Hard To Kill (2021) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Impact Wrestling. It took place on January 16, 2021 at the Skyway Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. It is the second event under the Hard To Kill chronology.

The event crowned the reactivated Impact Knockouts Tag Team Championship's first champions since 2013, with Fire N Flava (Kiera Hogan and Tasha Steelz) defeating Havok and Nevaeh to win the titles. The main event saw the AEW World Champion Kenny Omega and the Impact World Tag Team Champions The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson) defeat the Impact World Champion Rich Swann, Chris Sabin, and Moose in a Six-man tag team match. Other notable matches saw Manik and Deonna Purrazzo retain the Impact X Division Championship and Impact Knockouts Championship respectively, with Manik defeating Chris Bey and Rohit Raju in a Triple Threat match and Purrazzo defeating Taya Valkyrie. The event also saw Matt Cardona make his debut in Impact Wrestling, defeating Ace Austin by disqualification.







The pre-show had the reveal of Madison Rayne's retirement from in-ring competition. She just graduated from college last year, so it's understandable that she would want to walk away from wrestling (at least for a while) and figure out what she wants to do with the rest of her life. Her contributions to women's wrestling - not just limited to IMPACT Wrestling but to the wrestling industry as a whole - are legendary in its own right. She doesn't have to prove anything else to anyone in my book. 

Results:




Singles Match
Brian Myers defeated Josh Alexander




Intergender Tag Team Match
Decay (Rosemary and Crazzy Steve) defeated Tenille Dashwood and Kaleb with a K

This was a cold open for this PPV. This wasn't a bad match, but it wasn't an overly exciting one either. In hindsight, I think that they should have gone with the X-Division triple threat to start things off, but then again, it felt like this show was gradually building up to a crescendo in terms of match quality as the night went on. My biggest complaint about this match is that it felt more at place on one of the weekly television episodes of IMPACT Wrestling rather than a PPV match. 

We would see the members of Decay join Taya Valkyrie at ringside for her match later tonight though. 



Old School Rules Six-man Tag Team Match
Violent by Design (Eric Young, Deaner, and Joe Doering) def. Cousin Jake, Rhino, and Tommy Dreamer


This was an OKAY match, but it was here mostly as a display of force by Violent by Design. Joe Doering is just great and this new direction for Deaner I'm all for instead of him being a stereotypical "southern rassler". Glad to see Eric Young is able to continue thrive as the deranged mastermind of these heel factions.




Tournament Final Tag Team Match for the revived Impact Knockouts Tag Team Championship
Fire N Flava (Kiera Hogan and Tasha Steelz) def. Havok and Nevaeh


This wasn't the best women's tag team match, but it was a fun match to watch bell to bell. I was so happy for Keira and Tasha to pick up the win here too. Havok and Nevaeh did a fine job putting over these two women for their first taste of championship gold in this company.


Even four days later, I'm a little surprised at the lack of widespread support for these ladies. This is the first BLACK (Tasha's technically Afro-Latina FYI) women's tag team in a major American promotion to win a women's tag team championship. This should be getting more attention and praise... Y'know, "For the culture!" I'm just sayin'. Either way, I'm proud of Keira and Tasha. They worked hard for this spot and it was well deserved. I can firmly support their heel antics without being utterly disgusted by it like I was with Sasha Banks and Bayley last year.



Singles Match
Matt Cardona def. Ace Austin (with Madman Fulton) by disqualification


I had to bust out laughing at the former Zack Ryder's debut since Matt Striker was acting like this was a major signing. No one cared when he showed up in AEW and I seriously doubt he moved the needle when he debuted here. The only thing I can say at least now that he's here that means that the Nightmare Family in AEW has one less member to their not-so-angry mob of wrestlers in association to Cody Rhodes, riding off his coat tails.






Triple threat Match for the Impact X Division Championship
Manik (c) def. Chris Bey and Rohit Raju


I jokingly said this during the PPV on Twitter and I'll repeat myself here again too. This match was TOO damn good for it's own good. Stellar match from bell to bell, with Chris Bey being the MVP of this match without a shadow of a doubt. The action kept you guessing from start to finish on who was going to walk away as the X-Division Champion, but it ultimately came down to Manik retaining.


If you don't want to see anything on this show outside of the main event, do yourself a favor and check out this match as well.




Singles Match for the Impact Knockouts Championship
Deonna Purrazzo (c) def. Taya Valkyrie by submission


This was another good title defense by Deonna Purrazzo. Unfortunately, this wasn't the best Taya match that I had the pleasure of seeing. If this was her last match for the company as she was doing the honors on her way out, it could have been a lot worse, so there's that I guess. I personally got a kick out of Susan (Su Yung's newest gimmick/split personality) recording the match on her phone like a stereotypical "Karen", even while her, Kimber Lee, Rosemary, and Crazzy Steve were ejected from ringside. I didn't understand that decision as them not being at ringside had any effect on the remainder of the match.





On the 1/19/21 edition of IMPACT Wrestling on AXS, Taya was found guilty to the attempted murder of John E. Bravo during his wedding to Rosemary. As Taya was being dragged away by the cops, Tommy Dreamer made a joke about her either going to Jacksonville, FL or going "up north" to Stamford, CT to be locked up for three to five years. That's obviously a reference to either AEW or WWE. It would make sense for her to want to join her husband, John Morrison, in WWE, though. I'm guessing that since COVID-19 has limited, if not eliminated completely, all of her international travel to and back to Mexico to compete with AAA, so that would be the most logical bet. Then again, AEW's Women's Division could use more high profile names to beef up that division of women who are clearly not television ready. She could definitely help in that regard. As for a WWE run, I won't deny that I wouldn't mark out for her being a surprise entrant in the Women's Royal Rumble match, but then I would get sad because I know that company wouldn't have the slightest idea how to book her properly. Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing her as a one-off in a future Mae Young Classic as well. Whenever Taya ends up, she's definitely going to be an asset to whatever women's division that she's a part of. 

The saddest part of this narrative is that Rosemary is never able to hang onto the friends that she makes. First she lost her Bunny AKA Allie, and now she lost the Valkyrie. 

In either case, Deonna continues to shine in this role as IMPACT Knockouts Champion. I honestly don't see her losing that title anytime soon, unless they have plans to build up a new challenger during the next set of TV tapings to setup an opponent for her at Rebellion. If I were to guess right now, it would more likely be Tenille Dashwood since she never lost her opportunity at the gold before her unfortunate injury, if memory serves. 



Singles Match
The Karate Man def. Ethan Page via murder.




This is only a portion of the entire "match" if you could even call this one, but it was hilariously stupid in the same vein as the "Broken" Matt Hardy stuff. I don't understand why Ethan Page was so upset and mad at the editing of this thing either. What else was he expecting with this storyline? Steven Spielberg couldn't even do better with this material. While live-tweeting during the show, I had jokingly suggested editing this match like a mirror match in the vein of the old live-action Mortal Kombat video game motion capture sessions, but they went all in with that apparently. All that being said, this TOTALLY fits the narrative that Ethan Page had went completely into the deep end after losing the IMPACT Tag Team Championships. 

I don't know where Page is going to end up next, but I feel bad that we're not getting The North vs. FTR now in any capacity since he's left the company. I have no doubt in my mind that Josh Alexander will continue to thrive as a singles competitor, but man, that was the match at the top of my wishlist of potential bouts between AEW and IMPACT Wrestling talent during this working relationship. 



Barbed Wire Massacre
Eddie Edwards def. Sami Callihan


The biggest takeaway for me with this match was seeing the unique take on the appearance of a barbwire match in modern wrestling. This didn't look completely low key or "outlaw", but instead, IMPACT clearly put some thought into how this should look visually while having enough foresight to allow the guys to have some freedom to be able to do all of their moves without any restrictions. A traditional barbwire match doesn't have any ropes, so you can't rebound off of the ropes or do moves off the top rope (unless you were just flat out crazy like Sabu). In that regard, I tip my hat to IMPACT for constructing this "playground" of sorts with all of that in mind. 

As for a match though, I can't say that I was particularly blown away by this. Going in, you know what to expect from these hardcore matches involving both Eddie Edwards and Sami Callihan, so there wasn't really much to surprise people with. I did get a good laugh at the Nintendo 64 controller being wrapped in barbwire. Anyone who has played one of those for any extended period of time can tell you that the barbwire is overkill and completely unnecessary when that thing can slice up your thumbs no problem all on its own. 

Eddie managed to win the match with one of Misawa's signature moves, so that was an added plus. 



Main Event: Six-man Tag Team Match
Kenny Omega and The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson) (with Don Callis) def. Rich Swann, Chris Sabin, and Moose


Alex Shelley was originally booked to be in this main event, but had to back out of the event, due to unforeseen circumstances. He stated in a separate interview video on social media that IMPACT shared earlier that day that it wasn't COVID-19 nor injury related, but merely a situation out of his control. I'm not going to dwell on it, but I'm hope that he's okay in the long run. 

As a result of Shelley's absence, Moose was named as his replacement. Earlier in the show, Moose confronts his teammates and kept it real for Sabin and Swann. He reminded them both that when he was in the NFL, he worked with numerous teammates that he couldn't stand but he kept it professional and gave it 110%. Tonight would be no different as he bleeds IMPACT Wrestling. This was very interesting too because Don Callis attempted to court Moose too, reminding him not to do anything rash as he still had two more years left on his contract, but Moose didn't back down and even threatened to take Kenny Omega's AEW World Championship after he was done with Rich Swann for the IMPACT World Championship. 

From the way that I interpreted all of this, it made perfect sense as Moose was protecting his future investments. 

As for the match itself, I dare say that this was the best thing on the PPV if that X-Division match didn't occur earlier in the night. Moose was easily the MVP here, leaving me with the feeling that I want to see Moose against Kenny Omega rather than Omega vs. Swann. IMPACT has a few weeks to set this up, but I rather see a triple threat between those guys rathar than Swann against Omega one on one. I was utterly shocked that Omega pinned Swann clean in the finish as I thought they would have had Sabin eat the pin out of all of the names involved here in this match. Omega pinning Swann inserts him easily into the IMPACT World title picture if his quest of belt collecting is set out to start here in 2021. My only fear is how long is IMPACT going to wait around to pull the trigger on Moose as IMPACT World Champion. Between the win over EC3 in their feud and everything since then, this guy is ready made to take that title from Swann. Please don't repeat the mistake they made back at Slammiversary XVI back in 2018. Moose was ready for the main event run after potentially winning the gold from Austin Aries, but he was beaten by Aries only to become his hired muscle shortly thereafter. That shit made absolutely no goddamn sense and hurt Moose in the long-run until now. If Swann loses the IMPACT title to Omega, then Moose absolutely has to be the one to win it from him. It just depends on how long will IMPACT allow Omega to hold their top title while prolonging the inevitable match-up against Moose until Slammiversary (late summer) or Bound for Glory (fall). 
 



Closing Thoughts:


This was a solid show, topped off by an excellent main event. There's no clear sight on where this partnership with IMPACT Wrestling is going to end up, it's definitely looking beneficial for the IMPACT talents that get to share screen time with the AEW World Champion. Besides with Kenny Omega continuing to make regular appearances on their programming, it's only going to continue bringing more eyes onto their product, so it's win-win all around. 


Tags

Post a Comment

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post