Impact Wrestling live results: Rhino vs. Eric Young street fight
A street fight between former faction-mates headlines Thursday’s Impact Wrestling as Violent by Design’s Eric Young takes on Rhino.
Rhino was part of VBD until they gave him a beatdown after Rhino didn’t appreciate Young berating him after a mid-September tag team loss. He eventually re-aligned with the returning Heath and they have been feuding with his old teammates.
Thursday’s AXS TV show will also see Knockouts Champion Mickie James team with Chris Sabin against “Drama King” Matthew Rehwoldt and Deonna Purrazzo. Ahead of their title match at January’s Hard to Kill, James and Purrazzo got into a brawl as Sabin and Rehwoldt were having a match last Thursday.
The rest of the lineup includes Knockouts Tag Team Champions The IInspiration and The Influence (Madison Rayne and Tenille Dashwood) against Decay (Crazzy Steve, Havok, Black Taurus and Rosemary) in an intergender match; FinJuice vs. VSK and Zicky Dice of The Learning Tree; and Rohit Raju vs. Lawrence D.
The BTI pre-show match will see Lady Frost against Kimber Lee.
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Lady Frost defeated Kimber Lee (with Brandi Lauren) on BTI
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Opening video was a build-up to Hard To Kill’s main event, where Moose will defend against both Matt Cardona and W. Morrissey. They recapped last week’s main event where Cardona pinned Moose, and where Morrissey had enough of Moose and turned on him.
Deonna Purrazzo & Matthew Rehwoldt defeated Knockouts Champion Mickie James & Chris Sabin
Deonna Purrazzo has called for her rematch against James at Hard To Kill, but this tag team match comes after Rehwoldt challenged Sabin to a match, where Purrazzo got involved.
James and Rehwoldt started the match at the request of Rehwoldt. They did a little of power versus speed wrestling, where James dodged and took down Rehwoldt before tagging in Sabin.
Sabin and Rehwoldt went back and forth until Purrazzo distracted Sabin, who got cut off. Purrazzo and Rehwoldt worked Sabin focusing on the head, going for quick pins, and teasing James throughout to keep the referee’s attention divided.
Sabin made a comeback with a desperation dropkick as Rehwoldt went for a top rope move. James and Purrazzo came in with the tags and straight to the brawl, trading mount and strikes. James went for the MickieDT, but Purrazzo blocked.
Rehwoldt was taken out, Purrazzo blocked a Cradle Shock, only for Sabin to let her go and dive on Rehwoldt. Followed by a dive from Purrazzo, and one from James on top of her opponents.
James hit her top rope press, but Purrazzo rolled her over on landing, and with the aid of Rehwoldt outside the ring, Purrazzo kept the pin down for the win. Really good match.
– Gia Miller interviewed Matt Cardona about his win last week and his upcoming title challenge. Cardona talked about coming close to being with Impact for a year and how the title had been the goal. He said that title matches are rare and he will go all out with this opportunity.
Morrissey interrupted him and said that while Cardona always awaits his chances, Morrissey takes them, and this match at Hard To Kill should be a singles match. He threatened Cardona that accidents could happen, so Cardona challenged him to a match with his spot on the line.
– Eric Young cut a promo prior to his street fight with Rhino. He said that he will teach Rhino a violent and beautiful lesson. Doering will make sure that Heath, Swann, and Mack are not a factor.
– Striker and Brown announced that we have a new main event tonight, with Cardona vs Morrissey.
Rohit Raju (with Raj Singh) vs Lawrence D ended in a no contest
This match comes after Raju and D challenged each other to a match last week after D called Raju and Singh ‘riff-raff’.
This was a speed vs power match, but D did pretty well at keeping up with Raju’s speed. D controlled the match early on, but Raju eventually recovered and took down D with a couple of kicks.
Suddenly, we saw a split screen of Alexander storming to the ring. He came out, took out Raju and Singh, and smartly enough, D rolled out.
Alexander called out Jonah to the ring. Instead, Josh got Scott D’Amore, who tried to stop Alexander. He said that he told Jonah to stay at home while he dealt with this problem, and thus booked Alexander vs Jonah at Hard To Kill.
Alexander didn’t want to wait until Hard To Kill, and just like Moose, D’Amore kept making him wait and wait. Alexander told D’Amore that he was starting to lose his patience, but all that D’Amore could answer was that he was trying to help Alexander learn some patience. Alexander picked up Raj Singh and hit the C4, defiantly in front of D’Amore.
– Backstage, The Bullet Club were asked to sign Turning Point posters, so instead they bullied the merch guy. Laredo Kid confronted them in Spanish, so neither Bey nor Hikuleo knew what he had said.
– Steve Maclin approached D’Amore and once again called for a singles match with Trey Miguel since he was still unpinned and unsubmitted. D’Amore told him that he also hasn’t won and he even attacked a security guard, so the answer was no.
Rosemary and Havok also approached D’Amore about the Ultimate X, but D’Amore said that he had delegated the Ultimate X news to someone else.
FinJuice (Juice Robinson & David Finlay) defeated The Learning Tree (VSK & Zicky Dice)
Two stories coming together in this match. FinJuice is racking up wins on their path to another shot at the tag titles; whereas Dice and VSK are trying to impress Brian Myers and make up for their loss at Turning Point.
Story of the match was that VSK was professional and had a good gameplan, but Dice’s shenanigans kept getting in the way.
Robinson started the match and was cut off by VSK, only to recover and tag in Finlay for the hot tag. Finlay took down both VSK and Dice, at which point, FInJuice easily dominated the match and won with a diving elbow and backbreaker combo.
– Moose approached Morrissey backstage. Told him he wasn’t mad Morrissey turned on him, but he and Moose knew they didn’t want Cardona involved at Hard To Kill. Moose proposed they work together one last time and take out Cardona. Morrissey told Moose he didn’t trust him and that he’d take out Cardona by himself.
– Prior to the match, we saw Eric Young tell Deaner and Doering to stay behind. Then he started his entrance and the camera angle looked cool.
Eric Young defeated Rhino in a Street Fight
This match is almost a year in the making. EY and Rhino started their feud a while back when VBD took out Heath, but instead of feuding, EY would brainwash Rhino into joining VBD for months until Heath came back and talked Rhino into leaving the team, as Rhino had started having problems with VBD.
Both men started brawling in and outside the ring, mostly ramming each other into the ring or the guardrail. Rhino was the first to bring out weapons into the ring, but he gave EY too much time to recover. Rhino was able to block a suplex attempt from EY and drop him on the ramp.
Back in the ring, Rhino started using weapons on EY over and over, but out of desperation, EY dodged and tricked Rhino into going head-first into a garbage can, and just like that, EY turned the match around.
EY now in control, attacked Rhino with weapons, went for a diving elbow, but Rhino recovered and instead caught EY with a superplex. Hit a couple of short clotheslines and shoulder tackles before setting up for the gore.
Deaner and Doering ran down and went after Rhino, but Heath ran down and managed to take down Doering. EY used the distraction to use his mask and take down Rhino, but he only got a 2 count in the first pin of the match.
EY went for a piledriver, but it was Swann and Mack now that came down and attacked EY, but as Rhino set up a piledriver himself, the Good Brothers ran down and took out Swann and Mack. In the ring, EY low blowed Rhino and hit the piledriver for the win. Good match, but Swann and Mack’s involvement was positioned at an odd time.
After the match, all four teams brawled with VBD and the Good Brothers controlling the ring.
– Gia Miller interviewed The Influence and The IInspiration about their upcoming match and becoming a super group. Dashwood and McKay kept talking over each other and had some disagreements on the super group’s name.
Decay (Rosemary, Havok, Black Taurus, & Crazzy Steve) defeated Knockout Tag Team Champions The IInspiration (Cassie Lee and Jessie McKay) & The Influence (Tenille Dashwood & Madison Rayne) (with Kaleb)
Taurus started the match for his team, so all of the opponents ran away, so Decay used the opportunity to tease them with a fake out dive.
Once back in the ring, Decay controlled early on, but Rosemary was cut off after some illegal double teaming and interference. It wasn’t long before Lee and McKay’s shenanigans allowed Rosemary to recover and push them back to Decay’s corner.
Things came down to Rayne and Crazzy Steve, which was more of a dance than a match. Taurus and Dashwood were tagged, only for Dashwood to get military pressed to the floor, taking out Kaleb. The IInspiration and Rayne argued outside the ring, not noticing that Rosemary pinned Dashwood in the ring after a spear. If anything, this was fun.
This seems to be leading to an IInspiration vs Influence match at Hard To Kill.
– We got a recap of Lady Frost’s BTI debut. Afterwards, Miller congratulated her for officially signing with Impact. Before she could talk about her plans, D’Amore approached Frost and also congratulated her. Frost asked to enter the Ultimate X match at Hard To Kill, but D’Amore told her that she needed to go after the newest member of Impact’s office, Gail Kim.
Gail Kim told her she’d be in the match, against Rosemary, Jordynne Grace, Tasha Steelz, Chelsea Green, and Rachael Ellering.
Striker ran down the current card for Hard To Kill, confirming Alexander vs Jonah and the Ultimate X Match.
Matt Cardona defeated W. Morrissey via DQ
This match was signed earlier today after Cardona challenged Morrissey to prove that he belongs in the Hard To Kill main event.
Match started on the ramp, as Morrissey rushed Cardona during his entrance. They brawled around the ring, but the referee wouldn’t sound the bell to start the match. After about 3 minutes of Morrissey’s beat up on Cardona, they finally made it to the ring and the match officially started.
As soon as the bell rang, Cardona caught Morrissey with a codebreaker, but couldn’t keep Morrissey down, who came back and cut off Cardona once again. Morrissey worked over Cardona, mostly switching between big boots and choking Cardona. When Cardona tried to make a comeback, Morrissey pushed him off the ring onto the floor, maintaining control. Morrissey busted open Cardona, sending him to the ring post as a lawn dart.
Morrissey continued the beatdown, but Cardona managed to dodged one of Morrissey’s corner splash and got enough time to recover and come after Morrissey with strikes. Cardona managed to bring down Morrissey, hit a dropkick and the corner running boot for a near fall. Cardona couldn’t follow up after suffering blood loss, but when Morrissey went for the powerbomb, Cardona managed to drop down, and hit Radio Silence for a huge near fall.
Morrissey caught him with a big boot and continued the beatdown, but after the referee tried to stop Morrissey, the latter pushed the referee away and so Morrissey got DQ’d. Morrissey answered with a big boot to the referee’s face. Morrissey hit the powerbomb on Cardona for good measure. Chelsea Green ran down to check on Cardona. Moose tried to get Morrissey to take out Cardona, but instead Morrissey hit Moose with a big boot. Morrissey threatened Green, but after Morrissey pushed Green, Cardona jumped in and took down Morrissey. Show ended with Cardona and Green posing with the title in the ring, as Moose and Morrissey looked on.
This was really good, the finish was unfortunate, but the match and post-match angle were the perfect build to Hard To Kill.