GFW Impact Wrestling 7/13/17 – The Alberto-LAX Saga Continues

Reviews

Grado and Joseph Park arrive in a beat up VW Bug with an ad for Park, Park and Park. They talk about Grado’s immigration issues and Joseph says Grado needs to get married and Park says he’ll get him married to a knockout – everyone in Impact is doing it. Okay, that’s a great line. Alberto’s title win and seemingly joining LAX are shown. LAX comes down and calls Alberto down. He comes down a bit upset and he says he’s a loner everywhere he goes. Alberto rejects Konnan’s offer to join and calls him a son of a bitch before LAX jumps Alberto. Lashley comes down and takes out LAX.

We get a recap of Impact’s ceremony to pay tribute to the Pulse nightclub victims. They brought a survivor in with 49 chairs to represent the fallen, and it was rather beautiful. LAX vs. Lashley and Alberto is the main event. Super X Cup time, with ACH being hyped up as a fan of Shelton – and we get some GFW Amped footage of Shelton. Well, that makes the GFW purchase pretty wise – they get access to stars in some form they wouldn’t get otherwise. ACH comes down and JB hypes up his time in ROH and New Japan. He’ll face Andrew Everett, who after over a year in the company, FINALLY gets a video showing his history. They’re hyping this all up a bit like WWE did with the cruiserweight classic and it works because it’s a simple formula.

ACH and Everett go at it in a flip exchange. ACH lays him out with a nasty chop for 2. Everett recovers and hits a big AJ-style corner forearm before landing a springboard missile dropkick. Everett hits a gorgeous springboard moonsault to the floor. ACH lands a sick lariat before doing a weird spider walk into a kip up. Falcon arrow gets 2 for Everett, but ACH finishes him off with a sick brainbuster. This was Everett’s best match in the company, and ACH looked strong as well – they’re doing a lot right with the X cup.

Gail says that this will be her last year in wrestling and she’ll be going out on top as she wants another run as champion. Chris Adonis comes down and calls out two big jacked up dudes. They take their shirts off and pose for a while. Well, now the GFW tape library just rose in value to WWE. Octagoncito is shown backstage and Demus comes down to face him. Well, this is a surprise and is also something they really should’ve hyped up to some degree.

Octagoncito hits a variety of kip ups before landing some armdrags. He hits a corkscrew plancha on the floor, but Demus grounds him with spinebusters. Octagoncito wins with a satellite cradle. Well, this was different and rather fun. Grado and Park go to find him a bride and he gets turned down by everyone. Sienna shoots him a great death glare and Rosemary threatens his very existence. He asks Allie out before Braxton asks what’s up and then Park reveals his secret weapon – champagne and chocolate.

We get a Matt Sydal history video showing his first run in the company and talks about being paid in exposure and experience. Yeah, that sounds like a line of bullshit a Jarrett-run company would feed guys. EC3 comes down to do commentary in a slick black suit. Naomichi Marafuji comes down to face Moose – quite a random match, and yet it should be better than Billy Gunn vs. Tanahashi. Dutch, D’Amore, and Prichard are the judges here – so it’s a Grand Championship match.

Round one is nothing special, with it basically being a strike-heavy battle. Moose uses a lot of power in round two, and wins round two. EC3 hits Marafuji with the belt in round three. Okay then – so now he wants that title. Konnan talks about Alberto appeasing the idiots and he wants them to beat that ass. Trevor Lee comes down with the X Title and he brings out William Weeks. He takes his top off to the chagrin of everyone. He may have never seen the sun and Lee squashes him with the mushroom stomp.

Ava Storie is mid-ring to face the Hot Mess Laurel Van Ness. LVN with the makeup is such a great act – she comes alive with it. The dress is nice too I suppose, but the makeup really highlights her facial expressions. Laurel gets tripped up for 2, but pulls Storie off the rope for 2. Storie hits a duck-down neckbreaker and Josh says she should keep this getup until Halloween to join the Walking Dead thing at Universal. Draping DDT to Storie before hitting a far weaker-looking curb stomp. Grado comes down and dances while LVN does his dancing.

Josh gets in some great lines about being all for the deportation of Grado and then mocks him for the mic flag being upside down. Grado says his name is Grado and the fans also call him Grado and he thinks she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He loves her teeth, hair and especially her makeup. Her dress is…whatever it is and he would like to spend a night with her and he would very much appreciate a date leading to a Netflix and Chill chant. Well, that’s new. Kongo Kong threatens them and that ends that.

LAX comes out first, leading to “Walking Armageddon” Bobby Lashley and Alberto. Lashley dominates with power for a while, but Alberto eats some slick double team moves. Lashley and Alberto hit a combo neckbreaker/double stomp on Santana to win it. This wasn’t bad, but it was too short to really be much. It did establish them as allies though, and hey, they busted out a new variant on Alberto’s usually-terrible finish. Good show overall – nothing was bad on it and the Super X Cup stuff is actually very good.