IMPACT Wrestling Emergence Results: Winners, Grades, Reaction and Highlights

Credit: Impact Wrestling

Impact Wrestling kicked off Emergence, a two-week spectacular featuring some of the top talent in the industry, Tuesday night on AXS TV.

Headlined by two high-profile tag team matches, including The Motor City Machine Guns defending the Impact Tag Team Championships against The North and The Good Brothers settling the score with Ace Austin and Madman Fulton, the episode brought to a head some of the most prominent feuds in the company while writing the latest chapters to others.

Who emerged from the night's top matches victorious, what *ahem* impact did they have on the company and how might they affect the stars involved?

Find out with this recap of the August 18 show.

Credit: Impact Wrestling

Rohit Raju manipulated his way into Tuesday's Triple Threat Match for the X-Division Championship, convincing champion Chris Bey that they could make it a two-on-one match against TJP, thus strengthening Bey's odds at retaining.

Early on, he proved true to his word, joining Bey on a two-on-one beatdown of the former WWE cruiserweight champion.

TJP answered with double submissions, looking to force a tapout from both opponents in an attempt to limit their interference in near-falls. Moments later, Bey accidentally wiped Raju out, making it a more traditional one-on-one encounter.

TJP delivered a Tombstone piledriver and scaled the ropes, but Raju shoved him to the mat below. The babyface recovered a showed off his innovation, countering and reversing everything thrown his way by either opponent. 

Raju halted TJP's momentum and tried for a corner cannonball but TJP moved. Bey downed TJP with a torture rack DDT but the challenger answered with a modified Codebreaker. 

TJP trapped Bey in a submission, but Roju prevented the champion from tapping.

In the closing moments of the match, Raju betrayed Bey, delivered a double stomp and won the match and title.

Result

Raju defeated Bey and TJP

Grade

C

Analysis

If this was the desired outcome, why not book Raju in the Slammiversary match between Chris Bey and Willie Mack and cut out middle man?

Bey winning the X-Division title felt like a watershed moment for a rebuilding division but he loses it here, and why? So they can tell a story between him and Raju that probably could have been told any number of other ways without playing hotshot with the title? 

It feels like a backward step rather than a forward leap, which is what Bey's victory at Slammiversary appeared to be.

Credit: Impact Wrestling

Moose continued his reign with the nonexistent TNA World Championship, defending against Trey Miguel of The Rascalz just one week after mistaking him for Suicide.

The smaller, faster Miguel overcame an aggressive onslaught early and used his speed and agility to his advantage. A big dropkick by the athletic champion sent Miguel crashing off the top rope and to the floor. The champion delivered a big fallaway slam before exclaiming, “I’m the best wrestler in the world!” 

Just as the challenger fired off a series of forearms to the face, Moose cut him off with another dropkick. “This match was meant for Suicide, not you!” he talked trash. Miguel used that momentary opening to fire off a comeback, completely catching the champion off-guard.

His barrage of fast-pace offense came to a crashing halt when Moose caught him in midair and slammed him into the guardrail, then powerbombed him onto the ring apron.

Back in the ring, Moose turned the challenger inside out with the Lights Out spear for the successful title defense.

After the match, as Moose celebrated, EC3 came from out of nowhere and delivered an inverted DDT. He left the arena with the TNA Championship, leaving the former NFL star lying in the center of the ring.

Result

Moose defeated Miguel

Grade

C

Analysis

This was an interesting bit of booking, if only because we have been conditioned to believe that Moose is a delusional champion, yet he just soundly defeated one of the participants from the Impact World Championship Match at Slammiversary.

Miguel was barely competitive, bumping around to make Moose look like an unstoppable force. Even when he mounted his comeback, it was so short-lived that the match really took on a glorified squash feel. 

EC3 laying out Moose continues that rivalry while stealing the TNA title, hopefully, spells the end for it as a thing here in Impact. 

It’s just a shame this all came at the expense of Miguel, who is one of the brighter young stars in the company.

Credit: Impact Wrestling

At Slammiversary, The Good Brothers made enemies of “The Inevitable” Ace Austin and Madman Fulton. Since then, Austin has made life a living hell for Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows, going as far as to get the latter arrested. 

Tuesday saw the culmination of their feud to this point.

Anderson and Gallows unloaded weeks of frustration early, bumping Austin around the ring. A tag to Fulton led to a hoss battle between him and Gallows, each dishing punishing blows to the other. With Austin and Anderson back in the ring, the arrogant young heel capitalized on a momentary distraction by Fulton to deliver a dropkick to the back of the head and seize control for his team.

Twice, Fulton delivered suplexes to Anderson, dropping him back-first on Austin’s knees. The third time was not the charm as Anderson escaped and made the tag to Gallows, who exploded into the match, bowling over the opposition.

Fulton broke up the Magic Killer and the heels momentarily regained control of the match.

After Gallows wiped Fulton out at ringside, he blind-tagged himself into the match, joined Anderson for the Magic Killer on Austin and scored the win.

Result

The Good Brothers defeated Austin and Fulton

Grade

B

Analysis

This was a good, solid tag team match that put Austin and Fulton over as a tag team threat and showcased Impact’s hottest free agents.

Anderson and Gallows looked motivated and hellbent on proving they were better than they were given the opportunity to be in WWE and the result was one of their best matches in at least a year.

They are big enough stars that they can thrive in a top spot without being tag team champions, but one has to wonder how long it will be before they hoist gold. Until then, the question becomes whether we have seen the end of their program with Austin and Fulton.

Do not expect the smarmy heel and his imposing muscle to go away that easily.

Credit: Impact Wrestling

After some drama that saw The Deaners’ beer go missing from the refrigerator and Rosemary’s latest attempt to make Johnny Bravo jealous, this week’s Wrestle House brought us a special Match Time in the form of Kylie Rae vs. Taya Valkyrie.

Former Knockouts champion Valkyrie dominated the action but Rae’s resiliency kept her in the match. Frustration mounted on the heel’s part, causing her to lash out at special referee Rosemary. Moments later, the heel nearly collided with her best friend.

Rae recovered a delivered a big superkick for the win.

Result

Rae defeated Valkyrie

Grade

A

Analysis

The purpose of this match was to showcase the No. 1 contender to the Knockouts Championship against the former, longest-reigning champion that division has ever seen, while also furthering the ongoing friendship drama between Valkyrie and Rosemary.

It succeeded on both fronts.

Rae earned the win and Rosemary and Valkyrie’s relationship is as strained as it has ever been.

Taking that into account, this was a fun and inoffensive bit of TV. Throw in Cody and Jake Deaner channeling their inner South Park while exclaiming, “they took our beer!” and it’s an even bigger hit.

Credit: Impact Wrestling

Three weeks after their historic Impact Tag Team Championship reign came to an end at the hands of The Motor City Machine Guns, The North’s Josh Alexander and Ethan Page sought to regain the gold from Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin in the main event of Emergence, night one.

A hot start from the champions came to a screeching halt as Page and Alexander isolated Shelley from his opponent, working him over in their side of the ring. Even as Shelley tried to knee his way out of a suplex, Page held onto the move and dropped him to the mat.

The tag to Sabin sparked the comeback. 

When the challengers dumped Shelley and downed Sabin, an egotistical cover from Page netted a two-count. A series of near-falls by the Machine Guns ensued before they found yet another gear, delivered Skull and Bones and successfully retained the titles.

Result

The Motor City Machine Guns defeated The North

Grade

A

Analysis

This was a great match, even better than their first.

The champions targeted the lower limbs of the bigger Alexander was a nice touch early, while Shelley is such a master of creating sympathy that his heat portion of the match really helped elevate it. Sabin is always great with the energetic comeback and Page continued to show why he has “star” written all over him.

This was absolutely the right choice to headline night one of Emergence and a reminder of how fan-freaking-tastic tag team wrestling can be when it is not forced into the constraints of any one style.

Looking forward, the tag division in Impact is among the most interesting in wrestling. There aren’t a lot of traditionally great teams but every one of them has their own look and style. How Sabin and Shelley adapt to them, and even help those teams grow, will determine the overall quality of their reign and the strength of the division for the foreseeable future.