Youth And The World Championship: How 10 Top Wrestling Companies Book New Stars

Impact has certainly gone through its fair share of crises of identity since its formation in 2002.

The former Total-Nonstop Action developed a bad reputation of putting their World Title on ex-WWE guys and Jeff Jarrett in their formulative years. Sometimes that system worked - the likes of Jeff Hardy, Christian Cage, Mr. Anderson, Drew McIntyre and Bully Ray all had opportunities that were far beyond their grasps during their respective runs with WWE, with Hardy's reign arguably proving to WWE that he could be a main event player. But sometimes that meant we had to suffer with non-drawers Mick Foley, Ken Shamrock and Rob Van Dam as the face of the company.

Impact home-grown champions are few and far between too, with 13 or so men that may be considered a product of Impact's booking, out of a potential 37 individual Champions.

All-in-all, the average age of a new Impact World Champion sits at 34, with the modern 'Impact' era (following their sorta, kinda separation from GFW in late 2017) generating the youngest average Champ at 32, though often to mixed response – with Brian Cage, Sami Callihan, Tessa Blanchard and Rich Swann all being Champion in the last two years.