10 Best Impact Face/Heel Turns Vol.1
Photo Credit: IMPACT Wrestling
Outside Impact Wrestling. A long time "Jerichoholic", Mick Foley, Kurt Angle & Hardys fan, pop open a little bit of the Bubbly, read what's being written by me with an open perspective & enjoy.
- Impact Wrestling’s build to the big 20. Part 1 - February 25, 2022
- (Exclusive) Rosemary: A Journey through the Valley of Shadows – PART 1 - September 19, 2021
- Revival of the X-Division: Tale of the Tape - June 20, 2021
2. Tessa Blanchard (The Undeniable Divider)
A wrestler who went from pinnacle to pinnacle, breaking down barriers & tearing up the “lore” or expectations, changing the landscape of (televised) professional wrestling in a very short space of time, dividing fans on all sides of her runs as a Heel, but ironically more so after she’d turned Face… but, the main divisive factor was the aforementioned “lore or expectations” on what fans did or didn’t want or expect to see.
After losing her Knockouts Championship (won during a Triple Threat match between Tessa, Allie & Su Yung on Impact August 30th) to Taya Valkyrie (who made her return to Impact on the same night) at Homecoming 2019 & then facing Gail Kim in her final professional wrestling match at Rebellion in an extremely entertaining & tear jerking finish. Gail Kim passing the torch onto Tessa Blanchard, making her the standard bearer of the Knockouts Division, turning Tessa Face & pushing her popularity to new heights.
Tessa Blanchard would stand up to a number of wrestlers such as Glenn Gilberti, Joey Ryan who were (from a story perspective) insulting or playing down how good women are in what basically were, multiple “battle of sexes” storylines (experimentation on intergender wrestling matches which divided a lot of fans, a sign for things to come next). After these had finally subsided Tessa Blanchard would turn her attention onto the X-Division title, held by Jake Crist & slowly building this into her monumental rivalry with OVE & Sami Callihan. Tessa Blanchard faced Sami Callihan at Slammiversary in a brutal “Match of the Year” singles contest, again the match wasn’t up to everyone’s expectations or even appreciated because it was so divisive just having the most dangerous man on the roster facing off against the face of the Knockouts division.
Tessa would be the 2nd Knockout in history to challenge for the X-Division title at Bound For Glory 2020 in a 5-Way ladder match with Acey Romero, Ace Austin, Daga & X-Division Champion Jake Crist. Ace Austin would win after throwing Tessa Blanchard off a ladder through a table & the retrieving the belt. After Sami Callihan beat Brian Cage for the Impact World Title on Impact’s debut onto AXS TV (although Sami had lost to Cage at Bound For Glory they had a rematch in a steel cage at the night’s main event), Tessa would be standing in the ring staring him down ready to renew a rivalry that had eased off after Slammiversary, causing more unrest for many fans. Sami & Tessa would take each other to hell & back, every week adding more heat to this rivalry & come Hard To Kill 2020, now 2-0 to Sami Callihan, Tessa would face him for the World Title & (as the majority reading know) would pin him to become the first woman to hold the Impact World Title.
Taking all the issues with Tessa on Impact that followed out the evaluation, taking all the complaining from the fans leading up to this match out of the evaluation. Tessa Blanchard’s run as a Face based character was a game changer, it allowed Impact to open up more to very bold decisions & experimentation at a time the world of the WWE vs. Impact was (to a casual fan) nothing different apart from Impact’s use of cinematic matches & better story development, she played the Heel role perfectly & it would take the route she was set on with Sami Callihan to swing a lot of people’s opinions the other way & bring more eyes onto Impact from more promotions. People wanted something “new”, we had it in one of the most entertaining switches from Heel to Face I’d seen since I’ve been watching either Impact or the WWE.
Before finally finishing I’d like to drop the top 5 (of the 30+ names given by my followers & who I had pre-planned) that I had to reluctantly cut from this article. Come Volume 2, maybe some will be dropped in there?
1. Allie
2. Davey Richards & Angelina Love
3. Su Yung
4. Matt Hardy & EC3 (Double turn)
5. Taryn Terrell
About Author
