11 Ups & 10 Downs For Impact Wrestling In 2020
1. The Black Wednesday Aftermath
WWE's Black Wednesday slew of releases on that fateful 15 April evening ended up putting 2020 on track to be the most profitable year for the company in history. That's not the point for now, though - a whole host of people were left without a job during an unprecedented time. The hate thrown WWE's way as a result of this was warranted.
As for Impact Wrestling, they capitalised on this to build anticipation for their 18 July Slammiversary pay-per-view. Week after week, a tease was made as to some of the names who would be debuting/returning at the summer event. Was this just a way to promote their pay-per-view? It couldn't be any farther from it, as the surprises kept on coming from the company even before Slammiversary in terms of Impact management throwing out contracts.
Deonna Purrazzo arrived prior to the summer event, entered the Knockouts Championship picture as soon as she arrived, and lifted the title from Jordynne Grace at the surprise-fuelled pay-per-view. That she has since gone on to become the greatest wrestler in Impact in her short time with the promotion shows you exactly what sort of mistake WWE had made with 'The Virtuosa'.
Heath's debut was fine, and he's since earned himself an Impact contract (albeit, an unsigned contract at the time of writing). The Motor City Machine Guns' return against The Rascalz was a great way reintroduce Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley, with the choice of them being the team to dethrone The North three days after Slammiversary was one of Scott D'Amore and Don Callis' greatest booking choices of 2020. The returns of both Eric Young and Rich Swann, of course, led them into their brutal rivalry that became a pinnacle rivalry of Impact's 2020. A slow build with the perfect culmination is exactly how you create both a psychotic killer in Young, and a sympathetic World Champion in Swann.
EC3 and Brian Myers' returns haven't really clicked, as we mentioned earlier in the article. While 'The Essential Character' has again left the company, there's still hope for Myers to succeed with the right booking.
Impact have boosted their roster in 2020, and it hasn't even just been WWE releases they were snapping up. Tasha Steelz, Crazzy Steve, Chris Bey, Kaleb With A K, Nevaeh, and Kimber Lee have all been signed by the company as well. What's better is that they're all doing something of note, as opposed to being signed for the sake of being signed.
Through awful conditions, Impact Wrestling excelled in 2020.