Ring of Impact #3

It’s all tied up (1-1) in the Ring of Impact fracas. Who will pull ahead in the third week?
 
TNA Impact Wrestling #653 1/19/17
 

1. Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Tyrus vs. Eli Drake vs. Mike Bennett vs. Crazzy Steve vs. Jessie Godderz vs. Mahabali Shera vs. Andrew Everett vs. Trevor Lee vs. The Death Crew Council (Bram & Kingston) - Race for the Case Match - 4

2. Brooke vs. Deonna Purrazzo - 2

3. Aron Rex & Rockstar Spud vs. Robbie E & Swoggle - 3

Moose (c) vs. Drew Galloway - IMPACT Grand Title Match - 7

Average score: 4

Goofiness abounds. Majority of the show was built around the Race for the Case concept. A very Russo-like match with four colored briefcases elevated high above the turnbuckles. Your aim was to grab a briefcase: yellow, red, blue, green, doesn’t matter, you don’t know what’s inside. The match itself was unremarkable but tossed it a bonus point for novelty. I don’t need po-faced solemnity in my wrestling, so it pleases me to say the backstage segment with the briefcase reveals which was done in a cheesy ’70’s game show set-up was delightful and cheesy. Deonna has fans nowadays, hoping to see that spark, wasn’t on display here. Comedy tag only slightly above mediocre due to the performance Aron Rex (the former Damien Sandow in WWE) gave chewing up the scenery. Main event was very good. Drew won the Grand Championship here and looked damn good. He hit this one nasty little compact piledriver where he dropped back down within seconds of initially lifting Moose (who’s no small man) then instantly plummeting him back right on top of his skull. Strong ending to a rather lackluster episode.
 
Ring of Honor ROH TV #279 1/21/17
 

1. Marty Scurll vs. Jonathan Gresham - 6

2. Chris Sabin vs. Christopher Daniels - Decade of Excellence Semi Final Match - 7

3. KUSHIDA vs. Will Ospreay vs. Dragon Lee - 8

Average score: 7
 
Holy hell … what an episode. This was fantastic. Gosh, what a breath of fresh air Gresham is. I’d forgotten how marvelous he is. I’d heard in the last few years he’s truly broken out including winning the ROH World Championship and winning a lot of awards especially around 2020. Cannot wait to get to all that stuff. And he married current TNA Knockouts champion Jordynne Grace so it’s safe to say he’s winning. But instantly seeing his smooth mat work stylings I flashed back to his work in EVOLVE when grappling was their soup du jour. Sabin and Daniels, the irony hit me that these are guys known as TNA guys, at least that’s where they arguably made their biggest impacts (pun intended) in the industry, so a chuckle from me seeing them here given the context of this project. And I’ll say, this was not done as just a basic TV bout, given that this was a tournament semi-final, they both went the extra mile to make this something of note. Sabin especially seemed motivated. He got a nasty bloody wound on his shoulder, was doing flips off the apron, jawing with Daniels’ Addiction partner Kazarian, and in the zone. Daniels’ BME (Best Moonsault Ever) truly did look like one of the best moonsaults I’d seen in forever. The last time I saw Daniels have such a spectacular match in the former ECW Arena it was an amazing encounter I wrote about here from 2011 against Eddie Edwards for the old ROH on HDNet series. Main event was just phenomenal. You’ve got KUSHIDA in the Marty McFly jacket, we’ve just seen in the past few months Dragon Lee debut on SmackDown! so this is a nice earlier peek into his work, and Will Ospreay is arguably one of the top three hottest names in the entire business currently. So, you knew this was going to deliver the goods and it most certainly did. I don’t think I’ve ever popped bigger for KUSHIDA’s gross finisher the Back to the Future (small package driver/DDT) as he absolutely murked Ospreay here.
 
Who won?
Ring of Honor really wiped the floor with TNA this week. I can’t sugarcoat that. One channel we’ve got Brother Nero crooning PeroxWhy?Gen lyrics, about how his enemies need to “classify themselves as obsolete”, and over on ROH TV they’re tossing out mat classics like New Year’s Eve party hors d'oeuvres. ROH takes the lead (2-1).