How Scott D’Amore And Don Callis Saved IMPACT Wrestling

Speaking of Bound For Glory, that's merely a single example of IMPACT Wrestling's increasing pay-per-view quality.

The debut pay-per-view under Scott D'Amore and Don Callis' tenure was the aptly-named April 2018 Redemption event. Simply by listing off some of the talent that wrestled on this show is incredible; Pentagon Jr., Fenix, El Hijo del Fantasma, Taiji Ishimori, Petey Williams, Drago, Aerostar, the list goes on and by God, is it something.

Things only got better.

That year's Slammiversary pay-per-view was widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestling pay-per-views of 2018. At the time, it was deemed the rebirth of IMPACT Wrestling as anything other than the opposite of WWE, and in many ways, it was the rebirthing of the promotion. Pentagon Jr. and Sami Callihan's bloodbath of a mask vs. hair bout stands up, Brian Cage winning X Division Championship over Matt Sydal is an underrated gem worth looking out, and a 5150 Street Fight between the new LAX - Ortiz and Santana - and the OG LAX - Homicide and Hernandez - was sublime. Santana hit a damn frog splash while his opponent lay on a pile of thumbtacks. It was more than it ever needed to be.

Even today, fans still get excited when it's the weekend of an IMPACT pay-per-view. January's Hard To Kill was hotly-anticipated because it was the IMPACT in-ring debut of Kenny Omega. The All Elite Wrestling World Champion appearing on an IMPACT pay-per-view in front of not one single fan? It sounds laughable, but yet, it genuinely happened. This is one of those moments that would have been far better executed with a paying audience in the IMPACT Zone; even without the rabid fans, though, it remained a perfectly produced match (and overall story, for that matter).

Pay-per-views don't have to be the be-all and end-all for IMPACT Wrestling, but it helps immensely when they are.

CONT'D...