Impact returns with the fallout of Hard To Kill, where Tessa Blanchard coronated herself as the new Impact World Champion. She also became the youngest wrestler to capture the Impact World Title. 

Desi Hit Squad (Rohit Raju & Mahabali Shera) defeated The Rascalz (Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz), Reno Scum (Luster The Legend & Adam Thornstowe, and TJP and Daga 

Great opener. Shera and Rohit made up for a great team with the big muscle and fast small guy. Shera was mostly portrayed as the best of the match, even with Luster The Legend there. Desi Hit Squad captured the win with a high knee and Sky High combination by Rohit and Shera. 

The big takeaway for me here is the great potential the team of TJP and Daga have. 

Moose cut a promo saying that he made Rhino relevant and that he’ll once again prove he’s the best multi-sport athlete in tonight’s 4-way match against Ace Austin, Eddie Edwards, and Fallah Bahh.

Josh Mathews and Don Callis continued to recap Hard To Kill and ran down some of tonight’s happenings, including a sit down interview with Tessa Blanchard. 

We got a recap of Ace Austin vs Trey Miguel, talking about Ace’s advances to Trey’s mother and him targeting Trey’s knee throughout the match. Recap did a great job at presenting Trey as a great underdog. 

Ace was backstage talking to his manager about getting a sequel for his last porn movie. He said he’ll win tonight’s 4-way.

We got a recap of Rich Swann’s injury from Bash at the Brewery, right before Hard To Kill. This led to the recap of Willie Mack’s valiant challenge against The North at Hard to Kill where he came so close to winning the titles by himself. 

We got footage from backstage, post match of the tag team championship bout. Mack told Swann that he lost and was a failure, but Swann tells him that he was amazing out there and was everything but a failure. Get yourself a tag team partner that talks to you like Swann does to Mack. I loved this.

Eddie Edwards cut a promo saying that Hard To Kill was a show that was made for him, and after a long hard fought battle, he regained his trophy. He said that tonight, he continues the winning streak when he wins the 4-way. 

We got a recap of Elgin vs Edwards from Hard To Kill. Afterwards, Callis and Mathews told us that Elgin has gone to Japan, and we got footage and an interview of Elgin from over in Japan, as he prepares to fight for Pro Wrestling NOAH. Elgin said that he loves wrestling in Japan. He talked about wrestling Nakajima on NOAH’s January 4th show. He talked about defeating Eita in 8 seconds and putting his eyes on the GHC Championship, saying that Eddie won’t be the only gaijing to hold NOAH gold. 

We got a recap of RVD taking out Cage at Hard To Kill, and then later defeating Daga with the help of Forbes.

We then got footage of RVD celebrating his victory, saying this celebration is special because he put a stop to the Machine. Forbes came in with some champagne and very little clothing. They celebrated with some blurred out wardrobe malfunctions and kisses. Rob just kept putting himself over and brought in his girlfriend’s girlfriend and they got naked. Rob said that everyone lives vicariously through him since all wrestling is a tribute of RVD, bell to bell. Rob talked trash to the marks and said that you should still take him seriously even if he parties all the time. Then they had an implied threesome. 

I love these promos from the new RVD, but I always watch these segments looking behind my back hoping that no one sneaks up on me.

Mathews and Callis talked about Shamrock’s return to Impact and his win over Madman Fulton. They recaped his various angles against oVe and the match at the pay-per-view.

We got an interview with Ken Shamrock after his match talking about how the match went like he wanted it to. He said he studied Fulton and used his size against him, he talked about it was his submission work that would work against someone like Fulton. Shamrock kinda put over Fulton saying that he could achieve greatness if he got away from Callihan. He said he had no plans beyond this match. 

Impact Plus Flashback Moment of the Week was Kurt Angle vs Jeff Jarrett from Genesis 2009.

We got a promo by Johnny Swinger talking trash about wrestling only wanting to play video games, then he sexually harassed a lady telling her to play with his joystick. Swinger is an idiot.

Joey Ryan defeated Johnny Swinger

Match starts with Ryan asking Swinger to touch his penis, but he won’t. Match instead started with some wrist control wrestling, with Ryan trying to force Swinger’s hand towards his penis. Only Joey Ryan can make Swinger seem like the serious competitor. 

Swinger teased going for the penis, but cheat-shotted Ryan. Swinger got the heat for a bit with stomps, falling fists, and a couple more dirty tricks, like pulling on the nose and choking against the ropes. Ryan tried to make a comeback with punches, but didn’t go far.

Swinger got cocky and went for a headbutt to the penis, but got himself knocked out, giving Ryan the opening to comeback strong. Swinger got a roll up with the ropes on the ropes, but referee told him off. The distraction allowed Ryan to get Swinger’s hand on his penis, but Swinger got the ref’s hand on his own penis, so Ryan accidentally dong-plexed both men. Swinger tried to low blow Ryan, but hurt his hand, allowing Ryan to hit the superkick for the win. Ok and fun match. 

We got a recap of the women’s 3-way match from Hard To Kill. 

We now got the recap of Tessa vs Callihan’s World Championship match at Hard To Kill. This was really nicely recapped by Mathews, really emotional.

We got a commercial for Rebellion, the upcoming pay-per-view in April. We also got the commercial for Impact’s return to Mexico City for the next set of tapings. Commercial had Puma King and Taurus, so hopefully they get booked. 

In the Twitch stream, Melissa Santos announced that Lockdown is coming back for an Impact Plus special.

X-Division Champion Ace Austin defeated Moose, Eddie Edwards, & Fallah Bahh to retain his championship.

This match took place in the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, PA for House of Hardcore. 

Match started with all four men in the ring trading strikes. Early on, Moose started to dominate hitting a plancha on Bahh, only to get taken out by Eddie Edwards to the outside. Ace took down Eddie, but Moose came back and got rid of the champion. 

Bahh flipped off Moose, who hit a couple of strikes that Bahh wouldn’t sell, and instead came back with an exchange of chops until Moose went for the eye poke. They traded lariats, taking each other out. 

Back in the ring, Ace and Eddie went at it, with Eddie going Kobashi chops on all men. Eddie sent Moose and Ace to the outside and went for a dive, but Bahh stopped him and Bahh hit the dive instead with the assistance of Edwards, who hit a top rope plancha as well.

After the commercial, it’s Ace and Eddie in the ring. Eddie hits a backpack stunner for a two count. Bahh comes in and takes both down, follows with running splashes to the corner until Moose cut him off and went for dropkicks instead. Moose went for a superplex on Bahh, but then Ace got him with a top rope dive. Ace tried to roll up everyone, but everyone kicked out at two. Ace failed to hit The Fold, and then the rest took each other out with superkicks and lariats. 

Moose and Eddie got into another chop exchange until Moose hit a discus lariat. Ace came in with a kick combo on Moose, but fell to a Blackhole Slam by Bahh. 

Bahh went for a the Banzai Drop, but Moose blocked him. Eddie hit Moose with the BKP, so instead Bahh took out Eddie and went for the Banzai Drop on him, but this gave Ace time to recover, hit a top rope Fold on Bahh, and pin him to retain his championship. Good match. 

We got footage of the World Title aftermatch from Hard to Kill, showing Tessa’s celebration with her family and the Impact roster and officials. We got footage from backstage, with Scott D’Amore saying nice things to Tessa. 

Josh Mathews interviewed Tessa Blanchard in Nashville, TN. Mathews asked about if Tessa ever thought things would end like this and about oVe. Tessa said that she doesn’t think that she’ll be done with oVe, but her goal is now to set goals for females and wants to lead Impact as the face of the company. Tessa accepts being now the ‘hunted’ backstage. 

Mathews asked about breaking the man/woman wrestler barrier, but suddenly, Sami Callihan interrupted by playing a video on a screen they had there. How he got access, we don’t know. 

Callihan talked about how everyone talks about Tessa and Impact making history, but it’s him that has been making history all along, bringing Impact back to life and carrying it for over two years. He said that Tessa may be the champion Impact wants, but Callihan is the champion that EVERYONE needs. 

Tessa started talking to the television, but Sami actually responded and revealed that he was in the production truck, and told her to come out looking for him. Tessa took the bait, but Sami wasn’t there at all, he was somewhere else and told Tessa that she’ll never see him coming. The End.

Final Thoughts — 

Arguably a weak show, it was a recap show with only three matches and a sit-down interview. As a recap of Hard To Kill, we got everything that we could hope for, updates on pretty much everyone involved.