Impact Wrestling No Surrender 2023 PPV 2/24/23

Preview:

Impact Wrestling’s latest live special, No Surrender, takes place this Friday (February 24^th) at Sam’s Town Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. A regular haunt of the promotion, their latest trip is headlined by Josh Alexander defending the Impact World Championship against Rich Swann.

COUNTDOWN TO NO SURRENDER DEONNA PURRAZZO VS. GISELE SHAW (W/JAI VIDAL)

I did think that Deonna might have been done with Impact by now following the expiration of her contract at the end of 2022 but she’s still here and that’s definitely a good thing. Interestingly, since January’s Hard to Kill she’s turned babyface for the first time in her Impact run.

Gisele Shaw, meanwhile, has been with the promotion for a year now and she’s continued to develop her character. Pushed as a breaker up of tag teams, a recent win over Tara has led her to start calling herself the Black Widow of Impact Wrestling.

There’s not an enormous story to this one other than both women throwing food over each other. The match should be good, though because Purrazzo is one of the best female workers in North America and Shaw has come on a lot in her time with Impact. I’ve got no major feeling for the booking but I imagine Shaw goes over. Prediction: Gisele Shaw

COUNTDOWN TO NO SURRENDER JONATHAN GRESHAM VS. MIKE BAILEY

Unless this is going to be more of an angle than a fully-fledged match, there’s absolutely no reason that these two should be stuck down on the pre-show. I get that it’s “free,” and therefore available to everyone but I doubt they’re going to go out there and have a 15-20 minute notebook contest in the 30-minute countdown program.

Story-wise, Gresham has been looking to rebound from his singles loss to Eddie Edwards at Hard to Kill. After knocking off a couple of lower-level guys, he called out Bailey, who himself was coming off a fun Pit Fight win over Kenny King, for a singles match here.

Gresham has been showing some more heel tendencies in his character, indicative of a turn born out of a frustration that he can’t get over the line in his bigger Impact matches. If that’s the direction of travel, it makes most sense for him to lose here as that’ll develop his character and keep Bailey on the up as they head back to Canada and Bailey looks ahead to a match with Will Ospreay on the Mania weekend show. Prediction: Mike Bailey

FRANKIE KAZARIAN VS. KON (W/ANGELS, DEANER & CALLIHAN)

Kazarian’s decision to sign with Impact in January was a move that I absolutely loved because it’s indicative of what a healthy scene should look like.

The story of this match is all about the Design and the seven trials Deaner has set for Sami Callihan to become a fully-fledged member of the group. Kazarian called Callihan out for his involvement in the group but was instead confronted by Kon, leading to this being booked.

On the surface, this is a super easy way to give Kazarian a singles win on a live special against a physically larger opponent who’ll be in tag matches most of the time. Prediction: Frankie Kazarian

TIME MACHINE (ALEX SHELLEY, CHRIS SABIN & KUSHIDA) VS BULLET CLUB (KENTA, ACE AUSTIN & CHRIS BEY)

KENTA might only be operating at half speed most of the time but even the prospect of a half-speed KENTA in there with these five guys makes this one of my most anticipated matches on the entire card.

I’ve worked myself into a shoot over this now but there’s clearly a play here for Ace Austin and Chris Bey to eventually win the Impact tag titles from Shelley and Sabin. With that in mind, you’d think they’re a cert to get the win here to set up that title challenge for one of Impact’s Canada shows or even the Mania weekend card.

KUSHIDA challenging Josh Alexander for the Impact World Championship at the Mania weekend show does give me pause for thought but I don’t think he’s hurt by losing a six-man tag where he won’t eat the fall to a BULLET CLUB trio that features one current champion (Kenta) and two future belt holders