Cero Reviews Impact Wrestling Sacrifice 2022

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Cero Reviews Impact Wrestling Sacrifice 2022

Post by cero2k » Mar 9th, '22, 16:00

Impact Sacrifice 2022
March 5, 2022
Paristown Hall, Louisville, KY

Gisele Shaw vs Lady Frost - 5.5/10
I was a bit surprised that Shaw took her first loss so soon after debuting, but since she's been feuding with Frost alone, this is for the best, Frost is not a talent you should just be using to put over Shaw alone, so let them get into a strong rivalry instead.

Match was good, better than their first. Back and forth and it had a lot of aerial and athletic spots. Frost won with the Frostbite.

Mickie James Interview - She complained that Steelz only defeated Chelsea Green because Steelz cheated. Green approached her and James told her to let her do things alone out there tonight.

The OGK (Matt Taven & Mike Bennett) (w/Maria Kanellis-Bennett) vs Rich Swann & Willie Mack - 6/10
Fun match. I don't remember this being booked as a tornado tag, but these men just kinda skipped the heat and hot tags and went straight for the tornado action, going back and forth, until Mack intercepted the Proton Pack with a pounce, and Swann rolled over for the pin.

Impact X-Division Championship Match
Trey Miguel (c) vs. Jake Something - 7.5/10
I didn't know this was Something's final match with Impact for the foreseeable future, which puts some things in perspective, most importantly him losing, since the last month, he had received a really strong push and build.

Match was really good with a simple story. Something is how the saying goes, a tank with a Ferrari engine, so it wasn't just a power versus speed match, but power and speed combined in one person. In a way, this was like Spiderman versus Vemon, where Trey Miguel had to work smartly, pick his spot, pick his counters, and avoid finding himself in Something's hands. Miguel ended up winning with a Meteora into Something, who hung from the tree of woe.

Gonna miss Something, hopefully he finds himself on a promotion that I follow.

Tasha Steelz Interview - Steelz mocked James for her decisions and tonight, she will become the new KO's champion. Steelz has low key been one of the most improved wrestlers of 2021.

Rhino (w/Team Impact) vs. Eddie Edwards (w/Honor No More) - 6.5/10
Match wasn't a lumberjack match, but part of it felt like it was, with both parties outside the ring and neither man wanting to find themselves on the floor. Early on, Maria got sent to the back, but the rest of Honor No More stayed and ended up helping Eddie cut off Rhino. Later down the road, both groups got into a brawl with tons of dives, but amongst the chaos, Maclin ran down, took out Edwards and Rhino, eventually leaving the latter open for the BKP and pin from Eddie. Ok match, it was more about the stuff outside the ring.

Maclin's interference somewhat corrects his path, he had been becoming a babyface out of fighting HNM, but now it's established that he's done with Team Impact, but he's also against HNM.

Impact Knockouts Tag Team Championship Match
The IInspiration (Cassie Lee & Jessie McKay) (c) vs. The Influence (Madison Rayne & Tenille Dashwood) - 6.5/10
Prior to the entrances, Rayne and Dashwood told Kaleb that he couldn't come out with them, they didn't want any more interruptions costing them the match, and well, they were actually right, he's been costing them matches and tonight, they captured the titles.

Match was really fun, it was all back and forth, heat into hot tag and then again, and the action itself looked good. It all was going great until Kaleb came down and threw the title into the ring, which landed in Dashwood's hands. She hit Lee with it and got the pin. There was some attention put on Kaleb's actual intent, because it also looked like the title was intended to land on Lee's hands. This story will go on.

Something I wanna note, both teams had matching gear, tag entrances, and double team moves. Sea Stars and Decay aside, these two teams may be the only other female tag teams in existence in the US today, right?

Heath, Rhino, and Anthony Carelli Meet Backstage - Rhino wants Maclin, Heath is trying to calm him down, and then out of nowhere Carelli walked up and hyped up Heath for his title match. We've seen Carelli before on Impact, but I totally swore he wasn't with them anymore.

Morrissey & Myers confrontation - Myers had joined commentary, but before the next match could start, Morrissey came out and went after Myers, who managed to run away, but Morrissey put a security person through Myer's table.

PCO vs. JONAH - 7/10
When it comes to hoss fights, this wasn't the best, PCO's style is not really hoss like, so when you see JONAH superplex him, it's not as impressive after seeing PCO do dives and sentons. I did love the German and strike exchange. There was a scary spot where PCO took a piledriver on the steel steps and PCO got slightly busted open in the back of the head, which thankfully led straight to the Tsunami spot and JONAH won.

If you've heard F4D with Lance Storm, Louisville Sporting Commission has a ruling that if someone bleeds, even if it's a scratch, they have one minute to get it fixed and out of the ring before the show straight up gets cancelled on the spot, so you could clearly see referees and doctors going all over the place to get PCO to the back ASAP.

Jay White Interview - White talked about being a different White that Shelley had to face tonight, not the young White that studied under Shelley many years ago.

Alex Shelley vs. Jay White - 9/10
This was fantastic. Almost 20 minutes of back and forth, crisp wrestling. Shelley worked White's arm towards the Motor City Stretch, but also had a lot of offense to the head; meanwhile, White focused on the neck and back of Shelley. They had a couple of great near falls towards the end too, Shelley got a two count with a Shiranui and one with Shelley's own Bladerunner, plus almost tapped out White with the MCS, but at the end, White dropped Shelley with a Bladerunner INTO the apron, and one proper int the ring for the win. Totally worth going out of your way to watch.

Post-match - Shelley offered his hand to White, but White walked away and left him hanging.

Violent By Design Promo - EY told the Good Brothers that they made the mistake of angering the wolves that they had originally hired to protect their home.

ROH Women's World Championship Match
Deonna Purrazzo (c) vs. Chelsea Green - 6.5/10
This is a good pair up for a title match with Purrazzo, but I won't lie that I was a bit sad that it wasn't someone's debut, I can't fault them for using their own women, hell, they should, but between Green and Frost answering the last two challenges, I kinda wanted to see someone new.

Match was good, I liked the story at the end and it really protected Green more than I thought was necessary. Story was that Green got a lot of offense on Purrazzo, at one point even turning the Fujiwara armbar into one of her own. When Purrazzo had enough, she finally caught Green's arm and snapped it like she would with anyone else, but since Green just recovered from a broken arm not long ago, the snap did a lot of damage to Green, to the point that the referee and Purrazzo herself thought that the arm was broken. Green still tried to fight back, so Purrazzo locked in the Fujiwara for a snap submission.

Post-match - Purrazzo held the armbar, prompting Mickie James to run for the save and medical staff to come out. While James was busy checking in on Green, Tasha Steelz made her entrance and immediately called in James for the title defense, arguably catching her off guard.

Impact Knockouts Championship Match
Mickie James (c) vs. Tasha Steelz (w/Savannah Evans) - 7.5/10
Steelz jumped James during the introductions, but it wasn't like James was completely blindsided after a match or something, she had to be ready nonetheless. When Green was heading to the back, Evans tried to attack her, once again distracting James from her match as she went to step up against Evans.

The action had started strong, but it did slow down once Green was gone. At that point, the mostly went back and forth with some strikes and big spots, but nothing particularly huge. At one point, James hit the MickieDT, but Evans distracted the match. James took her out, but she lost the chance to pin Steelz and ended up taking a Crucifix bomb for a near fall. Steelz went for a Stratusfaction, but failed, but when James went for the top rope press, Steelz caught her with a cutter mid-air and pin her for the win. Combined with the already running rivalry and the angle between the two matches, this match felt heated.

All done now, while James only really feuded with Purrazzo and Steelz, I think this may had been the strongest title run James has ever had, her work both inside and outside the ring was fantastic.

As noted by commentary, Steelz is the first Afro-Latinx to win the Knockouts title in the company.

Impact World Tag Team Championship Match
The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) (c) (w/Chris Bey) vs. Violent By Design (Eric Young & Joe Doering) (w/Deaner) - 7.5/10
For a heel versus heel match, this worked out well. Fans live of course chant for the Bullet Club, but I cannot not cheer for anything Doering does. Similar to how I described the OGK vs Swann/Mack match, this felt like it went straight for the second gear, tornado action part of the match. The match lasted about 10 minutes, so it may had been an audible to cut down the time.

Match was all over the place and we got all possible combinations, but my brain just focuses on Doering and Gallows going at it, it was one of my favorite rivalries from Impact last year. Some of the highlights were Young escaping the Magic Killer, a tower of doom spot, and the finish, that saw EY hit a low blow and piledriver on Gallows on the ramp, followed by EY and Doering hitting a Powerbomb & Neckbreaker combo on Anderson for the win.

Interesting that now that they're back in the Bullet Club, the Brothers lost the titles. I totally figured that they Guerrillas were taking them, but maybe VBD will end up being the transitional champions between the teams.

Impact World Championship Match
Moose (c) vs. Heath - 5.5/10
Anthony Carelli joined commentary for this match. I had never heard him do commentary with his normal accent. He's actually quite good.

While Impact has been pretty good at building these Impact+ special title contenders, Heath has been the weakest they've had in the last couple of years. Cardona looked like a superstar next to Heath, and it's not one party's fault in particular, Heath missed the last tapings, so he hasn't done much in a while, and when he had a chance last week, he gassed out against Vincent and just straight up looked like a weak contender.

Match was ok, not bad, but nothing special. Moose was really dominant and Heath had a couple of comebacks here and there. Moose even kicked out of the Wake Up Call in Heath's final breath before taking the Lights Out and getting pinned.

Post-match - As Moose celebrated, Josh Alexander snuck behind Moose, hit the C4. Alexander acknowledged that he was sent home, but being sent home meant that he was able to go to the Anthem corporate offices a couple of miles from his home, sign a new multi-year contract with Impact, and a second contract, one for the main event of Rebellion. Moose versus Josh Alexander.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Good show by Impact, not as strong inside the ring as some past specials, but good booking and a lot of newsworthy results. Some of those results caught me by surprise, not because they didn't make sense, but because I thought they would hold them off until Rebellion, which is not far away anymore.

This may had been the loudest and most energetic crowd that we've had since they came back from the empty arena days. They did get tired towards the latter matches, but not that much.
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