{"id":59427,"date":"2018-05-05T14:16:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-05T19:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=59427"},"modified":"2018-05-05T14:16:40","modified_gmt":"2018-05-05T19:16:40","slug":"impact-hits-and-misses-5-3-brian-cage-grado-returns-an-unearned-title-shot-is-rosemary-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/05\/05\/impact-hits-and-misses-5-3-brian-cage-grado-returns-an-unearned-title-shot-is-rosemary-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"IMPACT HITS AND MISSES 5\/3: Brian Cage, Grado returns, an unearned title shot, is Rosemary dead?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-837514774\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><h2><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">IMPACT HITS<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><b>Cage\u2019s Vignette<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: Cool stuff. I liked the small touch of the shots of Brian Cage&#8217;s music being quiet when he had his headphones on and getting louder whey they aired old video footage. This was a well edited video that made Cage look like an absolute killer. Showing him actually destroying a bunch of wrestlers in short order was far more effective at getting him over than what they did with him later in the night.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Backstage attack<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: Back during Paul Heyman\u2019s tenure on the SmackDown creative team, we\u2019d see backstage segments that flowed between one wrestler to the next to set up multiple angles. He probably didn\u2019t invent the concept but it was a cool one and spiced up the storytelling approach a bit. Impact showed a man laid out with an \u201cX\u201d on him right after Fallah Bahh and KM were done talking. It was a nice way to move things along quickly. The promotion continues to up their game when it comes to the way they present their angles. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Show Closing Angl<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">e: Longer and more awkward than it needed to be&#8230;and the announcers questioning whether Rosemary was actually dead was downright silly. Besides that, this was a great way to end the show. The visual of Su Yung\u2019s undead brides ups the creepiness factor of her character and is a vast improvement over her pairing with Braxton Sutter. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>IMPACT MISSES<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><b>Grado and Park<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: Oh. Are we going to do this again? Joseph Park is back and Grado has returned once more. But get THIS, Grado has a girlfriend now! Wait&#8230;they already did that. I feel they pretty much mined all the humor they could out of this pairing in their last run. I could say I\u2019ll take a wait and see approach with these two but we\u2019ve already seen it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Crowd<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: Well, it was fun while it lasted. The Impact faithful was hotter than they\u2019d been in years at Redemption. Last week\u2019s episode they were still a bit above average from the usual crowd. This week they\u2019re about back to normal. Oh well. It\u2019s going to take better shows than this one to bring in more hardcore fans to the arena on a regular basis. Until then, we&#8217;ll have to settle for 20 kids sitting next to each other all wearing the same shirt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>OVE vs. Bahh and KM<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: First Fallah Bahh missed Redemption and now he was beat in a couple of minutes. I continue to not understand why the management team jobs him out so often. He\u2019s one of the few wrestlers on the roster who get any sort of reaction from the crowd, and yet, he keeps on taking a loss. The bigger problem here is that OVE should not be taking part in this silliness. They\u2019re involved in the most heated storyline on the show and had to lie on the ground while two other guys rolled over them multiple times. Good for a laugh, I guess, but dozens of other tag teams across the country could have filled that role instead. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ishimori\u2019s Title Shot<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: What has Taiji Ishimori done as of late to deserve a title shot? I don\u2019t believe he\u2019s won a match since he lost the X Division Title. No reason? All right then. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Taya Means Nothing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: Taya Valkyrie sold one of the ugliest looking hurricanranas I\u2019ve ever seen. Much like Jinder Mahal at the Greatest Royal Rumble, she just shouldn\u2019t have sold the move. Beyond that is how little Valkyrie means to the promotion right now. Allie can now beat her in four minutes, and as soon as the match with Hogan ended, she was completely forgotten. Much like Siena, she inexplicably went from the most dominant woman in the company to a jobber. Considering there\u2019s less than 10 active women wrestlers on the roster this is ridiculous. <\/span><\/p><div id=\"pwtor-287831060\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><b>GWN Match of the Week<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: I keep hoping they\u2019ll do away with this nonsense but it never ends! Somebody make it stop! Please! I\u2019ve never seen three of the guys in the match and probably won\u2019t see the three of them again. The partnerships with Lucha Underground and House of Hardcore are encouraging and could lead to some great interpromotional material. This was not good. When Impact was taping 8-10 episodes in a row, you can maybe understand the need to throw in these matches now and again. It\u2019s tough to time everything out for TV (especially when your top star gets let go from the promotion&#8230;multiple times) but the company tapes four episodes in a row, so what gives? Another issue here is how much Cage sold for the three scrubs. Don Callis tried his best to explain with the laughable line that Cage basically lets his opponents hurt him to test himself. Oh&#8230;then why didn\u2019t he do that in his other squash matches? The small plus was that it looked better than any other non-Impact Zone match in month. That\u2019s it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Six-Man Tag<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: Good action, but can the company maybe give some of these guys a personality before booking matches like this virtually every week? Who is Desmond Xavier? What IS a Drago? Why does Aerostar think he\u2019s from space? Besides DJZ, we know almost nothing about any of the guys in the contest (unless you watch Lucha Underground, which Impact shouldn&#8217;t be relying on since that show doesn&#8217;t even have half the ratings theirs does in the United States).\u00a0But hey, they can all do flips!\u00a0 Quick, give them 10 minutes!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-3742001637\"><div id=\"pwtor-1455639129\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>IMPACT HITS Cage\u2019s Vignette: Cool stuff. I liked the small touch of the shots of Brian Cage&#8217;s music being quiet when he had his headphones on and getting louder whey they aired old video footage. <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/05\/05\/impact-hits-and-misses-5-3-brian-cage-grado-returns-an-unearned-title-shot-is-rosemary-dead\/\" title=\"IMPACT HITS AND MISSES 5\/3: Brian Cage, Grado returns, an unearned title shot, is Rosemary dead?\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":54867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,28,27],"tags":[5806,5968,368,3187,5969],"class_list":["post-59427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opnionandanalysis","category-specialists_hitsandmisses","category-specialists","tag-brian-cage","tag-ishimori","tag-matt-sydal","tag-rosemary","tag-sun-yung"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2018\/02\/Impact-Logo-2018.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59427"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59431,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59427\/revisions\/59431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}