men's Tag Team Championship (The Good Brothers vs. FinJuice): 3/7. I didn't think FinJuice could possibly win this, so I wasn't really paying attention. And then they did and I was like "Wait, what? Wish I'd actually watched this now." I blame the writing for not convincing me that it was a possibility.
• World Title Unification (Rich Swann vs. Moose): 1/7. Don't care; didn't watch it.

Overall rating: 4/7. I'm kind of tired today so that might have diminished my enthusiasm, but this basically felt like a really long episode rather than a PPV.

iMPACT! No Surrender 2021

• Six-Person Intergender Tag (Tenille Dashwood and XXXL vs. Decay): 4/7. Either do proper intergender matches, or do mixed tag matches. This weird hybrid where you pretend it's intergender but it's actually not is bad and dumb.
• Brian Myers and Hernandez vs. Eddie Edwards and Matt Cardona: 3/7. I would have preferred to see Myers vs. Cardona one-on-one, so the other two dudes were just an unwelcome distraction.
• Deaner vs. Jake Something: 3/7. The result was obvious, but hopefully it'll lead to something more interesting.
• Triple Threat Revolver (Daivari vs. Suicide vs. Willie Mack vs. Ace Austin vs. Trey Miguel vs. Chris Bey vs. Josh Alexander vs. Blake Christian): 7/7. This is a neat concept for a match. Basically a gauntlet match, but it kind of fixes the problem with regular gauntlet matches by putting an extra person in there so that it's not such an uphill climb for one of the first in to make it all the way to the end. And then it finishes with that sudden-death feeling of a triple threat. Plus, there was some really good wrestling in this one.
• No Disqualification Tornado Knockouts Tag Team Championship (Fire n Flava vs. Havok and Nevaeh): 4/7. They seemed weirdly reluctant to use weapons, but also obliged to? I feel like, if you're going to bring weapons into a match, you've got to commit to them. Don't just put the kendo stick down; use it till it breaks.
• X Division Championship (TJP vs. Rohit Raju): 5/7. Started off really strong but slowed up a bit as it went on.
• Six-Person Tag (Deonna Purrazzo, Kimber Lee, and Susan vs. Jordynne Grace, Jazz, and ODB): 4/7. So, Susan is some kind of alter-ego or suppressed personality or something, right? I feel like we're just waiting for the other version of her to reappear and that's when it's going to get good?
• Triple Threat Tag Team Championship (Chris Sabin and James Storm vs. the Good Brothers vs. Private Party): 4/7. I don't like tag team triple threats. Why are there only two people in the ring at a time? That whole thing where the third team is just sitting on the sidelines until one of their opponents tags them in is weird and doesn't really make sense. I get that it creates a different dynamic to a regular triple threat, but is it better? I don't think so.
• World Championship (Rich Swann vs. Tommy Dreamer): 1/7. Very slow and boring and I don't want to watch Rich Swann.

Overall Rating: 4/7. Some of it was very good, some of it was very bad. Some of it was setting up things that may be very good later.