Posted in: Impact Wrestling, Sports, TV | Tagged: impact, recaps, The Shovel, wrestling

Impact Recap – Moose Breaks Kayfabe, Chris Bey Dupes Rohit Raju

Impact Wrestling had its highest rating in a long time last week. AEW also reached a ratings high. Meanwhile, Raw yesterday was a disaster, scoring its lowest-ever ratings and viewership. Can Impact continue to capitalize on the momentum? We'll find out.

I'm Jude Terror and this is The Shovel, a recap column in which I watch a minimum of eleven hours of wrestling each week and tell you what happened so you can sound smart when you're complaining about it online without having to waste so much time actually watching it.

Impact Wrestling Recap for December 15th, 2020 Part 1

As Impact kicks off with a video package focused on last week's Kenny Omega drama, the viewership on Twitch seems to already be back close to normal levels, with just over 2,600 people watching at the start, but maybe it will pick up. There are a few people in the chat that appear to be new viewers from last week who stuck around.

Kaleb introduces Tenille Dashwood and she comes to the ring. Alisha Edwards comes out with Eddie Edwards. Alisha and Tenille have a match. Tenille wins after Alisha attacks Kaleb after he gets in a scuffle with Eddie.

Sami Callihan's audio and lighting cues play and then Sami appears in a distorted video on the Impacttron. He wants a one-on-one match with Eddie to finally put their rivalry to rest. He suggests Eddie take time off and enjoy the holidays because they might be his last.

Gia Miller interviews the Motor City Machine Guns. They review their three-step plan back to the Impact Tag Team Championships. They've beaten XXXL (step one) and The North are imploding (step two) and that leaves the Good Brothers. Chris Sabin is fighting Karl Anderson tonight and he's gonna give him a preview of when MCMG beat the Good Brothers at the next PPV. Kenny Omega, Don Callis, and Karl Anderson are hanging out on the tour bus. Kenny and Don rile Anderson up and send him to go after Sabin.

Impact takes a commercial break. Melissa Santos is back after Impact kept her off in favor of old TNA replays during the commercials last week. She can't keep up with the chat like she normally can. There are about 10,000 viewers on Twitch at this point, so viewership has gone up a lot since the start of the show. It's about a quarter of what it was for most of last week, but four times what would normally constitute a really good week. So that's good for Impact.

Karl Anderson barges in the door of Skyway Studios and demands to know where Chris Sabin is. Rich Swann gets in his way and gives him crap about taking orders from Kenny Omega. The Machine Guns show up and Anderson backs off. He'll see Sabin in the ring tonight.

Moose comes to the ring. There are a lot of things to like about Moose, but no reason is better than that he has a theme song where the lyrics are just his name over and over again. I could jam out to this all day. Moose! Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun Moose! Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun Moose! Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun Moose!

Moose talks some trash about Willie Mack. Willie comes out and is swarmed by security guards looking to prevent him and Moose from going at it. He challenges Moose to an I Quit match at Genesis and then charges the ring. Willie gets laid out in the scuffle and so does one of the security guards.

Backstage, Gia Miller asks Moose about what happened. Moose breaks kayfabe and says he's tired of indie wrestlers putting their hands on superstars. He says one of those "security guards" ripped his shirt and that's why he had to do that. He warns them not to touch him again.

Chris Bey visits Rohit Raju to mock him for losing the X-Division Championship. He tricks Raju into coming to the ring with him for his match with Manik under the premise he can unmask Manik, prove he's really TJP, and invalidate his victory over Raju. Impact takes a commercial break. There are 12,000 viewers now.

At the end of the regular commercials, we see another "commercial" from Tony Schiavone and Tony Khan. Schiavone claims AXS TV is public access TV and says the city council meeting is coming up after this. Tony Khan talks some trash about Kenny Omega and Don Callis. He says that Callis thinks he screwed AEW over, but really AEW had their highest rating last week and it's all free publicity for AEW. Schiavone makes fun of AXS TV, claiming people don't even know how to turn it on. "If you ask your smart TV to up ton AXS, it says: 'dude, why?'" Tony runs through the card for tomorrow's Dynamite and he mocks Impact some more, claiming he asked Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian if they remembered with Impact had fans and it was TNA. Funny.

Chris Bey comes to the ring with Rohit Raju. Manik comes out. If the tattoos aren't enough to convince you Manik is really TJP, how about the fact that he's yelling that the coronavirus is a hoax and Donald Trump won the election? Bey and Manik have a match. During a commercial break, Melissa Santos is horrified to see some of the new viewers demanding Josh Matthews be fired. Regular Impact viewers have kinda accepted that Matthews is Matthews and just ignore him, but for new viewers not used to his wannabe Michael Cole act, it can be quite jarring. Back to the match. Things are going well for Chris Bey until he kicks Manik in the balls and is about to finish him when Raju jumps in the ring

The Impact Plus Flashback Moment of the Week comes from Final Resolution 2006, the return of Sting. Backstage at Impact, Ethan Page tries to reconcile with his teammate, Josh Alexander. Alexander tells Page he's been his tag team partner, friend, and brother, but he needs to get help before they can be a team. Page says they're on the same page and Page will go get help because "we will always have your back. yes, we." Uh…

Brian Myers walks into the shot after Page leaves and suggests he could be Alexander's new partner. Alexander says he'd rather kick his ass. That may happen tonight… but you'll have to read about it in the next article.

You Can Still Give Us More Clicks

And so ends the first hour of Impact and also the first half of this recap. Click down below for part two.

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