Impact Wrestling results: Two title matches, RVD vs. Dreamer

Impact Wrestling returned from the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. The opening video focused on the ongoing story with Rosemary, Eddie Edwards vs. Killer Kross, and last week’s great main event between Rich Swann and Michael Elgin.

This week’s Twitch stream was hosted by Melissa Santos. She had some computer issues at first, and so we got a couple of extra Impact Plus Flashbacks for those watching on Twitch. For the post-show, they aired Moose vs. Eddie Edwards from this year’s Homecoming pay-per-view.

Sami Callihan defeated Fallah Bahh (w/ Scarlett Bordeaux)

The story of the match was that Callihan brought out a more vicious side of Bahh — whether it was to show off to Bordeaux or to survive the match. Callihan jumped Bahh to start things off, but Bahh quickly cut him off with a flying crossbody. Bahh kept control with chops and stomps. Callihan even tried biting off Bahh’s exposed toe, but it was to no avail.

The match spilled outside, where they brawled for a bit with chops. But as they made their way back to the ring, Callihan caught Bahh with a clothesline that dropped him back to the floor.

Back in the ring, Callihan tortured Bahh’s bare foot, biting the toes and twisting them. Callihan locked in a sleeper, but Bahh made a comeback as he hulked up. Bahh came back with a good belly-to-belly and side slam for a two count. Bahh went for the top rope Banzai Drop, but Callihan rolled out of the way, and thankfully, Bordeaux was there to tell Bahh not to dive.

Callihan got a two count with a kick combination, and Bahh was bleeding from the mouth. Bahh hit a Samoan Drop and once again went for the Banzai Drop, but now it was the Crist brothers that came out to help Callihan. Bordeaux confronted both of them and took them out with a rolling senton. Inside the ring, Bahh used the distraction to get a two count on Callihan.

Bahh hit a suicide dive to take out all of oVe. But when he tried to capitalize, Callihan caught him with a draping Cactus Special and pinned Bahh by putting his feet on the ropes. Pretty good opener.

Tommy Dreamer cut a promo backstage talking about the first impressions he had of Rob Van Dam and their history throughout ECW, WWE, and old TNA. He talked about them going at it one last time tonight.

Melissa Santos interviewed Johnny Impact and Johnny Bravo. She asked about helping Elgin last week. Impact was explaining that he wanted to let Elgin keep sending people to the hospital. Elgin walked up to them, and Impact offered to tag together and send Swann and Mack to the hospital next.

Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie defeated Madison Rayne to retain her title

Taya ran around the ring to start the match, but Rayne soon used a spear to stop her and started delivering a flurry of punches. Rayne kept control, getting a two count with a second rope crossbody.

Back from commercial, Rayne delivered a cutter for another two count — and Taya once again decided to run away and leave the ring. Rayne tried to catch Taya with a baseball slide while she was distracted, but Taya was ready for her, caught her leg, and started kicking her hamstring to finally ground her.

Taya focused on Rayne’s leg by stomping her knee over and over on the mat. Rayne tried to make a comeback with strikes, but she had a weak footing that Taya easily broke. Same when Rayne thought she could do a suplex. Taya locked in a single-leg crab, but Rayne made the ropes.

Taya started getting more and more cocky, distracting herself and talking trash and giving Rayne the time to recover a bit. Rayne finally manage to reverse a running hip attack with a kick and a tornado DDT. Taya pulled the referee in front of her to once again cut off Rayne, but it didn’t last long as Rayne returned with a schoolboy for a two count. She transitioned into a single-leg crab, but Taya made the ropes.

Taya connected with two knee lifts and went for Road to Valhalla, but Rayne reversed it. Rayne went for a reverse DDT, but Taya countered into Road to Valhalla for the win.

As Taya was celebrating in the ring, Rosemary suddenly appeared. The crowd popped big. Rosemary tied up Su Yung in the ring post and went to face off with Taya and make her intentions clear — she wants the Knockouts Championship.

We got a Deaners Vignette of them eating Philly cheesesteak. Cody Deaner talked about The Desi Hit Squad stealing their last match and talked about the sacrifices they’ve made to come to Impact.

Backstage, James Mitchell met with Rosemary and told her that they’ve always looked at her as part of the family, but he was starting to get annoyed at Rosemary stealing bridesmaids and Su Yung. Rosemary told Mitchell that they’re done with him and technically told him that she is planning to kill Su Yung.

The Impact Plus Flashback of the Week was Raven and The Sandman’s debut in The Asylum from February 2003.

We had a video recap of Eddie Edwards and his kendo stick. Edwards talked about what the stick meant to him. He did acknowledge it was just a stick, but it was a memento that had been with him in the last months and through his struggles.

Edwards challenged Killer Kross to a fight next week. Edwards had his mouthpiece on and was talking funny.

The Rascalz were in the Treehouse. They were sober and arguing because they were hating their new training regiment. Zachary Wentz proposed they smoke, then they were all happy and ready to train again. Now that they were back to normal, they dominated their training session.

Impact Tag Team Champions LAX (Santana & Ortiz) w/ Konnan defeated The North (Josh Alexander & Ethan Page) to retain their titles

Santana and Alexander started the match with a sequence of reversals and counters. Alexander dominated with his strength advantage and gave Santana a cheap shot to get some control, but Santana managed to tag in Ortiz before he got completely cut off.

Page came in — only to take a couple of double-team moves from LAX. Alexander returned and took out Santana with a running crossbody to the back and finally cut off Ortiz.

The North worked over Ortiz with quick tags and double-team moves, earning a couple of two counts along the way. Page was in with Ortiz, who made a small comeback with a neckbreaker, but Alexander had taken out Santana once again. Ortiz was forced to survive a bit longer until Santana could make it back to the corner.

Santana and Alexander tagged in, with the former running wild over The North. Santana hit a sunset flip for a two count. LAX then used a slingshot into a kick on Alexander for another two count, then The North hit a quick combo on Santana for a two count for themselves.

Santana went for the propelled cutter, but Alexander caught him and tossed him out, leaving Ortiz open for a finisher. Alexander pinned Ortiz and Santana was late to break up the pin, but the ref still counted only two.

The match continued with LAX hitting a cutter, superkick, and Street Sweeper combo to pin Alexander and retain their titles. Great match if we ignore that one botched pin attempt. The commentary team sold it as controversial and said that they’ll review the tape and give The North another title shot if they see fit.

“Disco Inferno” Glenn Gilbertti vs. Ashley Vox ended in a no contest

This was announced as an exhibition match. Before it began, Disco cut a promo talking trash about women’s wrestling and said that he would be doing live commentary during the match. He asked production to cut off Don Callis and Josh Mathews’ headsets.

Disco interviewed Vox and just made fun of her over and over until Vox got tired of his voice and started the match.

Disco still used the distractions to cheap shot her and beat her up a bit, ramming her into the turnbuckle. Disco locked in a headlock and actually called the match while doing it. In a heelish way, he was hilarious.

Disco eventually got tired and hit an old school thumb to the throat behind the ref’s back. He kept talking trash, giving Vox the opening to roll him up for a two count. Vox got some offense in, dropping Disco, but Disco got an opening and hit a stunner but broke up his own pin.

Disco went for a second stunner, but Tessa Blanchard finally came out for the save, running Disco to the back. This was longer than it needed to be.

Blanchard vs. Disco was announced for next week.

Dezmond Xavier defeated Ace Austin, Petey Williams, and Rohit Raju (w/ Gama Singh) in a fatal four-way match

Raju took out Xavier to start the match. Austin then took Raju out, right before Williams hit a couple of moves on both men. Williams went for an early Canadian Destroyer, but Austin cut him off and gave him the Ace finger cut.

Xavier returned and took out Austin. He exchanged some reversals with Raju, who he dropped with a combo right before diving on Austin. Williams hit a dive on Xavier, followed by a Space Flying Tiger Drop by Austin on both of them.

Back in the ring, Austin superkicked both Raju and Xavier. Williams hit the Destroyer on Austin. Xavier came in and Williams was going for another Destroyer, but Raju foot stomped him in the back of the neck and took him out. Xavier kicked Raju and pinned him to take the win. This had fast-paced action but was too short.

Announced for next week: Eddie Edwards vs. Killer Kross in a street fight, Tessa Blanchard vs. Glenn Gilbertti, and Michael Elgin & Johnny Impact vs. Rich Swann vs. Willie Mack.

Rob Van Dam defeated Tommy Dreamer

This was billed as their final match against each other ever. They spent the first few minutes playing to the crowd’s dueling chants and E-C-Dub chants. This was total fan service for the Philly crowd.

They finally started wrestling with a short series of reversals. RVD got the first pin attempt with a rolling leg sweep. Dreamer hit a suplex. They exchanged a couple of reversals, ending in a standoff. It had already been five minutes since they started — this was going slow.

RVD played to the fans and Dreamer tried to roll him up. Dreamer went for the Dusty strikes. RVD countered but was sent out to the floor. Dreamer spat water on RVD, seemingly wanting the match to get extreme — and thus RVD hit the springboard apron leg drop and brought out a chair for the Van Daminator to the corner.

Dreamer set up RVD in the tree-of-woe with a chair and delivered a running dropkick. RVD came back with a Rolling Thunder onto a chair once Dreamer moved out of the way. Dreamer dropped RVD with a DDT onto the chair for a two count.

Dreamer went for a piledriver, but RVD blocked him once. Dreamer hit it on his second attempt, getting a two count. Dreamer went for a diving elbow, but RVD dodged and Dreamer went face-first into a chair with a drop toe hold. RVD delivered the Five Star Frog Splash to pick up the win.

I can’t say it was a good match. Both men looked old, but the spectacle of this match in the old ECW Arena was enough for the live fans to go crazy for it.

After the match, The North came down and attacked both RVD and Dreamer. They mocked them, but RVD and Dreamer made a comeback until Moose came out to aid The North. Moose set up for the spear, but the lights suddenly went out and Sabu returned to make the save.

RVD, Dreamer, and Sabu joined forces to take out The North and Moose to close the show.

Final thoughts —

Overall, this was a good and entertaining episode. The main event felt completely like fan service and somewhat out of context to the whole direction of the show, but nonetheless, this was a fun watch.