Impact Wrestling live results: Private Party & Matt Hardy appear
Preview by Josh Nason
Tonight’s edition of Impact Wrestling has some intrigue as a mystery partner will join Impact Wrestling World Champion Rich Swann, Tommy Dreamer and Willie Mack in an eight-man tag team match against Moose, Chris Bey, Sami Callihan and Ken Shamrock.
In a clip from Impact’s Twitter feed over the weekend, a brawl between the seven men will likely open the show with the challenge answered later for the night’s main event helped along by Impact VP Scott D’Amore.
Also on the show, AEW’s Private Party and Matt Hardy will make an appearance after they earned a shot at the Impact Tag Team Titles; Matt Cardona will make his Tuesday in-ring debut, teaming with Josh Alexander against Ace Austin and Madman Fulton; Eddie Edwards takes on Brian Myers; Joe Doering takes on Cousin Jake, and Tenille Dashwood battles Rosemary.
Everything kicks off at 8 PM Eastern.
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Show opened with a recap of Matt Hardy and Private Party’s appearance, where the latter earned themselves a shot at the Impact Tag Team titles after AEW’s Jerry Lynn helped them defeat Chris Sabin and James Storm in the main event.
Impact is debuting a new intro video. Always worth paying attention on who they focus on.
– Rich Swann opened the show coming down to the ring. Swann cut a promo saying that all his life, he wanted to be a professional wrestler and he always knew that one day, hard work would lead him to becoming a World champion, which he was now. He now understood the target behind his back and he welcomed all challengers. Swann asked Tommy Dreamer out.
Swann mentioned that February 13th is not only No Surrender, but also Dreamer’s 50th birthday, and after everything that Dreamer has done for the industry, locker room, and Swann himself, he wants to offer Dreamer a shot at the title.
Sami Callihan interrupted the moment. He talked trash to both, saying Dreamer is once out there trying to politic his way to a main event, and Swann lost to Omega and embarrassed the company.
Chris Bey came out and said that February 13 is ALSO his birthday, and since he is the future of Impact, he should be the one getting a title shot. And finally, hopefully, out came Moose to claim the title shot that he already has pending.
Swann told them all off because he wanted Dreamer, and so the heels started to beat up the babyfaces until Willie Mack made his return, stunned everyone, and cleared the ring.
Suddenly, Shamrock appeared behind the babyfaces and once again, with the numbers advantage, the heels took out Swann, Mack, and Dreamer. I take it we got ourselves a 6-way at No Surrender.
Backstage, Gia Miller caught up with Swann, Dreamer, and Mack. They said they wanted a match against them. D’Amore told them they had the perfect 4th men for them.
– D’lo Brown and Matt Striker ran down tonight’s card.
Matt Cardona & Josh Alexander defeated Ace Austin & Madman Fulton
This match came about last week when Austin and Fulton were making fun of Alexander for his lack of success lately. When they came to blows, Cardona, who defeated Austin at Hard To Kill, came down for the save.
Story of the match was to showcase how well Alexander and Cardona worked together, even if this was their first tag match. Austin and Fulton, thanks to the power of the latter, managed to cut off Alexander and work over him for a couple of minutes.
Cardona got the hot tag and ran wild on Austin, but Fulton cut him off and pulled the dead Austin to the corner for the tag and regained some control of the match. Alexander helped Cardona by getting Fulton off him and giving him the space to hit radio silence for the win.
At this point, Alexander and Cardona are likely to become a unit.
– Rohit Raju asked someone behind the camera for help, so they could get the better of TJP in his upcoming match, and later on regain the X Division title.
– We got our weekly AEW commercial with Khan and Schiavone. Khan said that he was using Impact as his personal fantasy booking and that’s why he made sure he got the #1 contendership for the tag titles on Private Party. Khan is really pushing his cocky heel gimmick.
– Brian Myers and Matt Cardona met up backstage. Myers told him he had a chance to tag with him, but instead he went for a loser while Myers was out there wrestling with former World champions.
Brian Myers defeated Eddie Edwards by DQ
This match had the simplest, but most perfect set up. Myers interrupted Edwards while getting checked by the doctor, they trash talked each other, and decided to deal with it inside the ring.
Myers calling himself the “most professional wrestler” and referring to Edwards as a “garbage wrestler”, the story of the match was about how Edwards could easily out wrestle him until Myers had to rely on cheating to get the upper hand. Moreover, Edwards is still selling the injuries from Barbed Wire Massacre IV, from Hard To Kill, and so it was an easy target for Myers to focus on while getting heat.
Towards the end, when Myers was ready to finish off Edwards, he was caught with an eye rake from Edwards and a bite for the DQ after he wouldn’t let go. The match had been quite good until the end, I wouldn’t mind a rivalry between these two as long as they keep it inside the ring and weaponless.
Commentary sold it that Edwards had suddenly snapped and this was not normal from him, so it seems that Edwards will be heading into some sort of identity crisis or self control problem going forward.
– Backstage, Tasha Steelz and Kiera Hogan complained that everyone coming to the party were ugly, so they decided to make this a masquerade party. Oh no, this is the new comedy storyline isn’t it?
– Matt Hardy congratulated Private Party because he had led them to a title shot. Hardy wanted them to have both the Impact and AEW titles so they could get more money, so that HE could get more money.
Rosemary (w/Crazzy Steve) defeated Tenille Dashwood (w/Kaleb with a K)
Decay defeated the team of Dashwood and Kaleb at Hard To Kill in a tag team match. This time around, Rosemary and Dashwood go at it one-on-one, which is where this feud originally started, when Dashwood started teasing Rosemary of being Taya’s leftovers.
Match wasn’t that good. Dashwood controlled from the get go when Kaleb distracted Rosemary and tossed his camera bag to Dashwood for her to use as a weapon. Even after catching Dashwood with the upside down, Rosemary wasn’t able to turn the match around.
It wasn’t until Dashwood went for a half Nelson that Rosemary used her power advantage to break loose and gather some momentum for a comeback and win with a butterfly bomb.
Backstage, Larry D made his return from prison. D wanted revenge on Rosemary and so he attacked Steve backstage. D and Rosemary got face to face and teased a match between the two teams.
– Somewhere else backstage, Bravo and Swinger are running a casino. Steelz and Hogan hired them all to work as staff for the Fire ‘n Flava Festival. Oh no.
– Deonna Purrazzo bragged to Kimber Lee and Susan how she defeated Taya and now she’s gone from the company. Jazz and Jordynne Grace walked up to them and said they were not done. Susan challenged Grace to a one-on-one match next week.
– Over in the ring, we have the Fire ‘n Flava Fest, hosted by MC Lishius, aka Alisha Edwards. She introduced Kiera Hogan and Tasha Steelz to the ring. This is gonna be bad.
Hogan and Steelz put each other over, but this being a play on Fyre Fest, it was a mess and so the invitees started to complain about the cheap food and drinks. It was all built to Nevaeh and Havok sneaking into the party, where they attacked Hogan and Stelz and sent them running.
This was obviously the overdone heel championship win celebration, on paper it wasn’t bad, especially ending with a new challenge, but the execution was embarrassing.
– Sabin and Storm met up for a drink to talk about Matt Hardy and Private Party. They agree to not be done with them or the Good Brothers. They said that they were gonna take some shots and go after the titles.
Joe Doering (w/Violent By Design) defeated Cousin Jake
Cousin Jake, now as a single unit, has been feuding with Eric Young, Doering, and now his former tag partner Cody Deaner, when Deaner betrayed him. Jake took the loss at Hard To Kill at the hands of EY, but he still wanted more, and he got Doering.
This was a squash. The story was similar to Hard To kIll, Doering is a dominating monster, not even Jake diving to the floor will take him off his feet. Doering destroyed Jake with a bunch of powermoves, ending with a big lariat for the pin.
After the match, VBD teased Pillmanizing Jake, but instead, EY offered Jake a spot in their stable and walked away.
– Brown and Striker ran down next week’s card, including Grace vs Susan, Josh Alexander vs Madman Fulton, Tasha Steelz vs Havok, and TJP vs Rohit Raju.
Impact World Champion Rich Swann, Willie Mack, Tommy Dreamer, & Trey Miguel defeated Moose, Sami Callihan, Ken Shamrock, & Chris Bey
The fourth man to join Swann, Mack, and Dreamer turned out to be the returning Trey Miguel, who is now sporting a new look.
Match was your quintessential multi-wrestler match, with everyone pairing up to start the match, babyfaces with the advantage until the heel corner managed to cut off Mack. Callihan, Bey, Shamrock, and Moose all took turns on Mack, focusing on the leg. The heels were not exactly working perfectly together though, at one point Moose slapped Bey to tag him in, whipped him to the ropes and caught Bey with a pop-up powerbomb, only to drop him on Mack.
Trey Miguel would eventually get the hot tag from Mack, he seemed quire more aggressive than before, he took out Callihan. We got everyone taking turns to come in for their signature moves, ending with Miguel and Callihan, who got pin by Miguel when he reversed Callihan’s package piledriver. The match was quite good, just not long enough to showcase everyone involved. The right man took the win and on Callihan of all people. A Miguel vs Callihan feud would be quite interesting.
After the match, Shamrock attacked the referee and locked in the ankle lock. This is probably how he gets written off for a couple of weeks.
Final thoughts —
Ok show by Impact. It’s that awkward episode of Impact we get after pay per views where they start to build up feuds for both the next pay per view, but also the weekend specials in between, and so many things feel disconnected at this point. We did get a couple of good matches, a return, and some decent teases for next week.