Are IMPACT Wrestling Correcting Their Past Mistakes?
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Through their history, Impact Wrestling have never been shy at trying new things and pushing the boat out when it comes to storylines. This has lead to many incredible moments and some amazing stories that last in our memories forever. Yet it has also lead to many moments that have ended in utter failure which have also, sadly stayed with us fans for a while.
The current product we see from Impact is on a very hot level and the only things you could pull apart that need to be improved, would be from a production level. When it comes to wrestling and stories however, Impact keep you engaged to the very end. It is interesting however when you look at the groundwork that Impact are laying with their current angles, they are very similar to a few of their past angles which sadly never got the true pay off they deserved.
1 instance that we’re seeing is the Double Champ angle with Deonna Purazzo, with Deonna having open challenges for both her Ring Of Honor World Women’s Championship and also her AAA Reina De Reina’s Championship. This has been nearly a weekly feature with variants of knockouts on the roster and also knockouts outside of Impact challenging Deonna. You feel this is leading to a big match at Rebellion where we will see some big pay off of some kind?
This open challenge from Deonna and the way it feels like it’s being built towards something big at Rebellion, definitely gives similar vibes to what we saw in 2018 with Eli Drake. Eli was doing open challenges leading up to Bound For Glory 2018 and us as fans were all in due to where it felt like it was building. It felt for a while this was building to something special at BFG, then we had James Ellsworth walk out. Impact have a chance here to right that wrong and it feels like they may be looking to do that?
If you step up into the main event you have two stories that are currently playing out, those being the invasion of Honor No More and Josh Alexander chasing down Moose to regain the Impact World Championship. If these storylines feel familiar, it’s likely because they are. Both were played out 7-10 years ago and neither (in my opinion) felt like they got their perfect pay off.
With Honor No More invading and Eddie Edwards now turning his back on Impact to join Honor No More, you could certainly say it’s how many feel the GFW invasion angle should have happened? Back in 2015 we saw Jeff Jarret turn up in Impact again and announce that Global Force Wrestling was taking over, the roster of GFW was actually pretty impressive, however the names we had turn up with Jeff, sadly didn’t give much threat to the roster.
When you look at the GFW angle we had back in 2015, we saw an “invasion” angle start and end within 2 and a half months, there was no real build and no investment. Even the turn from Eric Young to betray Impact and join GFW was never explained and after GFW lost so easily, it made EY look so stupid. The whole angle was so one sided on Impacts side, GFW never felt like any sort of force, so much so you wondered at times why the angle was even happening?
It feels like everything that was done in 2015 has been learnt from and has given us this Honor No More storyline. Honor No More feel like they are a threat, they have a good win/loss record, Eddie Edwards explanation for betraying Impact Wrestling makes complete sense plus the group has a nice look and connection between Impact and ROH. Everything that the GFW failed to do, Impact are now correcting with this amazing Honor No More invasion angle.
The big main event story we’re seeing is surrounding two of Impact’s own home grown talents in Moose and Josh Alexander. At Bound For Glory 2021 we saw Josh Alexander become Impact World Champion with Moose then instantly cashing in his call your shot gauntlet trophy to then take the World Title from Josh. In one night Impact Wrestling then built their next top babyface in Josh Alexander and their next top heel in Moose.
We have since seen Moose have a great and dominating World Title reign defending against the likes of W. Morrissey, Matt Cardona, Heath and Eddie Edwards. In the meantime we’ve seen Josh go through obstacle after obstacle (such as Big Kon and Charlie Haas) in order to finally get his one on one match with Moose for the Impact World Title. Finally Josh got his match announced and we will see Josh vs Moose at Rebellion on April 23rd.
This story may feel familiar and so it should, because back in 2011, we saw the glorious one Bobby Roode turn on his long time Beer Money partner James Storm (just after BFG) to become the new World Champion. This lead to Booby Roode going down in history as the longest Impact World Champion (still to this day) and it opened the door for a truly great feud.
Storm was in the same position as what we see Josh in, it was interesting to see Storm in the chase because you really gathered behind him after what Roode had done to him, TNA did a great job of getting all the fans on Storm’s side over the next few months while Roode was killing it in the main event. Eventually James Storm and Bobby Roode took place at Lockdown 2012, however this is where TNA took the wrong turn.
With the story that was being told you felt this was Storm’s moment, it was also in his hometown so it was written perfectly. However We saw Roode win by Storm kicking (accidentally) Roode out of the cage, therefore escaping the cage. This was an interesting finish to the match, however it was a finish that hurt Storm more than it helped him. We never saw him get near the title picture again and although their Bound For Glory 2012 match was intense, it felt like it was missing something, that being the World Title.
Impact at Rebellion have a chance to correct the error that was previously made with James Storm, Josh Alexander is on fire right now and it’s surely the time to pull the trigger. We’ve seen in the past that if you miss it once, you may never get the momentum back. Have Impact seen what happened in this previous instance and don’t want that to happen to Josh? Let hope so?
It may all be by coincidence, however there is a lot currently happening on Impact where you look at it and think “has this happened before?” Likely it has, the only difference this time would be the endings. Given what Impact has given us over the last year, I think many of us have faith in these stories and directions, it will be nice to see things that we felt disheartened with finally have a pay off and who’s to say we don’t see more wrongs from the past, righted?
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