Did IMPACT Set Up Slammiversary With Under Siege?
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- Did IMPACT Set Up Slammiversary With Under Siege? - May 12, 2022
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This past week Impact Wrestling had one of their best Impact Plus Specials in some time. From top to bottom every match delivered what we expected and it also began the build into Slammiversary coming up in June incredibly well (even if we didn’t realise it).
One match that many fans were looking forward to was the match between Madison Rayne and Giselle Shaw. This was an interesting match due to the circumstances surrounding it, we knew that The Influence would be out there together, the next question was who would Shaw have in her corner? After many guesses, I don’t think anyone predicted Alisha Edwards would be that person who would come out with Shaw and help Shaw pick up the win over Rayne at Under Siege.
This could be a very interesting team (and will finally give Alisha something to do), with this win you have to feel this could lead to a Knockouts Tag Team Title Match at Slammiversary (as right now there aren’t many other options, besides Decay but they need to be rebuilt). It could also lead to a return of Lady Frost too, the partnership of Alisha and Shaw is very unlikely to be a long term plan, however Frost and Alisha could work very well?
In the other tag team division, many Impact fans have been calling for a reboot on the mens Tag Team Division for quite some time. When you look at Under Siege, you can’t say that Impact aren’t looking into it. We saw Heath and Rhino take on and beat Raj Singh and Shera in the opener on the Countown show, you really have to feel that Heath and Rhino have the Tag Team titles in their future, especially with the two teams who are in the main even picture right now.
Currently we have The Briscoes as the Impact World Tag Team Champions after pinning Violent By Design at Under Siege. Heath and Rhino have a big history with VBD as a team or consistently seem to be in Heath and Rhino’s way. When it comes to The Briscoes, Heath and Rhino are the team who The Briscoes got their first victory over in Impact. Because of this you could really see Impact setting up a triple threat tag team title match at Slammiversary. It would certainly be an interesting match as it’s a match where any team could come out the winner and it would make absolute sense.
While you could have 3 teams buying for the tag team titles at Slammiversary, there were also 2 other tag teams at Under Siege who were involved in another big storyline. We have seen OGK feuding with the Good Brothers within the Honor No More vs Bullet Club angle. This has been a great storyline and having Honor No More win at Under Siege was great to help get some of their momentum back and prove that they can be on the same level as Bullet Club.
With the build that Impact have done recently with both Honor No More and The Bullet Club, it really feels like this could be heading towards something like a Lethal Lockdown match at Slammiversary. We have not seen Lethal Lockdown since 2016 and while it was always a staple of Lockdown, it’s a staple fans still miss. Lethal Lockdown was very usually used to end feuds and by Slammiversary you feel both The Bullet Club and Honor No More will be ready to move onto something new so it would fit in perfectly. It’s always a chaotic match and you saw what these 10 men gave us in a regular tag match at Under Siege.
As we look into gimmick matches, one big one that was always synonymous with Slammiversary was The King Of The Mountain match. It actually made it’s debut on TNA’s weekly show back in 2004, it then appeared on every Slammiversay from then on until 2009, it would make a return in 2015 and then in 2016 sporadically on the weekly shows. While Impact over the last few years has been knocking it out of the park with Slammiversary, it has still felt like something is missing.
Impact are currently in a really good place to set up a King Of The Mountain match or even a Queen Of The Mountain match. When it comes to the Knockouts it’s probably more likely that we do see a Queen Of The Mountain match if we are going to see one (I feel anyway). That simply being because if you look at the current champion in Tasha Steelz, she doesn’t really have any credible challengers lined up who are ready to challenge her. She has taken on Rosemary at Rebellion and Havok at Under Siege, both times she came out victorious, however Impact don’t seem to have built up anyone to be the next one to challenge Tasha.
Because of this you do wonder if Impact have done this one purpose? We have recently seen Taya Valkarie return to Impact Wrestling and go into a feud with Deonna Purrazzo, this feud has been done really well, however also opened a few other doors. With Deonna now without a title and you could technically say Taya still doesn’t have an Impact title either, this could now bleed into the Knockouts picture. When you also add into this that at Under Siege we saw the return of Mia Yim (the former Jade) to the Knockouts division, this could also play into movement towards a Queen Of The Mountain match. We could even see Mickie James return to part which would be a nice touch considering she was around in the NWA TNA days in Raven’s Flock.
As we saw at Hard To Kill, Impact do like to give the Knockouts the stage to show what they can do and also a historic moment, however Impact do also like to do what makes sense. Josh Alexander becoming the King Of The Mountain would be a great moment in Impact especially after what we’ve seen over the last 6 months. Taking on talents like Maclin, Sabin, Edwards, Morrissey, Moose, just to name a few would certainly put Josh on a pedestal. However when you look at what happened at Under Siege, you have to feel Impact are heading in a different direction when it comes to their male talent.
We had Sami Callihan return at Under Siege and go face to face with Moose who had broken Sami’s Ankle just before Bound For Glory. Both these wrestlers could very easily challenge for the World Championship however both have a very good reason to be feuding away from the title. Likewise with Chris Sabin and Steve Maclin, these two are locking horns and you feel it will go all the way to Slammiversary (maybe even to a tag match), this is four main event talents who you feel Impact are setting things up for going forward.
All of this explains why we saw Josh Alexander go against Tomohiro IshII at Under Siege in an absolutely brutal match. Josh handed IshII his first loss in Impact and gained another win under his belt as World Champion. As of now we could see Josh face someone like PCO who seems to be on a rise (quite literally), however it would also be something special if Impact was able to get someone like Ken Shamrock back for Slammiversary. TNA’s first ever TNA/NWA World Champion returning at their 20 year anniversary would be something and then to have a match against Josh Alexander, That would be a match for the history books you feel, Josh Alexander vs Ken Shamrock.
When you talk about the history books, one thing will always come up in everyone’s mind and that is the Unbreakable 3 way back in 2005. We saw AJ Styles and Samoa Joe taking on the current X Division Champion Christopher Daniels. This is a match that has always gone down in history as a match that defined what the X Division was all about. It was even better years later as we would get to see all 3 wrestlers compete for the TNA World Heavyweight Title at Turning Point 2009.
Sadly we’ve never got back to anything like the long term rivalries that we saw with these 3 wrestlers. However at Under Siege we saw 2 phenomenal (pun intended) X Division matches, the first being the X Division Title match between Trey Miguel and the current champion Ace Austin. This was a brilliant match and it was helped so much by the character work form both men, you really feel from this match that Ace Austin and Trey Miguel could be your next AJ and Daniels, they are both perfect for the X Division and also perfectly built to be elevated for the main event too. You began to feel elements of rivalries in the match at Under Siege and hopefully this is only the beginning, this has the ability to be one of those feuds that just never dies.
The other match that we saw at Under Siege was an X Division triple threat between Laredo Kid, Rich Swann and Speedball Mike Bailey. This was like the X Division of old in that it had everything you would expect and so much more, Rich Swann winning was interesting to see but nice as it hopefully means that Impact have some plans in store for him. Larado Kid would be great as X Division champion, however it does depend on his availability dates with AAA. When you look at Bailey though he’s the interesting one here (to me anyhow), he could very well be the Samoa Joe (not in size obviously) to Trey and Ace. Those three as the revolving core in the X Division and the long term future is something special, plus they already have history.
The X Division is going to be interesting to watch for Slammiversary as realistically, anything can happen, right now, most likely Swann vs Ace looks most likely and that is money. We are only just over a month away from Slammiversary now and while there’s no guaruntee these matches will happen, Impact are certainly setting things up.
Impact always knock it out of the park with Slammiversary and I’m sure that they’ll go the extra mile this year with it being their 20 year anniversary. It will be one to remember and it will start another new chapter for Impact hopefully leading up to the 30 year anniversary. Under Siege was fantastic and gave us a taster of what’s to come, Slammiversary is waiting in the wings to give us the rest.
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