Impact Wrestling live results: The return of Christian Cage
More than a decade after it ended, Thursday’s Impact Wrestling begins a new era for Christian Cage in the company.
Cage won the Impact World title last Friday on AEW Rampage and will be in the Impact Zone for the first time since 2008 ahead of this Friday’s title defense against Brian Myers at Emergence.
Thursday’s Emergence go-home show will also see the four men that will vye for a World title shot in a four-way Friday in tag team action as Moose teams with Ace Austin against Chris Sabin and Sami Callihan.
As a preview of the three-way Tag Team title match Friday, Doc Gallows of the Good Brothers will face Joe Doering of Violent by Design.
Melina will make her Impact in-ring debut ahead of her challenge of Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo at NWA Empower a week from this Saturday.
Other action includes Matt Cardona vs. Shera and the return of Madison Rayne’s Locker Room Talk as she chats with Tenille Dashwood.
The BTI pre-show match will feature Tasha Steelz vs. one half of the Knockouts Tag Team Champions, Havok.
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Tasha Steelz (with Savannah Evans) defeated Havok (with Rosemary) on BTI
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Opening video was a full recap of Omega’s Impact Championship reign, from winning it from Rich Swann, to losing it last week to Christian Cage on AEW’s first ever episode of Rampage.
Josh Matthews and Gia Miller opened the show in the ring. They were hyping up Christian Cage’s title win when Eddie Edwards and W. Morrissey stumbled into ringside brawling. It would end up being Sami Callihan who would run out for the save and between the two, they dispatched Morrissey to the back after security separated them. Callihan and Edwards had a bit of a staredown.
Callihan took a mic and said he didn’t want to wait for his match tonight and called out for the rest of the participants to come out.
Chris Sabin & Sami Callihan defeated Moose & Ace Austin (with Madman Fulton)
These four men will be wrestling tomorrow night at Emergence in a number one contendership match for the Impact World title at Victory Road. All four men were runner ups in the number one contender’s battle royale from last week, and thus taken into consideration for the match.
Callihan, now a full fledged babyface to the crowd, started the match with Austin, as he and Sabin took turns to show off and punish Austin.
Moose eventually tagged in and cut off Sabin, turning the momentum around. These two have been feuding for a while, so they repeated some of their spots like Moose chopping Sabin on the apron, with Sabin making the attempt to fight back when Moose got distracted playing to the crowd, but this time around, Fulton was there to make sure Sabin couldn’t gain momentum.
Callihan eventually got the hot tag and ran wild over Austin, followed by Sabin and Moose coming back to trade some quick signature moves with Callihan and Sabin, only to come back around to Callihan and Austin, with the former getting ready to finish off Austin, but Sabin tagged himself in, hit cradle shock on Austin, and won the match. In Sabin’s defense, Callihan was taking too much time to hit the piledriver.
After the match, Callihan hit the cactus special on Sabin and posed for the crowd. Callihan was the most over man in this match.
– D’lo Brown & Matt Striker ran down tonight’s card and a quick update on Emergence tomorrow night.
– We got a recap of the Good Brothers defeating Jon Moxley and Yuji Nagata, followed by the confrontation between the Brothers and the Guerrillas of Destiny, Tama Tonga and Tanga Roa.
Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows cut a promo backstage talking about Resurgence and how they do what they do best, beat up Jon Moxley. Anderson told GOD to not start anything they’re not ready for. Gallows also brought up that tonight he’s taking out “All Japan’s” Joe Doering.
– Sami Callihan cut a promo backstage telling Sabin to not poke the Death Machine and that tomorrow, he becomes the number one contender. He claimed that he took a piece of Kenny Omega over and over until he was easy for someone else to beat.
Eddie Edwards approached him and told him that because they teamed once, doesn’t mean they’re friends and told him to stay out of his business. It did come off as Callihan wanted to team again, but Edwards didn’t.
Matt Cardona (with Chelsea Green) defeated Mahabali Shera (with Rohit Raju)
Last week, Cardona took a fall to the debuting John Skyler after Raju and Shera interfered in the match. They had antagonized each other before, but it wasn’t until last week that Raju got into Cardona’s head.
Match started with both men measuring each other out, Shera showing that he had the power advantage, but Cardona still sent him to the floor for a big dive. As they tried to get back in the ring, Shera however, cut off Cardona.
Shera worked over Cardona’s back with sporadic cheap shots by Raju behind the referee’s sight. It would be until Cardona managed to dodge a running Shera and send him face first into the corner that Cardona started a comeback.
Shera still managed to get a good near fall with a chokeslam on his knee for a two count. Cardona came back with radio silence and got the win. Interference aside, this was pretty decent.
– We got an installment of Locker Room Talk with Madison Rayne and Johnny Swinger. Her guest was Tenille Dashwood, who Madison helped last week to defeat Taylor Wilde. The interview was back and forth putting each other over and talking about how they failed as a tag team last year, but that destiny had brought them back together. Her tag team name is The Influence.
The whole thing ended up with Swinger and Kaleb with a K talking trash to each other until they all convinced Kaleb to go and confront Kaleb for booking him against Wilde.
– Gia Miller interviewed Josh Alexander about his match with Jake Something, asking him about taking on someone bigger and stronger than he is. Alexander said that he wants to be the top champion in Impact and that means taking on everyone and is not concerned about Something’s size.
Something walked away and stumbled to Kaleb with a K with D’Amore. Kaleb was asking for a match, and so D’Amore booked Something versus Kaleb in a no dq match for later tonight.
– The new Impact World Champion Christian Cage came down to an Impact ring for the first time in about a decade. Cage said that it felt great to be back after so long, especially as the World Champion. He talked about how Impact took a chance on him in 2005.
Christian Cage said that it was time to finally retire the TNA Championship because they had to look into the future and the Impact title represented that and it represented all the young talent in the back coming after the Impact Championship.
Once that was done, Brian Myers, the number one contender to the Impact World title came out to meet Cage. Myers made some nostalgia jokes before telling Cage that he doesn’t live in the past and tomorrow at Emergence, he wins the Impact title. Cage came back telling Myers that he finally stopped complaining and left Cardona’s shadow, but he hasn’t won yet.
Myers tried to cheap shot Cage, but Cage was ready, took out Beale and sent Myers running.
– We got a commercial for NWA’s EMPOWER and NWA73.
– We got a recap of Deonna Purrazzo’s win at AAA’s Triplemania XXIX, defeating Faby Apache for the Campeonato Reina de Reinas.
Melina defeated Brandi Lauren
Melina is making her Impact in-ring debut tonight. Melina will be challenging for the Impact Knockouts championship at NWA’s EMPOWER show.
The match was for the most part a squash. Lauren had some offense at the start, but after a couple of minutes, Melina locked in her inverted Muta lock, the California Dream.
After the match, Deonna Purazzo got in a fight with Melina. Matthews Rehwoldt helped Purrazzo get the advantage, but Trey Miguel ran down to even the odds. Miguel and Melina ran off Purrazzo and Rehwoldt.
– Miller interviewed John Skyler about getting the upset on Matt Cardona. He pretended it wasn’t shocking nor an upset, he said he won clean. Suddenly we heard screams coming from the side and we saw Juice Robinson laying on the floor as David Finlay tried to figure out what had happened.
– We got a recap of Jordynne Grace’s weightlifting competition from a couple of weeks ago, where she broke a couple of records. She said that she will be going for the national title in november.
Jake Something defeated Kaleb with a K in a No DQs match
Kaleb with a K is wrestling with a neck brace that has a bow tie attached to it.
This was another squash match. Kaleb had some offense early on, but Something quickly used his power advantage to cut him off.
This being a no dq match, allowed Something to bring out a table to the ring and spear Kaleb through it for the finish.
After the match, Josh Alexander came out and got face to face with Something.
– Somewhere in the Undead Realm, Undead Kimber Lee told ‘Mother’ Su Yung that she collected her first soul, but not the last.
– Brown & Striker ran down tomorrow’s card for Emergence, including Madison Rayne vs Taylor Wilde, Tasha Steelz, Savannah Evans, Fallah Bahh, & No Way vs Decay, and Melina & Trey Miguel vs Deonna Purrazzo & Matthew Rehwoldt.
Joe Doering (with Violent By Design) defeated Doc Gallows (with Karl Anderson)
These two men will meet at Emergence in the Impact tag team match where the Good Brothers must defend against Violent By Design and the team of Swann and Mack.
It started with a strike exchange, but quickly spilled out to the floor.
Back in the ring, the match continued back and forth with strikes and shoulder tackles and Germans, reaching the point where both men were stumbling between strikes. Joe Doering at one point hit an incredibly impressive delayed vertical suplex, but Gallows rolled out of the ring. Really good call from commentary bringing up that Gallows has likely never taken a move like that.
Once again on the floor, both men kept exchanging strikes and ramming each other onto things. They tried to get back in the ring, but after the first shoulder tackle, both men spilled back to the floor, but this one, the men brawled to the ramp where Gallows hit a sky high and both men crashed through the ramp floor! Neither man was able to recover until the medic and staff came out to help. Both men crawled their way back to the ring to keep going, and they went back to it!
Gallows went for a second rope clothesline, only for Doering to catch him with a lariat coming down for the win. This was awesome, everything it had to be.