6 Ups & 4 Downs From IMPACT Wrestling (19 August)

3. Ace, Shocked

The opening tag team match worked perfectly to build a story for Emergence's number one contender's match, a bout that easily could have sufficed as a balls-to-the-wall PWG-esque spotfest. Instead, the story is that Sami Callihan and Chris Sabin won't work together. That was a given anyway, but this worked regardless.

Sami and Chris worked to one-up each other for the bulk of this, handing Ace a duo of spine kicks at one stage. Later on, as Sabin made the hot tag to 'The Draw', Sami obliterated Ace with a stiff Lariat. This would never have worked as well on Moose, you see, because you can't justifiably flip him 180 degrees with a Callihan strike. To cement their tension, Sabin blind-tagged himself in as Sami was setting up for the Piledriver, with Ace instead eating a Cradle Shock for the win. Sabin did, however, take a Callihan Piledriver post-match for his actions.

While this felt like Moose did very little during the match, he had some alright material here, repeating his apron chop spot on Sabin from Slammiversary. He played his role, though; if Sabin and Callihan are trying to prove who's better, of course he'd leave the brunt of it to Ace. He can make up for this at Emergence. Otherwise, this was a solid bit of business.

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Can be found raving about the latest IMPACT Wrestling signing, the Saints Row franchise, and King Shark in The Suicide Squad.