Impact Wrestling results: Rich Swann vs. Ken Shamrock

Impact Wrestling returns from Nashville, TN for this week’s episode, main evented by the Impact World Champion Rich Swann defending the title against this year’s Hall of Fame inductee, Ken Shamrock. 

Opening video was a recap of John E. Bravo’s shooting investigation, Joe Doering’s debut, the farewell of The Rascalz, and the closing attack on Rich Swann at the hands of Callihan and Shamrock.

The show opened with D’Amore being told that Bravo is in stable condition, but that if he wakes up from the coma, he may not be the same Bravo as before. 

Matt Striker is replacing Madison Rayne this week on commentary. Rayne is taking the night off as she will be part of Wrestler’s Court.

Kiera Hogan & Tasha Steelz defeated Sea Stars (Ashley Vox & Delmi Exo) in a Knockouts Tag Team Championship Tournament first-round match

This is the Sea Stars’ debut for Impact Wrestling as a team, though Ashley Vox worked some dates back in 2019. 

Match saw Exo dominate early on, but once Vox and Steelz tagged in, Vox was cut off and was separated from her corner. Hogan and Steelz worked over Vox for a couple of minutes before Exo got the hot tag, with the Sea Stars getting some near falls. In the end, Steelz managed to take out Vox outside the ring, making an opening for a double team and swinging neckbreaker pin for the win by Hogan. Good opener, Sea Stars looked good. 

Hogan and Steelz advance to the semifinals. They will face the winner of Purrazzo & Lee vs Taya & Rosemary.

– Backstage, Jordynne Grace and Jazz, her partner for the tournament, were watching the match that just ended. Gia Miller approached Jazz about teaming with Grace. Jazz said that she wanted to end her career as the Impact Knockouts Tag Team Champion.

– Josh Matthews and Matt Striker ran down tonight’s card, plus a quick rundown of the Knockouts tag team tournament brackets.

– Ethan Page and Josh Alexander talked about Doc Gallows being injured and having to be gone for 4-6 weeks. Alexander was mad because it meant they couldn’t challenge for their titles until then.

– We got the first segment of Wrestler’s Court. Madison Rayne is representing Swinger, while D’lo Brown is representing ‘the boys’. Rayne objected that Dreamer is the one doing the investigation and couldn’t be the judge, so Dreamer ended up switching places with Brown.

Rayne’s argument was that Swinger was too dumb to carry out any plan that would end with Bravo’s shooting. Dreamer brought up that a gun was found in Swinger’s fanny pack. 

– Rohit Raju came out for a new Defeat Rohit Challenge. He cut a promo putting himself over before someone accepted his challenge. Suicide came out, accepting the challenge. Raju said that he knew who was under the mask and that it was a trick, and so he took the title off the line for the challenge.

Crazzy Steve defeated X Division Champion Rohit Raju in a non-title match

Going by last week’s segment with D’Amore and TJP, we are to believe that TJP is under the mask, and Raju believed it too.

The story of the match was that Raju kept going for Suicide’s mask while he was on the offense. Suicide’s arsenal was really similar to TJP’s and commentary sold it like that. Raju at the end managed to take the mask off Suicide, but it wasn’t TJP, it was actually Crazzy Steve. TJP walked down the aisle, distracting Raju long enough for Steve to cradle Raju, pinning him for the win.

With a pin on Raju, Crazzy Steve could be getting a title shot soon, but there is the argument that it was booked as Suicide, which could open the door for the old Conquistadors swerve and have TJP win the title under the Suicide mask next.

– Backstage, Sami Callihan pumped up Ken Shamrock for tonight’s title match. Moose approached them and told them that they’re fighting for the second most important title in the company. Moose said that it was unfortunate that it wasn’t him who will face Rich Swann, but reminded Shamrock that once he wins, he’ll come for him and remind him of what happened when Moose and Shamrock fought last year.

– Tenille Dashwood and Kaleb with a K were taking some photographs backstage when Alisha Edwards approached Dashwood about tagging again. Dashwood told her to get the hint, but Edwards kept insisting, leading to Dashwood considering teaming with her again.

Kimber Lee (with Deonna Purrazzo) defeated Killer Kelly (with Renee Michelle)

This is both Killer Kelly and Renee Michelle’s debut, who are joining Impact for the Knockouts Tag Team Championship tournament. Purrazzo and Lee are also feuding with Su Yung, who threatened them last week. 

The match was good but too short. Back and forward action between the two. Some mat wrestling early on with pin reversals and submissions, leading to a couple of bigger spots towards the end, which saw Lee get the win with a swanton bomb.

After the match, Susie came out and told Purrazzo and Lee that they hurt her friends, and so instead, their friends are going to attack them. They did a great edit to make it seem like Susie was on the ramp while Su Yung attacked the ring and sent Purrazzo and Lee running away. 

– Gia Miller interviewed the Motor City Machine Guns. Alex Shelley said that he was cleared to return to action, and they were going after XXXL, The North, and The Good Brothers.

– Rich Swann and Willie Mack met backstage. Swann said he was sorry he couldn’t help Mack with Moose, but Mack said it was ok, he’d been fighting all his life. Chris Bey came in and tried to talk Swann into a title match at the expense of calling Mack a loser, which made both men get defensive and kick him out of the room.

Swoggle (with Karl Anderson) defeated Ethan Page (with Josh Alexander) 

Last week, Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows told Page that if they wanted another title match, they had to defeat someone of their choosing, and they had hinted that Page would be facing someone ‘Phenomenal’. That person wasn’t AJ Styles, but Swoggle dressed as AJ Styles. We at least got to hear the old AJ Styles theme.

The match saw Page not take Swoggle seriously, so Swoggle took advantage and got some hits early on. Alexander cut Swoggle off and allowed Page to regain composure and work on Swoggle for a bit. In return, Anderson distracted Page, allowing Swoggle to schoolboy Page to score the upset win.

Page seemed to be having a breakdown after the match.

– Back at Wrestler’s Court, Swinger is being interrogated. Swinger made a case that Dreamer and himself went way back and that Dreamer knew that as much as Swinger cheats, he’d never shoot someone. 

Dreamer called up Rosemary, who accepted that she never loved Bravo, but she wanted his virgin blood. At this perfect timing, Bravo returned and confronted Rosemary about being used. Bravo said he knew who shot him and it was revealed that it was Larry D’s alter-ego, Lawrence D, and he had done it out of jealousy. Months worth of programming just for this? Total waste of time.

Fallah Bahh vs Daivari ended in a no contest

This only lasted maybe one minute before Joe Doering and Eric Young ran down and took out both men. Young started cutting a promo, but Rhino ran down to attack them. The numbers game was too much and instead, they laid out Rhino. Young ended with a cryptic promo saying the world belongs to them.

– Backstage, TJP approached Crazzy Steve and Swoggle for help. Brain Myers walked up and made fun of all three of them.

– Somewhere else backstage, Purrazzo and Kimber Lee approached James Mitchell about dealing with Su Yung. Mitchell said he’d offer help for a ‘price’, but didn’t go into details.

– Matthews and Striker ran down next week’s card, which includes XXXL vs. MCMGs, Rohit Raju defending the title against Crazzy Steve, Killer Kelly &  Renee Michelle vs. Jordynne Grace & Jazz in the Knockouts Tag Team Championship tournament, and Willie Mack vs. Chris Bey. 

Impact World Champion Rich Swann defeated Ken Shamrock (with Sami Callihan) to retain the title

Sami Callihan has been manipulating Shamrock for a couple of months now. Callihan and Shamrock set their sights on Swann after he won the title, attacking him on a couple of occasions, leading to this match.

Callihan interjected himself into the match in the opening minutes and wound up being ejected from ringside. The distraction was enough for Shamrock to attack Swann and gain control of the match, immediately going after Swann’s bad leg. Shamrock had control for about half of the match, he switched from legs to guillotines and back to the leg, just anything to keep Swann down. 

Swann eventually used his speed to make a comeback, but every now and then, Shamrock would still find counters and would reverse into submission, only for Swann to escape. In the end, Shamrock had the ankle lock, but Swann rolled over Shamrock and got the win. Well wrestled match, but a bit one-sided considering the champion was involved. 

After the match, Shamrock attacked the referee. Callihan came out and hit Swann with the cactus special. He teased attacking Swann with a bat, but Eddie Edwards came out for the save. Callihan and Shamrock took down Edwards and tied him down to the ropes, then proceeded to take out Edwards’ eye once again. D’Lo Brown and security came down, but Shamrock took down Brown. Security finally got Callihan and Shamrock off Edwards as the show went off the air. Interesting angle, one would imagine that this could write off Edwards for a while.

Final thoughts — 

Okay show by Impact, nothing really outstanding. It was entertaining and it went by fast. The direction of most of the storylines right now are pretty hard to read.