Impact Wrestling results: oVe Rules street fight
Impact Wrestling returned from Toronto, Ontario, Canada as the fallout from Rebellion continued. This week’s opening video focused on Michael Elgin claiming the number one contender spot for Brian Cage’s Impact World Championship, the build for tonight’s oVe Rules street fight main event, the return of Rob Van Dam to Impact, and the Knockouts division.
This week’s Twitch stream was hosted by Melissa Santos. Don Callis joined up at the end of the show as they gave an update on Cage and talked about Tessa Blanchard and Taya Valkyrie.
Impact Tag Team Champions LAX (Santana & Ortiz w/ Konnan) defeated Moose & Josh Alexander in a non-title match
Santana and Alexander started with a series of holds and reversals, with LAX earning the early upper hand. Moose and Ortiz came up next, and Moose got the better of Ortiz with a dropkick in the corner and managed to cut the ring in half on him.
Moose and Alexander would work on Ortiz with quick tags and mostly strikes, stomps, and chokes. Ortiz eventually managed to counter Alexander into a cutter and tag in Santana.
Santana took out Alexander with a running kick, took out Moose with a superkick, and along with Ortiz, got a two count after a double-team move. Moose got back in the match and leveled out both LAX members, powerbombing Santana onto Ortiz. Moose hit the Go to Hell on Santana for a two count.
Moose accidentally kicked Alexander, giving LAX the opening to hit Moose with a double enzuigiri to take him out. LAX hit a series of double-team moves on Alexander, ending with the Street Sweeper for the win.
– Melissa Santos interviewed Madison Rayne about facing Taya Valkyrie tonight in a non-title match. Rayne talked about being 2-0 against Valkyrie, and so tonight she will beat Valkyrie once again and put her name in front of the line.
– Santos interviewed Team Rich Swann. Tommy Dreamer hyped their team, going one by one and saying something special about each of them. Dreamer said that all the hate they’ve all had during their careers is represented in oVe and tonight they’re going to war.
Dreamer brought up Cage’s real-life injury to say that the wrestlers on this roster are the people he wants to fight for, along with saying this is men and women fighting together, people of all races teaming up to fight for what they believe in. His voice was cracking up at the end. Good promo, but some parts felt awkward.
– Josh Mathews and Don Callis announced that Elgin “broke” Pentagon Jr. last week, adding him to the number of injured men.
– Tessa Blanchard came down to join the commentary table for the next match. She is a total babyface now in the booth.
Madison Rayne defeated Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie in a non-title match
Valkyrie got out of the ring, stalled, and provoked Rayne to chase her as the match started. She used the pursuit to jump Rayne and gain the early control.
Back from commercial, Valkyrie was still in control of the match. Valkyrie was whipping her around the ring, but Rayne managed to dodge one of Valkyrie’s running attacks and hit a rana to get some space. Valkyrie slammed down Rayne every time she tried to start a comeback.
Valkyrie worked Rayne’s limbs with several stretches around the ring and finally went for Road to Valhalla, but Rayne reversed and went to strike Taya.
Rayne got some strikes in, but Valkyrie once again regained control for a bit until Rayne got a desperation boot and tornado DDT to finally drop Valkyrie. Rayne hit an enzuigiri for a two count and a cutter for a second one.
Rayne went for a hurricanrana, but Valkyrie blocked it and hit a backbreaker instead. Valkyrie started trash talking and kicking Rayne over and over again, but as she kept at it, she distracted herself with the fans, giving Rayne the opening to catch a kick. Rayne reversed the kick into a half crab and Valkyrie immediately tap out.
Commentary sold the finish as Valkyrie tapping out to get out of the match unhurt since she has a month free of title defenses.
– The Impact Plus Flashback was Su Yung vs. Allie vs. Tessa Blanchard for the Knockouts Championship from Impact’s ReDefined special episode.
– Santos interviewed RVD. She asked about how he was feeling after coming back after six years. When talking about Ethan Page, RVD confused him with Diamond Dallas Page. He said that Page is not someone he needs to get ready for. This was an RVD promo — with awkwardness and all.
– Somewhere in the Undead Realm, Rosemary cut a promo challenging Su Yung to a Demon Collar match for each other’s souls, winner takes all.
Jordynne Grace defeated Alexia Nicole
Short squash match with Grace tossing Nicole around the ring. Grace hit a delayed suplex and a couple of stomps. Nicole had a hope spot trying to lock in a sleeper hold, but Grace got out easily and hit a giant swing.
Nicole got a couple of strikes in, but Grace just overpowered her and hit a Blue Thunder Bomb. Grace hit the Grace Driver to win. Good showcase for her.
– Backstage, Josh Alexander told Ethan Page that he was there to back him up out there against Rob Van Dam. Page hyped himself up.
– Santos interviewed Kiera Hogan about leaving Rosemary to get beaten up last week. Hogan said that she only did what Rosemary said. Hogan said that ever since arriving she just wanted to be everyone’s friend, and everyone kept leaving her.
Grace came up and asked what Hogan was doing, but Hogan went crazy on her claiming they were never friends. Hogan has gone heel.
Rob Van Dam defeated Ethan Page (w/ Josh Alexander)
RVD took down Alexander to start the match since he was getting in RVD’s face. Page avoided RVD while Alexander distracted him, but RVD had eyes in the back of his head and got the better of both men.
RVD went for the spinning kick to Page as he was draped on the rail, but Alexander blocked him and allowed Page to recover and dropped RVD instead.
Back in the ring, Page worked over RVD with strikes and quick suplexes. RVD made a comeback and used a bodyscissors pin for a quick two count. RVD hit a couple of kicks and Rolling Thunder.
RVD went for the frog splash, but Alexander blocked him and Page hit a spinebuster for a two count. RVD came back with a spinning heel kick and the Five Star Frog Splash to win the match clean in the middle. It’s surreal that Rob Van Dam still looks almost the same as he always did, just slightly heavier.
– Cage gave an update on his injury in a sit-down interview. Cage said that he is waiting for the inflammation to go down so he can get a proper scan and see which path his recovery will take.
Santos added during the Twitch stream that Cage is doing rehab on a daily basis and that he can’t even lift up his own daughter right now.
– Rolando Menendez, investigative reporter, interviewed Elgin about putting people in the hospital. Elgin said the list doesn’t stop there, then Johnny Impact interrupted him and said that Elgin is taking credit for the work Johnny did.
Johnny brought up that Elgin and Mack fought at Code Red and Mack surely didn’t go to the hospital. Elgin said next time — Johnny gets sent to the hospital. This is such a weird story for Elgin.
Desi Hit Squad (Rohit Raju & Raj Singh w/ Gama Singh) defeated The Rascalz (Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz), The Deaners (Cody Deaner & Cousin Jake), and Brett Bates & Aiden Prince
Raju and Bates did a quick sequence of reversals. Singh and Prince then came in, with the latter getting the better of Singh with quick moves but falling against Singh’s power.
The Desi Hit Squad worked over Prince for a couple of minutes until he made a small comeback and landed in the Deaners’ corner, where Cousin Jake tagged in. They took out The Rascalz in the corner and hit a double-team move for a two count.
The Rascalz came back and hit a kick combo on Cousin Jake to take him out. They hit tandem moves on both Bates and Prince. Wentz and Xavier then hit a couple of dives on everyone. However, back in the ring, Raju and Singh sneaked behind Cousin Jake and stole the win with a roll-up.
Too many men and too little time for a good match, but what we got was good. Brett Bates needs to come back and show what he has — he looked great in the short time he got in the ring.
– Killer Kross cut a promo on Eddie Edwards. Kross said that he took Edwards’ kendo stick because Edwards was turning it into an entity. He said they were both similar, but that one had crossed the line between crazy and genius. He finished by telling Edwards that he expected an answer. Great stuff from Kross — as usual.
– LAX and The Rascalz were in the Treehouse. Trey Miguel asked Ortiz to touch the Tag Team title belt. Xavier and Wentz asked why Miguel wasn’t out there with them in the match. They talked some nonsense about having lions and needing lions to protect their stash.
LAX talked about fighting all the tag teams in the world, which woke up The Rascalz as they hoped to be next in line. Ortiz’s new gimmick is that he drinks a lot.
oVe (Sami Callihan, Jake Crist, Dave Crist & Madman Fulton) defeated X-Division Champion Rich Swann, Willie Mack, Tommy Dreamer & Fallah Bahh (w/ Scarlett Bordeaux) in an oVe Rules street fight
oVe surrounded the ring and a brawl began. In the ring, Dave Crist and Bahh wrestled, with Bahh using his size to get the advantage when Dreamer started to toss chairs in the ring. Jake Crist and Swann paired up next, with Swann hitting a couple of kicks on Jake before Callihan took him out.
Mack came in and took out Callihan and both Crist brothers before hitting a tope con giro on everyone. Dreamer went for one too, but Dave cut him off and hit a moonsault. Bahh was next with the suicide dive. Finally, Dreamer had a chance to hit a rolling senton. The brawl continued as Dreamer headed to the back for something.
Back from commercial, Dreamer had a ladder, which was immediately used to take out Fulton and Callihan. Swann and Mack tossed Jake into the ladder, then Dreamer followed with the Terry Funk helicopter spot until Fulton just batted the ladder off.
Fulton took out everyone one by one with a chair and dropped Dreamer with a sidewalk slam on the ladder. Fulton then set up the ladder on the ramp.
On the other side of the ring, Dave and Bahh were fighting with forks. Dreamer was brawling with Fulton. Mack piled up metal in the middle of the ring, but he ended up taking a tornado DDT on them by Jake for a two count.
Bahh hit Jake with a trash can and busted him open. Dave brought in a barbed wire chair and hit Bahh in the back, followed by Fulton hitting a powerbomb onto a bed of chairs. Yes, Fulton powerbombed Bahh! Dave got a two count after a foot stomp on Bahh with the barbed wire chair in the middle.
Swann came in and took on both Fulton and Dave, hitting a cutter on the former and tossing the latter to the outside. Swann climbed the ladder on the ramp, but Fulton stopped him and instead set him up for Jake to hit a cutter from the top of the ladder. Fulton jumped from the ladder, but he got caught in the middle of the air by Bahh with a Samoan drop!
Dreamer brought out Legos and traded strikes with Callihan in the ring. They used the groin claw on each other until Dreamer dropped both Callihan and Dave with double DDTs. Bahh — who wrestles barefoot — was running around the Legos.
Fulton took out Bahh with the End of Days. Mack hit a stunner on Fulton with a chair and hit Attack of the Mack, but Callihan blindsided him with a stop sign and hit the Cactus Special to win the match.
Really great match — guys like Fulton and Bahh that we don’t usually see do much showed a lot more tonight.
Final thoughts —
Good show by Impact. The lines are becoming clear for many of the rivalries ahead of Slammiversary, but we’re still in the dark when it comes to Cage’s future. The show was strong inside the ring and there were a couple of good backstage promos.