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Against All Odds (06.13.2021)
I don't usually have much to say about Impact PPVs, but the ending to tonight's got me ALL up in my Elite feelings, ffs
The Good Brothers vs. Tommy Dreamer & Sami Callahan in a Street Fight: I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, and maybe I just haven't been looking in the right places, maybe I'm misreading something that would make more sense with more knowledge of these characters' histories, or maybe it's just that not enough people watch fucking Impact lol, but there's something really low-key sinister about the Good Brothers' new bit where they're acting all (facetiously) religious? It feels like a deliberate riff on the Young Bucks' old Christian AF gimmick, and it brings back a LOT of my old uneasiness about Kenny using Anderson and Gallows as warped stand-ins for Matt and Nick prior to their heel turn, like a tacky reminder that that's how all of this shit started even if they're (allegedly) all one happy family as the Super Elite these days. It feels so significant that these two idiots crossing themselves in a way that's reminiscent of all the Mario/Luigi/Waluigi doppelganger nonsense I've been spouting is how the show started, for it to end hours later with... WELL I GUESS I'LL GET TO THAT WHEN IT HAPPENS.
Satoshi Kojima vs. Joe Doering: I continue to love these inter-promotion crossovers, even if I didn't previously know who Kojima is beyond 'oh is he that guy on twitter who really likes bread?'
Petey Williams vs. Trey Miguel vs. Ace Austin vs. Chris Bey vs. Rohit Raju in a #1 Contenders X-Division Match: High-flying high-flyer boys all fly high. Goddamn, has watching Impact and NWA made me grateful for Tony Khan's rule against shitty DQ finishes to matches in AEW. It's always so unsatisfying unless there's a DAMN good reason for it.
Rich Swann vs. W. Morrissey: W. Morrissey is a very awkward wrestling name, and I feel bad for it, but fuck, all I can see when he wrestles is his horrific body acne, dude desperately needs to find a better balance between steroids and side effects because argh. Also he wore jeans and his ass was real wet with sweat! Combined with the fact that he's literally seven feet tall and looks like a cartoon man compared to Rich, it was a lot of look!
Tenille Dashwood vs. Jordynne Grace: Three whole women's matches on a PPV (okay, a subscription special, whatever), god it's always nice when a promotion gives a modicum of a shit. Tenille's entrance music is low-key one of the catchiest tunes around.
Fire n Flava (c) vs. Kimber Lee & Susan for the Knockouts Tag Team Championship: I hope Su Yung drops the goofy Susan persona once crowds are back.
VBD (c) vs. Decay for the Impact Tag Team Championship: I miss FinJuice. :(
Deonna Purrazzo (c) vs. Rosemary for the Knockouts Championship: Not one damn title change, booooooo.
Kenny Omega (c) vs. Moose for the Impact World Championship: I wonder if so many people would be talking about how banged up Kenny seemed if they hadn't seen that report about all the injuries he's wrestling through at the moment, or if they're just seeing things because they're looking for them. Anyway, it was cool as hell to see an Impact match go down in Daily's Place with Tony Schiavone on commentary, CROSSOVERRRRRRS. The different setup with the lights, making it look like they were wrestling in a black void whenever the hardcam was head-on, was pretty neat since they didn't have a crowd (apart from the lovable AEW Dark talent), anyway. The match was whatever, but the ending is what I REALLY cared about, with the Bucks running in to cheat Kenny's way to victory just like old times, and mannnnnn.
Over the weeks since the Bucks pulled a 180 and went all in with Kenny and Don, we have seen them come out for Kenny time and time again. Kenny, however, has never done the same for them. At Double or Nothing, they were immediately there to celebrate his (equally stolen bullshit) win at the end of the show, but the Good Brothers were the only ones who showed up during THEIR match, much earlier in the night. Even after the Bucks threw away their integrity and style and every scrap of respect they had in the company they started just so they could follow their best friend into the dark, it remains a tragically one-sided relationship. Kenny is so far gone that he doesn't even really see them as people, anymore. He's been so consumed by his desperate quest for glory, to prove that he's the best at the expense of all else, that even Matt and Nick have become just another pair of trophies for him to collect and flaunt whenever it suits him.
The last time they tagged with Brandon? Kenny melted the fuck down out of jealousy, issuing threats and ultimatums. When they did it again on Dynamite this week? Crickets. Because they're his now so it doesn't matter anymore. He got what he wanted, on to the next challenge, and supporting his friends does not qualify. He'll whine about not being allowed to second Anderson and Gallows while pretty much abandoning Matt and Nick whenever they're not actively supporting HIM and HIS victories. But the Bucks are still out there, trying to pretend like everything is okay and that this one-sided, toxic love is fine and sustainable, and it's just... not. It's not! Whatever endgame they hoped for in all of this, it's obviously not coming until something else changes, until something else breaks.
Which pretty much has to be soon, right? The fact of that matter is that Kenny IS getting increasingly banged up with no time to rest and heal between big matches across multiple promotions. The man is 38 years old, which on its own isn't that bad, but for a wrestler with his particular style, who's been doing it for as long as he has? That's a LOT of wear and tear on the body, dude needs to take it easy at some point. Every time I see someone suggest that Hangman might or should lose at All Out, I die a little inside, because I think it would be awful and an enormous gut punch in a storyline that really doesn't need any more, but maybe more importantly, with the injuries that Kenny is pushing through at the moment, I don't know if he'll be physically able to push his current run past the end of summer without at least slowing his momentum somewhat to give himself a chance to catch his breath, something he is clearly not doing. The wheels have GOT to start falling off the cart soon, and when that happens, I truly don't know what it's going to mean for the Elite. Probably nothing good, but with how far they've fallen, they've kinda gotta hit rock bottom before they can start putting themselves back together, I think. Right now, they're still champions, covered in gold and glory and terrible earrings, but once they lose those belts, the hollow shell people they've let Don Callis turn them into will be on full display with nothing to hide behind and... fuck, idk man, I just don't know.
If I had to guess at a timeline right now, I'd say Kenny drops the Impact title at Slammiversary next month, then the AAA to Andrade at TripleMania in August, paving the way for him to lose the AEW championship at All Out in September, a slow collapse of everything he's built as the wear on his body after all these defenses slowly catches up with him. Maybe the Bucks lose their belts on the same day (Santana & Ortiz look to FINALLY be starting to get a push) and they all really have to reckon with what they've all done and see who is and isn't in their corner when all of the chips are down.
Goddamn. Goddamn.
Matt shouting 'IT'S MAX AND JEREMY BUCK!' was very, very funny, though. Generation Me, pulling shit on Impact again after all these years.
The Good Brothers vs. Tommy Dreamer & Sami Callahan in a Street Fight: I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, and maybe I just haven't been looking in the right places, maybe I'm misreading something that would make more sense with more knowledge of these characters' histories, or maybe it's just that not enough people watch fucking Impact lol, but there's something really low-key sinister about the Good Brothers' new bit where they're acting all (facetiously) religious? It feels like a deliberate riff on the Young Bucks' old Christian AF gimmick, and it brings back a LOT of my old uneasiness about Kenny using Anderson and Gallows as warped stand-ins for Matt and Nick prior to their heel turn, like a tacky reminder that that's how all of this shit started even if they're (allegedly) all one happy family as the Super Elite these days. It feels so significant that these two idiots crossing themselves in a way that's reminiscent of all the Mario/Luigi/Waluigi doppelganger nonsense I've been spouting is how the show started, for it to end hours later with... WELL I GUESS I'LL GET TO THAT WHEN IT HAPPENS.
Satoshi Kojima vs. Joe Doering: I continue to love these inter-promotion crossovers, even if I didn't previously know who Kojima is beyond 'oh is he that guy on twitter who really likes bread?'
Petey Williams vs. Trey Miguel vs. Ace Austin vs. Chris Bey vs. Rohit Raju in a #1 Contenders X-Division Match: High-flying high-flyer boys all fly high. Goddamn, has watching Impact and NWA made me grateful for Tony Khan's rule against shitty DQ finishes to matches in AEW. It's always so unsatisfying unless there's a DAMN good reason for it.
Rich Swann vs. W. Morrissey: W. Morrissey is a very awkward wrestling name, and I feel bad for it, but fuck, all I can see when he wrestles is his horrific body acne, dude desperately needs to find a better balance between steroids and side effects because argh. Also he wore jeans and his ass was real wet with sweat! Combined with the fact that he's literally seven feet tall and looks like a cartoon man compared to Rich, it was a lot of look!
Tenille Dashwood vs. Jordynne Grace: Three whole women's matches on a PPV (okay, a subscription special, whatever), god it's always nice when a promotion gives a modicum of a shit. Tenille's entrance music is low-key one of the catchiest tunes around.
Fire n Flava (c) vs. Kimber Lee & Susan for the Knockouts Tag Team Championship: I hope Su Yung drops the goofy Susan persona once crowds are back.
VBD (c) vs. Decay for the Impact Tag Team Championship: I miss FinJuice. :(
Deonna Purrazzo (c) vs. Rosemary for the Knockouts Championship: Not one damn title change, booooooo.
Kenny Omega (c) vs. Moose for the Impact World Championship: I wonder if so many people would be talking about how banged up Kenny seemed if they hadn't seen that report about all the injuries he's wrestling through at the moment, or if they're just seeing things because they're looking for them. Anyway, it was cool as hell to see an Impact match go down in Daily's Place with Tony Schiavone on commentary, CROSSOVERRRRRRS. The different setup with the lights, making it look like they were wrestling in a black void whenever the hardcam was head-on, was pretty neat since they didn't have a crowd (apart from the lovable AEW Dark talent), anyway. The match was whatever, but the ending is what I REALLY cared about, with the Bucks running in to cheat Kenny's way to victory just like old times, and mannnnnn.
Over the weeks since the Bucks pulled a 180 and went all in with Kenny and Don, we have seen them come out for Kenny time and time again. Kenny, however, has never done the same for them. At Double or Nothing, they were immediately there to celebrate his (equally stolen bullshit) win at the end of the show, but the Good Brothers were the only ones who showed up during THEIR match, much earlier in the night. Even after the Bucks threw away their integrity and style and every scrap of respect they had in the company they started just so they could follow their best friend into the dark, it remains a tragically one-sided relationship. Kenny is so far gone that he doesn't even really see them as people, anymore. He's been so consumed by his desperate quest for glory, to prove that he's the best at the expense of all else, that even Matt and Nick have become just another pair of trophies for him to collect and flaunt whenever it suits him.
The last time they tagged with Brandon? Kenny melted the fuck down out of jealousy, issuing threats and ultimatums. When they did it again on Dynamite this week? Crickets. Because they're his now so it doesn't matter anymore. He got what he wanted, on to the next challenge, and supporting his friends does not qualify. He'll whine about not being allowed to second Anderson and Gallows while pretty much abandoning Matt and Nick whenever they're not actively supporting HIM and HIS victories. But the Bucks are still out there, trying to pretend like everything is okay and that this one-sided, toxic love is fine and sustainable, and it's just... not. It's not! Whatever endgame they hoped for in all of this, it's obviously not coming until something else changes, until something else breaks.
Which pretty much has to be soon, right? The fact of that matter is that Kenny IS getting increasingly banged up with no time to rest and heal between big matches across multiple promotions. The man is 38 years old, which on its own isn't that bad, but for a wrestler with his particular style, who's been doing it for as long as he has? That's a LOT of wear and tear on the body, dude needs to take it easy at some point. Every time I see someone suggest that Hangman might or should lose at All Out, I die a little inside, because I think it would be awful and an enormous gut punch in a storyline that really doesn't need any more, but maybe more importantly, with the injuries that Kenny is pushing through at the moment, I don't know if he'll be physically able to push his current run past the end of summer without at least slowing his momentum somewhat to give himself a chance to catch his breath, something he is clearly not doing. The wheels have GOT to start falling off the cart soon, and when that happens, I truly don't know what it's going to mean for the Elite. Probably nothing good, but with how far they've fallen, they've kinda gotta hit rock bottom before they can start putting themselves back together, I think. Right now, they're still champions, covered in gold and glory and terrible earrings, but once they lose those belts, the hollow shell people they've let Don Callis turn them into will be on full display with nothing to hide behind and... fuck, idk man, I just don't know.
If I had to guess at a timeline right now, I'd say Kenny drops the Impact title at Slammiversary next month, then the AAA to Andrade at TripleMania in August, paving the way for him to lose the AEW championship at All Out in September, a slow collapse of everything he's built as the wear on his body after all these defenses slowly catches up with him. Maybe the Bucks lose their belts on the same day (Santana & Ortiz look to FINALLY be starting to get a push) and they all really have to reckon with what they've all done and see who is and isn't in their corner when all of the chips are down.
Goddamn. Goddamn.
Matt shouting 'IT'S MAX AND JEREMY BUCK!' was very, very funny, though. Generation Me, pulling shit on Impact again after all these years.