The Horror Returns - The Wrestling Returns: Impact Slammiversary(2022)

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

Brian is here with a TWR bonus episode of Impact Wrestling's SLAMMIVERSARY 2022.   Check out everything Horror Returns at: https://thehorrorreturns.com   Join The Horror Returns Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1056143707851246 THR Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thehorrorreturns   Join The Action Returns Facebook group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/841619946357776   Follow The Action Returns on IG and Twitter: Instagram: @theactionreturns Twitter: @action_returns    Join the THR Presents: Stream Fiends Facebook Group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/3860579827402429 Follow THR Stream Fiends on IG: @thrstreamfiends

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, welcome to another episode of the wrestling returns. Welcome back, everybody, to a bonus episode of the wrestling returns. This is going to be the first and hopefully many more bonus episodes. You'll hear me. You'll hear Nez. You'll hear us both. And we'll see where it goes from here. A little late and wrong on this one. Shout out to the League Geeks. The Geeks, if you listen to them, you know the expression late and wrong.

This one is Impact Wrestling's slammerversary 2022. This happened June 19th. My birthday, happy birthday to myself. This took place at the asylum in Nashville, Tennessee. This was the 20th anniversary for Impact Wrestling, formerly known as TNA, total nonstop action. The event featured videos and appearances honoring the anniversary. You got videos from Sting, Kurt Angle, James Storm and Chris Harris, who were multiple-time

tag team champions in TNA, an impact known as America's Most Wanted. Former owner, I don't know what she does with Impact now. Dixie Carter made an appearance. One of the cool things that happened was WWE led AJ Styles sent in a video for the event, and I thought that was really cool for them to let him do that. And yeah, let's get into these results. Like I said, I'm going to give some results.

So if you haven't seen it, pause this. Go check out the event and then come back. And you can hear some of these results. and some of my thoughts on the event. We're going to start with the pre-show, Savannah Evans versus Alicia Edwards. Didn't really check this one out. I'm not a big fan of Savannah Evans.

She is the knockout world champions muscle, and just not buying her whole gimmick as being tough and being the muscle for the champ. But it just seems a little forced and a little, a little phony. So didn't really catch this one. But Samantha Evans came out on top over Alicia Edwards. Next up is the Impact Digital World Championship. What is the Impact Digital World Championship?

I don't know. If somebody does know, let me know. Is it just something special or is it just another title? like recently AEW added the what is it Mid-Atlantic

All-Atlantic world title and WWE's got the 24-7 title is it one of those kind of titles that doesn't really mean anything or is it something a little bit more worthwhile than

than what I'm giving it credit for let me know we got the champ Brian Myers versus Rich Swan. And Rich Swan came out to Victor in this one. A decent match.

Rich Swan regains the digital title. And, yeah, wasn't nothing too spectacular of this one. A lot of these pre-show matches were just kind of, eh, you know, they're pre-show. You know, what can you expect? If they were supposed to be anything more,

you know, they'd be on the main card. Next up, was a pretty cool angle to a battle royal a reverse battle royal you don't really see too many of these participating in this one was Johnny Swinger

Chris Bay David Young Zicki Dice Shira Raj Singh and I'm going to fuck up this name right here. Boutimber Gujar

probably totally just mispronounce that name. Shark boy. Shogun, Nate Webb, Aden Price, Crazy Steve, Mike Jackson, Steve Macklin, Chase Stevens, and Slash with an appearance with Father James Mitchell.

And a decent little battle royal. You know, they kind of, you know, switched it up with the whole reverse aspect of it. And Shark Boy, I remember Shark Boy. I remember Shark

boy from early before impact was impact when it was TNA. He came out as the victor and, uh, you know, I mean, Shark Boy is what it is, you know, I kind of liked him more when he had his old Steve Austin gimmick when he was, uh, and staying, you know, kind of, you know, changing up the Stone Cold tag lines, you know, to make a more like fish based. And instead of chugging beer, he was chugging clam juice, you know, I thought that was entertaining. It was goofy, but, you know, it was entertaining.

You know, it made things fun. You know, wrestling is supposed to be fun. And he came out the winner in this one. All right, moving on to the main card. The first match was the Ultimate X match for the Impact X Division Championship. Always enjoy these X-Division championships. You got a lot of high flyers, a lot of dangerous. moments in it and in this one you have the champ ace austin versus alexeine versus

Andrew everett versus Kenny king versus tray Miguel versus Mike Bailey and uh Mike Bailey came out on top and he is the new X division champion um I'm I'm starting to warm up to Mike Bailey I've seen him a couple times and um I think it was a GCW and so far I'm liking what I'm seeing and there was a lot of talented wrestlers in here a lot of a lot of high flying a lot of dangerous maneuvers uh if you guys don't know what an ex division match it's uh they have ropes on above the ring kind of crossing over in the X and you have to climb up onto the ropes and climb over to the middle where the championship is being hung and you got to get up there and get it and it can get dangerous and

adds to the excitement. So definitely one of the standout matches in my opinion. Next up was the Impact Knockouts World Tag Team Championship and this was defended by the champions,

the influence Madison Rain and Teneo Dashwood versus the challengers Rosemary and Taya Valkyrie, which if you guys don't remember Taya Valkyri was recently in

if you guys hear the noise that's my neighbors excuse me for that Tyra Valky was previously in NXT as Frankie Monet of course they did nothing with her Taya Valky

is a multiple time champion outside of W.W.E. and NXT and they just absolutely did nothing with her so I'm kind of glad to see her back in the Indies and just kind of doing her thing and her and Rosemary pulled it out new impact world tag team champions a quick match some good moments in here but again going into this going through this event I

felt like some of these matches were kind of rushed because if you look up some of the match times in there like some of these matches are only like 10 minutes if that and this one felt like it was real quick, but a new world tag team champions, a knockout tag team champions, Rosemary, Ty of Valkyrie. Next up is the Monsters Ball match with Sammy Callahan and Moose.

Monster ball match, essentially just a hardcore match. Tables, ladders, chairs, trash cans, trash can lids, thumbtacks, you name it. They got brought. out and I guess the buildup to this one or 24 hours before the match they both were locked in a room with no lights and then right before the match kind of let out and I guess they were supposed to

be kind of crazy but didn't really get that from them but it was definitely a hard hitting hardcore match Moose did his thing Sally Sammy Callahan did his thing and uh Sammy Callahan ended up pulling out the win at the end. Blood was spilt and you kind of got what you wanted out of a monster ball match. So definitely another standout match. Let's see.

Moving on next, we got the Impact World Tag Team champions, the champions of the briskos versus the Good Brothers Bullet Club. This one I felt went by super fast and I kind of felt like they were just trying to get the belts off the briscoes.

I'm not sure if the briscoes are impact wrestlers or Ring of Honor wrestlers or what is happening. It just kind of seemed like the match breezed on by. Everybody was hitting moves, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the match was over. New tag team champions, the good brothers, who I know for a factor are assigned to impact. I don't know. I didn't really care for this one. I'm okay with the Good Brothers, and I really like the Briscoes.

You know, they've been multiple-time champions throughout the years, especially through Ring of Honor, but nothing really, nothing bad to say, but also nothing really good to say about the match. It just kind of came and went. So,

moving on to the next one. this one I didn't know how to feel coming into it it set up a whole beef with former Ring of Honor wrestlers coming together and forming a new group called Honor No More and this group was Matt Tavern, Mike Bennett, PCO, Vincent, Maria Canellis

and they were all led by former Impact wrestler Eddie Edwards and they were just kind of doing the whole invasion angle. And then you got some of the impact originals kind of banded together to go against them. And you had Alex Shelley, Chris Sabian, Frankie Kazarian. Nick Aldus from Frankie Kazarian came over from AW. Nick Aldus came over from NWA. And then they teased a whole big reveal of their fifth member, which they were teasing.

it could be a past impact wrestler, a present impact wrestler, you know, kind of building it up. And then it ended up being no disrespect to him, but I don't think this wrestler lived up to the buildup. And it was Davey Richards. Now, you might not know who Davey Richards is. He was a former tag team partner of Honor No More's Eddie Edwards. They were the wolves, I think, or the Wolfpack or something like that. I know they were like multiple time tag team champions and then Eddie turned on him a couple years ago. And so I would have been okay if they brought them in.

I get it. You know, they're rivals now. They're former best friends, tag team partners turned rivals. I would have been cool with that. You didn't need to do the whole surprise gimmick and teasing former this or present this. Because, you know, when you say that, you know, there's been a lot of people. people that were former impact wrestlers, you know, like, like I said, with the video package earlier of people honoring impact wrestling, you know, you got names like Sting, Samoa Joe,

AJ Stiles, Kurt Angle, you know, Jeff Hardy, Christian Cage. I mean, the list goes on. So, you know, it just got got people speculating on who was going to show up. and it just, it was Davey Richards. And like I said, no disrespect to the man. He's a good wrestler, but you don't kind of, the build-up didn't kind of work in that point. And I was just a little disappointed. I mean, the match was decent.

I mean, everybody was doing what they do in there, and the Impact Originals pulled out to win. And a couple of standouts in the match, I thought was Alex Shelley and Chris Sabie and the Motor City Machine Guns, who were honored as Impact's most influential tag team, which I agree with them because they're just one of the tag teams outside of America's Most Wanted. And what was that, Robert Rood and James Storm, Beer Money, Inc. You know, tag teams like that, they're up there with Motor City Machine Guns.

But when I think of tag teams in Impact slash TNA, I think about the city machine guns. And they showed why they were multiple time tag team champions because they, when they're in there and they're busting out tag team moves, it's so fluid and quick. Because, you know, they've done it a million times in there. I thought everybody did what they needed to do. And the ending got kind of, kind of choppy, kind of, you know, chaotic. and I don't think it necessarily some of the some things kind of played out the way that smoothly the way they wanted to but um in at the end of the day you know the impact originals uh one I don't know what this means for honor no more they're

going to continue to be on and no more they're going to move on they're going to break up what I don't know we'll see all right the co-main event was the first ever queen of the mountain match for the nine out women's championship. If you don't know what a queen of the mountain is, it's basically a playoff. The King of the Mountain match, the impact has, and essentially to be eligible to go for the title, you have to get a pinfall. That person you pin goes into a penalty box for two minutes. Once you pin somebody, you're eligible to get the belt and instead of getting climbing a ladder and pulling down the belt,

you have to climb the ladder and hang the belt up. And there was some pretty good spots in here. Let me get to who was in here. The champion, Tasha Steele's with her muscle, old unconvincing ass. Savannah Evans came to the ring with her. And she went against Chelsea Green, Jordan Grace, Deanna Parazzo, the Virtuosa, and she debuted. and returned back to impact, I think, about a month ago,

me a.m. So a five-way for the knockouts championship. And there was a few kind of botches in here. The champ, Tasha Stills, I just, I'm not a big fan of hers. Sometimes she gets in there and does what she needs to do, but she was horrible in this match. Chelsea Green, she did her thing. I was more so impressed with the bump her and Deanna Parazzo took

because there was two tables set out outside of the ring. They both have climbed a ladder to the top. And I believe it was neither Jordan Grace or Mia Yom came into the ring and pushed a ladder over. And they went from outside of the ring falling off the ladder to both tables. and it looked kind of rough because they went directly through the tables and hit that floor and oh, I didn't mention

Mickey James was a special enforcer and they played the angle because some of the female wrestlers knockout wrestlers she has a problem with so they were kind of she was being biased to some of them but the way both Deanna and Chelsea both

have a problem with Mickey James but the way they kind of went through the tables, you kind of see Mickey James kind of go over there and check on them real quick to see if they were okay. Good thing they were. I mean, I'm pretty sure they were sore after, but it's the business.

Mia Yim, I think she could have did better. She had an awesome ladder match in NXT, and I was kind of expecting to get that out of her, but didn't really get that out of her. And who came out the winner? Jordan Grace. Jordan came out the winner. I'm glad they put the belt on her.

She's been kind of doing her thing lately. I've been watching a lot of her indie stuff. And she's been putting into work for a couple years now, a few years, well, probably more than that. But, yeah, new Impact Knockouts champion, Jordan Grace. I think it was the right choice to put the belt. on her. I mean, it could have been Chelsea Green, but I just don't think she can have the great matches that Jordan Grace can or Deanna Pirazo. But Deanna Parazzo was like champ for like a couple years before she lost the belt. So yeah, a pretty good match. Now for the main event. This one, I didn't like to build up for it. It was essentially one person was, uh, honoring impact and respected what what they've done and getting the chance to to be in the company then you got the other one who was a veteran

who didn't give a shit about respect he only cared about himself and he just wanted the championship and this was josh alexander the champ versus the vet eric young and i did not care for this match there was some great moments in here as far as wrestling wise there was some great moments but the the story that was being told it just i was kind of bored with it um i think josh alexander is a great wrestler you know he came in he was paying his respects i believe on his knee pads one said uh one was basically a shout out to a j styles the other knee pad was a shout out to samoa joe and his ring attire was a shout out to Kurt Angles, so definitely paying his respects to those

who came before him. And then Eric Young, he's a vet. Another wrestler that was in NXT that I felt like was completely misused and didn't really get a chance to show what he can do. But, yeah, this was

basically just, this was just an average-ass match. I mean, this was the main event at Slammiversary for the Impact World Championship. and it just didn't have any big moments that I can just kind of look back and say, wow, that was a great made event. Honestly, the women's queen of the mountain match was more entertaining.

This one, in my opinion, if this was the way it was going to go, they should have just kind of swapped them around and made the world championship, the co-made event and did the queen of the mountain match the main event. But it was what it was. Josh Alexander retained a championship and had a good moment with his family. His son and wife were ringside. I will give him this. He definitely did honor those in impact that came before him.

And that was Slamiverse 3, 2020. So I don't know how many we're going to, how many of these bonus episodes we're going to pump out. I'm personally, I'm going to try and get as many as I can. Like I said, I'm trying to give, trying to give you listeners more content. I definitely appreciate everybody for listening. I don't know where to go from here. So basically going to tell everybody for more wrestling returns,

the horror returns, the action returns, THR present stream fiends, bonus episodes, quick reviews, interviews, we got coming out, you can go to thehorrorterms.com. And there are also links on the page for you to check out

my brother Nez over at the Skater Nez podcast network and E-Society. You need to check out those. If you're checking out us, you should already be checking out them. I'll just put it that way.

And what else we got? Definitely, if you can, and are willing, are able go check out our Patreon we are I promise I promise promise promise we are going to have

some content on Patreon it's coming it's been recorded it's going to happen like I said I promise and yeah until then

everybody be good to each other