6 Ups & 4 Downs From IMPACT Wrestling (3 June)

3. This Ain't Sliced Bread

The excitement was real for Satoshi Kojima’s IMPACT in-ring debut, but it quickly died down when he actually started to wrestle Deaner. It lacked any sort of emotion, instead relying too much on each guy getting their sh*t in rather than producing a cohesive match.

Together, they didn’t click. This was supposed to be about building to Kojima’s Against All Odds clash with Joe Doering, which seemed tantalising last Thursday, but now feels lacklustre. It didn’t help that, while Rhino distracted referee Brandon Tolle, Doering took forever entering the ring – he could have done whatever he needed to from the ring apron, mind – and allowed Eddie Edwards ample time to thwart Violent By Design’s plan.

Kojima would defeat Deaner with both a Koji Cutter and a gorgeous Lariat, but it wasn’t enough. Your fondness for this will likely depend on your tolerance of ol’ Satoshi, however, he’s exactly that. Old. He can still go, sure, but he’s perhaps better suited to multi-man scraps. Hitting all of his signature offence while Deaner was trying to do the same will never work.