Impact Wrestling Review 18th of August 2016 (Titles don’t matter? James Storm is not happy and special guest ref)

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Impact was a mixed bag this week. While the show was generally entertaining throughout, although rather promo heavy, some parts of the show may have left a bad taste in the mouths of some viewers. The show was still an easy watch nonetheless and I am sure many viewers will still be convinced to tune in next week. Some of Impact’s long term goals may be questioned however.


I’ll start with the negative and then move on to the positive, which in fairness, was the majority of the show. I feel like the storyline of Lashley winning all the males singles titles, had legs. I felt it did have some negatives – you basically take three possible storylines and combine them into one. So it limits what you can fill the show with – however, overall the storyline had the potential to be very entertaining – which it has been to this point – and elevate multiple stars, including Lashley. Lashley’s actions this week have somewhat limited who can be elevated from this storyline.

Rather than losing each title separately, giving three separate talents big and rare wins over Lashley, ‘The destroyer’ simply dropped both the King of the Mountain title and X Division championship. Not only does this not allow talent to beat him for those titles, it puts both in a weird spot. Lashley didn’t want them; he said they were meaningless to him. That gives a bit of a weird message to viewers, if Lashley doesn’t care, should we? From the looks of it, the X Division title will have a new champion soon. The KOTM title however, was not mentioned, which will lead to assumptions that it will be dropped. So however the KOTM title was treated becomes irrelevant, as it won’t have any more champions. So that’s acceptable and plays into Lashley’s narcissistic, at times cowardly character. The X Division championship will have a new holder however. I feel that fact that whoever the next champion will be, was not able to beat the previous champion, does give some unwanted messages. I also feel like at least one member of the X Division deserved to gather some sort of revenge on Lashley. Nonetheless, the X Division championship has been through a lot over the years, so I am sure it can recover.

One thing you see people complain at about in wrestling, is how sometimes characters simply do not react in the way you’d expect them to. There have been instances of a guy getting screwed out of the title and then the next night acting like nothing really happened. Or only giving an interview about it, never actually trying to take revenge, or getting something done about it. This week James Storm was livid, he demanded a rematch. When he didn’t get one, he smashed a beer bottle over the head of a security guard. That is the kind of emotion you expect from someone, who was screwed out of winning the world title. Similarly to how Drew Galloway has reacted to EC3, accidentally costing him shots at the world title.

The only issues I have with Corgan “suspending” Storm, is that you expect a pay-off to that story. Yet with the rumours going around that Storm is leaving Impact. In fact they aren’t really rumours, he has even tweeted about it, the rumours are instead that it’s really all a part of this storyline. We might not actually get a pay-off to this story. Hopefully Storm isn’t actually leaving, as I feel he is a very important part of the roster. He’d for sure be missed, although I do question TNA writing him off this way if he is leaving. We will just have to see how everything ends up turning out.

Aron Rex becoming the guest referee for EC3 Vs Drew Galloway is very interesting. Anyone who has watched wrestling for some years will have alarm bells going off in their head. The new guy, who is seemingly a good guy, will be officiating in a match between two good guys. The chances of someone turning on another seem pretty likely. It could be any of the three to be fair – all three can put in fantastic performances as villains – plus the match is for the right to face the world champion Lashley at Bound for Glory. So it would seem likely whoever loses will somehow end up in a match with Rex at Bound for Glory.

I’d for sure be interested in seeing any three of these guys face each other. Knowing we will see EC3 Vs Lashley on free TV is a good feeling. These two are two of my favourite guys, seeing them get some real good time to fight will surely produce a top notch match. Rex being the referee does add intrigue – although I don’t think this match necessarily needed it – not only do we know we will get a good match, we get to see what Rex does after just recently joining TNA.

Lastly I’d just like to talk about the recent developments, with the people at the top of TNA. Billy Corgan has become the president of TNA’s parent company, while Dixie becomes the ‘Chairman’. Anyone who has watched TNA as long as, or even longer than me, will know we’ve seen more “New era’s” in TNA than we’ve seen different names of the mid-card title.  So, quite honestly, all we’ve seen so far is some job titles change. I’m not getting excited; I’ll see how this plays out. Being completely honest, TNA only needs one kind of change. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the product Impact has put out all year. We’ve almost hit eight full months of a constant stream of really top quality Impact’s, week to week.

However, despite all of those things, stories still continue to come out like “TNA talents payed late again”. Among that we’ve also seen some high calibre stars leave TNA. While that has given other very talented people a chance to shine, it shows there was a reason for them to leave. I can’t call out exactly what the problems are, I’m not involved in that business and I’m not aware of what is really happening. I am aware that these stories keep happening, so let’s hope those problems, if they do really exist, are solved as the product is good enough to deserve that.


That’s the Impact review for this week. Again, Impact fails to disappoint, at least for me. So I’ll be looking forward to next week for sure. Next week’s episode is titled “Turning Point” So it’s a special edition. Not only will we continue on the road to Bound for Glory. We may see progression in what is happening with both the X Division title and the KOTM title. We know we will see a battle royal to decide the next challenge for Lashley (Before the title is defended against EC3 or Drew Galloway at BFG) plus Drew Galloway Vs EC3, with Aron Rex as special guest referee.

I am 18 years old, and a journalism student at university. I write about professional wrestling and soccer. Twitter - LewisMichie0