Following a very successful and widely acclaimed Slammiversary pay-per-view this past Sunday, Impact Wrestling held two days of television tapings at the Rebel Complex in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
In the past Impact would tape huge amounts of TV at one time, sometimes running four or five days straight and banking up to three months of shows in advance. This time around it would appear that they only taped enough content for three weeks, as they have another set of tapings on August 12-13.
It’s a curious move as more frequent tapings mean they’re spending more money flying in the crew every few weeks, but it also affords them a few opportunities. For one, they’re not giving away every major angle ahead of time by taping three months in advance. They can more readily change things on the fly if someone goes down with an unexpected injury or asks for their release, which has been a problem in the past.
Coming out of Slammiversary we have Austin Aries as Impact World Champion, Santana and Ortiz of LAX as the Impact Tag Team Champions, Brian Cage as X-Division Champion and Su Yung with the Knockouts title. The next major pay-per-view is Bound for Glory, but that doesn’t take place until October so it’s likely we’ll see a big two-hour TV special at some point in late August or September, along the same lines as Impact Under Pressure.
Here’s what you have to look forward to in the next three weeks:
— This Thursday on Impact Matt Sydal will get his rematch with Brian Cage for the X-Division Championship, before moving on to a bout with Pentagon Jr. down the line, which should be excellent. There was no mention of Cage on night two of the tapings, so it’s likely they’ll take care of him with footage from indie events, or in backstage segments.
— Johnny Impact will be moving into a small program with Kongo Kong and Jimmy Jacobs.
— It would appear that Austin Aries’ next challenge for the Impact World Championship is Eddie Edwards, who sort of redeemed himself at the end of that House of Hardcore match with Tommy Dreamer. We’ll see more on that as his character continues to evolve, I would imagine. It also looks like the push for Killer Cross will continue, as he’s been slated as the champ’s new “insurance policy”.
— LAX will continue working with the OGz, who have the tag titles after the beatdowns continue post-Slammiversary.
— Tessa Blanchard is not done with Allie apparently, after defeating her at Slammiversary. They’ll be doing a program where Allie pins the Knockouts Champion Su Yung in a tag team match, earning herself a title match, but an angry/jealous Tessa attacks her because she feels she should be next in line. Su’s next real challenger is still unclear, but she will be utilized on each show in some capacity.
— We’ll see a lot more of Sami Callihan and OVE after the big loss on Sunday that saw the leader get his head shaved bald after one of the greatest matches in company history. It would appear that, at least in the short-term, that program will continue. We’re in for a big singles bout between Callihan and Fenix, as well as a tag team match between the Lucha Bros and OVE at some point in the next few weeks.
— After suffering a concussion in the match with Aries at Slammiversary, Moose did not work the TV tapings. Madison Rayne did not appear either, so it looks like she’ll be done. Despite having a run with the tag titles last month, Impact didn’t even bring DJZ in for the television tapings, although NJPW star Taiji Ishimori was used in a few minor matches. Dezmond Xavier was also not flown in. With the concussion, we also won’t see Rich Swann until the next set of tapings, if he’s cleared to return by then.
Complete Impact Wrestling spoiler-filled TV taping results from NIGHT ONE and NIGHT TWO at the Rebel Complex in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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