Cero Reviews Impact Wrestling Against All Odds 2021

[cero2k]

Impact Wrestling Against All Odds 2021
June 11, 2021
Nashville, TN + Jacksonville, TN

Opening Video - Great. It told you how big Omega's path to collecting championships was, but it also builds Moose as a wrestler at a level that Omega hasn't faced since winning such titles.

Street Fight
The Good Brothers vs Sami Callihan & Tommy Dreamer - 5/10
Not a big fan of weapon matches, but this one had action that flowed ok for the most part, especially with Callihan in there. Dreamer's stuff was the same shit we've seen of him for the last 30 years. There was a cool spot with the Brothers hitting a Magic Killer on Dreamer through a table, which led to the finish with Callihan taking out both Anderson and Gallows with a bat.

The whole idea of this match was to force the Good Brothers to be in Nashville, while Omega vs Moose is happening in Jacksonville. While they didn't say it, this going in first totally low key sells you maybe one of these can make it to Jacksonville if necessary.

Satoshi Kojima (w/Eddie Edwards) vs Joe Doering (w/VBD) - 7.5/10
This was shorter than I would had hoped for, but understandably, it's not a big feud and this is likely Kojima's final match on this run. The match was like an abridged version of a long AJPW match, but not actually a short AJPW. They went straight into Doering getting some heat, Kojima came back with the Machine Gun Chops, and then they took it home with near falls. Doering at the end blocked the Lariat, hit a DVD and spinning Powerbomb for the win.

This was good for Doering fans, he doesn't do much and he doesn't move as good as he did a couple of years back in Japan, but everything he does has a purpose and it works. Nonetheless, I did find it interesting that Kojima put him over clean 1-2-3. It shouldn't bother NJPW that their talent would come over to work for a promotion and put over the people of such promotion, but Doering happens to be an AJPW guy and he could be there if not for the pandemic.

X Division Championship #1 Contendership Match
Trey Miguel vs Chris Bey vs Ace Austin vs Petey Williams vs Rohit Raju - 8/10
On last Impact, everyone but Ace ganged up and took out Fulton with a top rope destroyer, so he wasn't there with Ace from the beginning. He would later make his surprise appearance for the ending angle, that saw him take out everyone except Ace obviously, at one point hit a slam on all four men at the same time, having Miguel across the arms, Bey and Petey as chokeslams, and Bey as a powerbomb. This being a multi-person match, there were no DQs, so no one could technically get DQd for it, but the referee did call for a no contest because of the chaos and such a big interference. I wasn't bothered by this at all, they built it on the last episode of Impact, they obviously had this match in mind, but they have something special for the X Division at Slammiversary, like an Ultimate X, so this could be part of that build.

As for the match, it was great, all type of action and pair ups. Rohit Raju was my MVP, everyone was great, but Raju was in the ring more than anyone, or at least if felt that way because he paired up with several people throughout the match. One of the highlight spots saw a 4-person submission, with Trey and Petey having standing submissions on Ace and Bey, but then Trey also put Petey on an upper half submission. Raju came in and broke it.

Petey Williams for a second time this week, hit a top rope Canadian Destroyer, which I'm thinking may be the way to escalate his move since it's become such a common thing everywhere.

W. Morrissey vs Rich Swann - 6.5/10
This was by no means a squash, but Morrissey was so dominant that if not for Swann getting so much offense, I'd totally call it one. Morrissey straight up took two 450s and still caught the Phoenix Splash in his hands before the finish. They did portray Swann as someone that wasn't going to give up and was defiant until the very end, so I have to imagine that he will start a rebuilding story towards Slammiversary to get his revenge.

I don't mind Morrissey's booking as a super monster, but I do wonder what's the endgame right now.

Tenille Dashwood (w/Kaleb with a K) vs Jordynne Grace (w/Rachael Ellering) - 6/10
The story here is that Jordynne Grace is going through some confidence issues, planted by Fire 'n Flava after they kept defeating her over and over again. Dashwood tried to take advantage and recruit Ellering to be her tag partner, and because of that disrespect, Grace challenged her to a match. I'm incredibly surprise that they didn't just rush to the obvious heel turn on Ellering.

The match was the basic Dashwood match, with Grace having the upper hand until Kaleb comes for the aid and helps Dashwood turn the match around. Here, the interesting thing was that towards the end, when Kaleb tried to get involved, Ellering cut him off and made sure that Grace could focus on the ring, as she had a rear naked choke on Dashwood, but instead, Grace all of the sudden let go of the submission because she didn't want Ellering to get involved, Grace wanted to take care of both Dashwood and Kaleb if necessary, but all this distraction gave Dashwood the opening for the roll up pin.

Post-match - Grace was having a bit of a breakdown arguing with Ellering, until she snapped, hit the ring and took out Kaleb with a Grace Driver.

Brian Myers & Jake Something confrontation - Backstage, Myers was teaching stuff to his new protégé Sam Beale. Something walked by and stuck his nose where it doesn't belong and told Beale that it's not a good idea to listen to Myers, so Myers stood up for himself, and when Something challenge him to fight, Myers was the better man and said he wasn't taking the bait. This was kinda backwards as I write it down.

Knockouts Tag Team Championship Match
Fire 'n Flava (C) vs Susan and Kimber Lee - 4.5/10
This was a heel vs heel match, but instead of making it the generic both teams try to cheat a lot and out-heel each other, they gave us glimpses of a more babyface team in Fire 'n Flava, when Steelz was cut off. Nonetheless, they still had some stuff that you'd only see in a match between heels and that was the amount of trash talk that happened during the match, to the point that I would had muted the commentary if possible.

As for the match, it was for the most part basic, they got the 'babyface' in peril stuff with Steelz out of the way early on and then we have some minutes of tornado stuff. Lee got a near fall with her Swanton Bomb, but Hogan and Steelz recovered and got the win with Steelz' Frog Splash.

Fire 'n Flava have pretty much destroyed all competition on Impact, so we either get a Havok and Rosemary tag team, or we get some Iconic debut soon.

Impact Tag Team Championship Match
Violent By Design (Deaner & Rhino) (C) (w/Eric Young) vs Decay - 7/10
That's a lot of parenthesis on VBD. Story here is that EY trained both Crazzy Steve and Deaner, and so Steve is making the argument that EY chose the wrong student to side with, and he wants to prove it. Deaner himself is bothered and wants to show that Steve is wrong about that.

The match portrayed Deaner was the weak link, it was one of those matches where Deaner kept losing control of the match and Rhino would have to come in, regain it, and as soon as he would tag out, Decay would cut off or escape Deaner and turn things around. Eventually, Deaner did get the win over Steve, but it came after Rhino had to take out Steve and set him up for the Deaner DDT, so I guess it could be a victory for Deaner. Match was good and it felt like a fresh pair up.

Knockouts Championship Match
"The Virtuosa" Deonna Purrazzo (C) vs Rosemary - 7.5/10
This was a Purrazzo match, she came in with a plan as usual, executed it as close as she could, and won. There is no doubt that Purrazzo is the best woman wrestler in the promotion, she's one of the only wrestlers in the promotion that talks the talk and walks the walk and always backs it up, she's one of the only wrestlers that you see come in with a strategy and and her opponents are the ones that have to survive that strategy.

Match saw Rosemary start strong, she does have some power advantage over Purrazzo, but as the match spilled to the floor, Purrazzo caught Rosemary's arm between the metals in the ring post and kick her shoulder off. From that point on, Purrazzo worked the arm as she usually does. She kept coming close to the submission win, but Rosemary wouldn't give up, she even tried to start a comeback with a Spear and going for As Above So Below, but Purrazzo once again brought her down with the Venus de Milo. After Rosemary wouldn't submit, Purrazzo relied on taking out Rosemary's knee, so she couldn't even get her up for the Red Wedding, Purrazzo hit Cosa Nostra and retained.

Really strong win for Purrazzo, it was dominant over an established contender and while it wasn't easy, Purrazzo never got desperate or anything like that. I don't foresee Purrazzo losing the title at least until Triplemania, which does make me wonder if Taylor Wilde is still the plan for Slammiversary, she wasn't in the last tapings, so she missed a lot, but she can always just come back and finally challenge.

Impact World Championship Match
Kenny Omega (C) (w/Don Callis) vs Moose - 8.5/10
As agreed by Tony Khan and Scott D'Amore, this match is taking place in Jacksonville, FL at Daily's Place. Making it Omega's first defense were we could argue, he has the homefield advantage, but also giving Moose and D'Amore the security that for the Good Brothers to interfere, they'd need to take a plane (1h30m) and make it to the venue. So it's doable, but they'd be cutting it somewhat short.

Commentary for this match was Tony Schiavone, Scott D'Amore, and Don Callis. It was a good but interesting group.

I really liked the match, I loved the portrayal of Moose as a monster that Omega wasn't simply going to run over. From early on, they established that Moose was bigger and stronger than Omega, he had the power to block or counter most of Omega's offense. It wasn't until they were wrestling outside of the ring that Omega dodged a running sort-of-dive and sent Moose arm first over the guardrail and into the sitting area, and from that point on, Omega had a limb he could focus on.

Once with Omega getting offense, the match was somewhat back and forward with both wrestlers going for some big spots and a couple of near falls, but most importantly, we saw that Omega could get Moose up for the OWA, and so he started to spam the V-Trigger as usual. The finish came after that when Moose went for the Lights Out and Omega pulled the referee in front of him, so with no referee, Generation Me came down and attacked Moose, set him up for Omega to hit the OWA, and won the match. Overall a good match with a shitty ending, these endings don't happen on Impact, this was a total AEW thing.

Post-match - The lights went out and Sami Callihan came out, he took out both Buck brothers. Callis confronted Callihah, so in retaliation, Callihan teased doing to Omega what he did to Edwards with the chair and the eye, and so before he could, Callis fired Callihan from Impact, giving Omega time to escape.

I really liked how Moose looked like a monster in the ring, that only lost to Omega because of an early fuck up and cheating from Omega, it protects him so that come Bound for Glory, he could go after the title again as a full blown babyface. As for Callihan, I liked that Schiavone reacted to him like if he was a world known psycho, made him look like a big deal showing up at Daily's Place.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Good show overall, not as newsworthy as some previous shows, but solid throughout. None of the matches are really going to make it to a best of list this year, but nothing was bad or insulting.

D'Amore and Callis argued to the back.