5 Biggest Takeaways from Impact Hard To Kill 2022
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This past Saturday, Impact Wrestling held their first PPV of 2022, which was very aptly named, Hard To Kill. For a number of years now Impact Wrestling have only held their PPV’s quarterly throughout the year, this has made every event feel that much more special and given them a far more of a big night/event occasion to them (which PPV’s where always meant to have).
Hard To Kill does have a lot of weight on it’s shoulders due to the fact that it’s the first Impact PPV of the calendar year, so it needs to set the tone for what’s to come in the rest of the year. If you have your first event of the year and it’s incredibly lacklustre, then it doesn’t fill you with much hope for the rest of the year. Impact however have recently not had this issue, Hard To Kill has always been a blast.
After a big 2021 for Impact Wrestling, 2022 is going to be very important for the. With that in mind it’s important to start it strong and there’s no better way to set the tone than what they did this past Saturday. If this will be the level of Impact’s PPV’s for 2022, then we’re in for a wild ride (in a positive way). That’s not mentioning the Impact weekly shows and Impact Plus events too, It’s a lot to live up to, but the standard has been set very high now. Lets have a look at a few things we can takeaway from Hard To Kill 2022.
5. Carnage leads to peace.
One of the most famous phrases is “if you want peace, prepare for war.” We saw that exact scenario at Hard To Kill in a number of matches, there were a few times where we saw complete and utter carnage all over the place, yet at the end of the matches, you were left with a satisfying end where you felt peace had prevailed.
We knew going into Hard To Kill that The Hardcore War was going to be an “all hell breaks loose” kind of match and that’s exactly what it was. Even before all 10 men got into the match we saw some brutality with golf clubs, lead pipes, trash cans and pretty much anything you can think of. The match always heats up when every man enters into the match and with Edwards smashing a burning Kenny The Kendo Stick over Doc Gallows, you could certainly say it literally heated up. After 20 minutes of mayhem we saw Heath get the pin on Anderson leading to a feel good moment (and a further push towards the Tag Titles for Heath and Rhino maybe).
We also had Hard To Kill headlined by Mickie James defending The Knockouts World Championship against Deonna Purrazzo in a Texas Death Match. We got the news during the PPV that this match would headline Hard To Kill, which was a very nice surprise and when you really think about it, it made complete sense. This feud has been built up all the way back from Slammiversary and after a 5 month build, they deserved the headline spot. Both Knockouts left everything in the ring here and both took some wicked punishment. Both Mickie and Deonna left this match as winners (even though Mickie retained), After the match we saw a handshake between the 2 so it will be interesting to see the next direction of each Knockout going forward now. This was a top way to end the show.
4. New Stars Shine
When you looked at the Hard To Kill card, Impact had a nice blend of established names and new talent (or existing talent who weren’t being used to their full potential). After Hard To Kill however there were a few names who Impact fans would have come out of the event thinking, I’m glad we got to see them on the show now. You can also give credit as it was Live and Impact with so much buzz may have had a lot of new viewers tuning in, they may may have been seeing a lot of the Impact talent for the first time, however all the talent on the show did themselves proud and gave themselves a reason to have the rocket strapped to them.
We saw Jake Something vs Madman Falton on the pre show in an incredible battle of the monsters. We’ve seen Jake get built up slowly over the past few months, however Falton has sadly not had as much tv time to himself to really create or show what he can do. here however Falton showed he deserved to be taken more seriously and how much he’s improved. This was an amazing showing from both men and it really set the tone for the night, hopefully Impact capitalise on both men from this showing.
The second pre show match we saw was an incredible X Division 4 way with Ace Austin, Chris Bey, Laredo Kid and a debuting Speedball Mike Bailey. When you have such talent as Ace, Bey and Laredo Kid in a match and you come out of it and no one is talking about any of them, it shows the quality of this match (and Speedball Mike Bailey). This was a great way to debut a new star and showcase a brand new talent who many may have been unfamiliar too. There where so many different styles and characters in this match that it pretty much epitomised what the X Division was always about, flat out no limits.
3. Perfect booking for great matches.
The way Impact booked the matches at Hard To Kill was very interesting, especially when you take into account there are many other booking outcomes they could have gone for. Just for example you can have a top heel face off against a face who’s a lot lower on the card, you would be very confident in this scenario that the heel would win and they probably would. However there can be the odd surprise or strange booking decision that makes you feel slightly confused. The best booking situations are where it flat out makes sense or you have a match where both wrestlers have been booked so well that you can’t call the finish (or either finish works).
There were two fantastic examples of this at Hard To Kill, one was a 3 way dance for the Impact World Heavyweight Title between W. Morrissey, Matt Cardona and your Impact World Champion Moose. Even before the match began Impact had done well to build everyone up to feel credible if they’d won, this match also went to so many different places that you had periods in the match where you felt every wrestler would win. Every wrestler had a 3 count (without the ref) at some point and had anyone else walked away as the winner, you can’t say it would have been a disappointed. Eventually Moose left victorious however it really was edge of your seat moments throughout and that’s great work from Impact. Really looking forward to seeing more from these 3 men, where they go from here will be interesting to see after this brilliant World Title match.
We also saw JONAH face Josh Alexander in a grudge match. This was the definition of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. Two horses who went back and forth with no holds bared in a fantastic match, you truly felt the personal issues between both men boil to the surface here. This match could also have gone either way and both men coming out victorious would have made absolute sense, however we saw Josh get the submission win on JONAH in the end. As amazing as this match was at Hard To Kill, it would very surprising if this is the end of this feud, however if it is, what an end it was.
2. Historic day for The X Division
No matter what anyone says, The X Division will always be the cornerstone of Impact Wrestling. It’s what built TNA when it was looking for it’s identity and even today, it remains a strong pillar of the company. The X division has given us so many historic moments and matches and we saw another one at Hard To Kill.
We saw the very first ever Knockouts Ultimate X including Rosemary, Tasha Steelz, Chelsea Green, Alisha Edwards, Lady Frost and The Digital Media Champion Jordynne Grace. Six incredibly different Knockouts who all put on a great showing in a match that will go straight into the history books. It was great to see Alisha get a major PPV spot and man did she take, Grace and Tasha took some insane bumps here, the later of which ended up coming out on top as #1 contender to the Knockouts World Title. It’s great to see Tasha back in the hunt for The Knockouts World Title and every Knockout here did The Ultimate X proud.
On the topic of The X Division, once again The X Division title match itself was as always, a match that did not disappoint. Unusual for and X Division match, it had a number of stipulations and stories within it. You had The champion Trey Miguel who was desperate to be the one to pin or submit Steve Maclin and end his undefeated streak. Maclin flat out wanted the X Title so much that his drive had led him to so much mayhem, if he lost then he couldn’t challenge again while Trey was champ. You could feel all the personal emotion between these two and with a convincing win for Trey after a fast hard hitting match with brilliant story telling, it’ll be interesting where both men go from here.
1. The missing piece of the puzzle
Over the last few years Impact Wrestling have been taking very small steps to reach their goal. From the company who specializes in long term story telling, you know that Impact aren’t going to rush into things and hope to achieve the success that they’re looking for over night. They understand how to plan for the future and it’s why they seem to have so much progression in them.
We were told that 2022 would be a very special year for Impact Wrestling, it’s their 20 year anniversary after all and the current creative team would have had their plan in the works for 5 years now too. At Hard To Kill it felt like Impact added the next piece of the puzzle to their jigsaw with a brand new play by play commentator. We saw Matt Striker carry the reigns through 2021 along side D’Lo Brown, however with Striker departing, enter Tom Hannifan. Former WWE commentator and him and D’Lo were great all night. Hannifan has a little bit of every commentator we’ve seen over the years in Impact and blends them together for something beautiful.
Along with Hannifan we also saw Ian Riccaboni from ROH make an appearance to do commentary on the ROH world Title match, this match was pure technical wrestling at it’s very best from Chris Sabin and your retaining ROH World Champion Jonathan Gresham. The Pure Rules is something very unique and something Impact themselves could take note of, plus the 3 man booth worked so well together here and if they were to expand it, I’m sure many would be up for it. With Hannifan and D’lo having great chemistry and then Riccaboni also blending with both of them so well, it’s not easy in one night 3 men to just click but man did they do it.
With a lot of Ring of Honour Presence already on Hard To Kill, you really felt like that would be the direction Impact would go if we saw surprises. We had The ROH World Title defended by Jonathan Gresham at Hard To Kill, The Women’s Championship is being defended on the following Impact by Rok-C against Deonna, now we had what looked like and invasion of ROH talent show up. We saw OGK (Matt Taven, Mike Bennet with Maria), Vincent as well as PCO all show up and create chaos. Impact have had many relationships with ROH over the years but this one somehow feels different, Impact keep spreading that Forbidden Door and continue to keep us guessing. 2022 will be a big year for Impact and we could see some big things if they keep this up.
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