Impact Wrestling has been building their talent roster looking to improve their shows and move back up the professional wrestling ladder. Part of that is promoting one of their flagship pay-per-views that began in 2002, Slammiversary. What makes this interesting is Impact’s new Slammiversary promo shows released WWE stars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cAls5RN_iM
Getting people talking
The promo video featured recently released WWE wrestlers Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows, Drake Maverick, Mike and Maria Kanellis, Eric Young, Curt Hawkins, EC3 and a Bulgarian flag hinting Rusev (https://www.instagram.com/p/CA-CpdopiHa/) were all shown.
It’s important to note this is just a tease as they are all under the standard 90 day no compete clause wrestlers sign when the WWE releases them. It is also important to note that the no compete clause ends days before Slammiversary, so this does two things.
One, it gives us something to talk about and get excited about as some of those mentioned — Eric Young and EC3 to name a couple — had awesome careers in TNA and Impact.
Two, it shows the wrestlers that someone’s interested in them, and if they haven’t been resigned (more on this in a second) it’ll give them some leverage since it’s believed Vince McMahon still wants to hoard talent to keep other promotions from improving.
Not all of them may be available
There are rumors out there that several of the released wrestlers are resigning but at a fraction of what they were previously paid. Drake Maverick posted on his Instagram that he’s staying, but there hasn’t been anything official released as of this writing.
If the WWE is resigning people, it’s curious timing given Impact pretapes their shows by a month or so, and makes one wonder are they worried about Impact improving? With Impact’s growing tag team division and Knockouts division being near or on WWE’s women’s division, it could be a legitimate concern. The last year has shown the WWE is scared and tried to crush AEW right away.
Add to this the fact Impact is using the WWE as canon fodder from the Deaners poking fun at the Undertaker’s Bone Yard Match, to showing a flashback match between Lashley and Drew McIntyre (then known as Drew Galloway) for the TNA world title.
This leaves plenty of room for updates, and the news broadcaster in Impact’s promo video above has been reported as being Jon Burton, a former professional wrestler and current sports anchor on Nashville’s WTVF-TV — NewsChannel5.
Identity Of Man Featured In IMPACT’s ‘Future Endeavors’ Teaser Revealed https://t.co/L1jlY1c9Dz pic.twitter.com/CLrVatgdjL
— WrestleZone (@WRESTLEZONEcom) June 3, 2020
Now that the news is out, he’s also teased more updates on Impact Wrestling signings over the next few weeks, so it looks like the race is on.
With everything going on, it’s becoming clearer that the WWE is a wounded animal and the other promotions smell the blood and are circling like sharks. Leaving talent doesn’t have a problem exposing how poorly they’ve been treated, and given how many have the same stories and sound familiar to what we’ve heard for decades, they can’t so easily be dismissed.
In the end, the WWE being knocked down a few pegs and others like AEW, Impact, NJPW and others rising up is a good thing for the industry and fans. We don’t want to see anyone fail, as all of them succeeding and not being selfish are what makes wrestling fun to watch. Variety is the spice of life.
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