8 Ups & 3 Downs From IMPACT Wrestling Emergence 2021

5. A Step Up

Melina needed this. Her IMPACT in-ring debut vs. Brandi Lauren was a trash attempt at pretending like it's the late 2000s all over again when Melina was a hot act. She wasn't good on Thursday's AXS TV episode, but here, she and Trey Miguel wrestled a decent intergender match vs. Deonna Purrazzo and Matthew Rehwoldt.

There are still areas of improvement for Melina to work on - hopefully, she'll have cleaned up her work before we reach NWA's Empowerrr pay-per-view - but for the most part, this worked. She and Trey worked well together, as did Deonna and Matthew, with some tandem offence on display from both units. It was Rehwoldt who got the winning pinfall, rolling up Melina to give Deonna that leverage over the former WWE Women's Champion.

Though there should have been little interaction between Deonna and Melina here to save that anticipation for Empowerrr, their work together was decent. You can't argue with it because, in a way, it creates further hype for next weekend's Knockouts Championship clash. Regardless, this served well for Melina's IMPACT career. Let's just forget the Brandi Lauren match ever happened.

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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.