Of this set of tapings, Thursday’s show was the best show to date. There were some low points, but the ECIII-Storm match, the opening tag match between LAX and Garza Jr/Laredo Kid, and the main-event Ultimate X match were all exceptional. Regardless, there are way too many titles on Impactright now. Between Raw and SmackDown, WWE has nine titles. That’s for six hours of television, including 205 Livefeaturing the cruiserweights. Impact has two hours of weekly television, and eight titles on the show. It’s way too many. Clearly. LAX beat Garza Jr. & Laredo Kid in the GFW Tag Title Tournament Another solid opener for Impact. In fact, this was one of the better tag matches in a while. You can tell right from the start that there is some chemistry between the teams and the action was fast-paced, but slow enough that they still told a very good story. Sometimes, not to sound like Randy Orton, but with all the flying and diving, things can get lost. Not here. They kept the pace slow enough that you could follow the story. The match was also good enough that it got both teams over. Garza Jr. and Laredo Kid looked strong enough to beat the Impact Tag Champions, if not for the interference from Diamante. Kong looked damn impressive. It’s a long way down the road, but I could see them building him into a title contender in the future. For now, he’s stuck in a silly storyline, though. Sooner than later, he needs to break away from Laurel Van Ness if he wants to be taken seriously as a monster. He’ll need a spokesperson. This could be a good role for Josh Mathews, if they take him off the announce table permanently. Josh could easily be the mouthpiece for the monster. Hype Video for Ultimate X aired Let’s face it, the X Division has been garbage for some time. It hasn’t been treated with any real importance. Here, you had the three guys in the match talking about what the division means to them, and more importantly, what the X Division Title means to them. They weren’t talking about “putting smiles on faces,” they were talking about why they wanted to win, or retain, the X Division Title. It was good production to show those early Ultimate X matches as well, not only showcasing that it was the “start” for AJ Styles, but also that’s a period in time that longtime Impact/TNA fans are longing for. They want that aspect of the company to return. One thing that has been noticeably better since Anthem took over the company is the production of packages like this. The music, the clips and the interview content was all totally on point. James Storm beat ECIII via DQ when ECIII attacked the referee Is Magnus a heel or a face? He was on commentary for this match and he was acting like a heel, but then he was running down Josh Mathews as a guest on commentary. Seconds after that, he’s calling the fans “mouth breathers.” The inconsistency was a little disruptive. Sienna beat ODB to retain the GFW Women’s Title Why the random title match? Impact isn’t guilty of this alone, WWE does it as well, but why did ODB deserve a title shot here? It would be nice if they gave some sort of explanation, even if it’s just the announcer saying that a committee voted her No. 1 contender. We might have to wait until July 2, but it at least appears like this storyline is going to come to an end. There’s no need to break this down word for word. The storyline is not good, and some of the verbiage – particularly from Mathews – is groan-inducing. Hopefully this ends with Mathews as a heel manager and Borash as the lead play-by-play voice. Low Ki beat Trevor Lee and Andrew Everett in an Ultimate X match to retain the X Division Title