I have written several unique Top 10 lists in the last couple years of producing The Wrestling Weekday. But somehow Impact Wrestling has always escaped my coverage. Considering the year end Top 10 featured a long time Impact star now in WWE at #2 and an actual Impact star at #1, it seems the time is ripe to feature the first ever list of Impact talents!
Image credit: Impact Wrestling.
Ethan Carter III: While it currently feels like EC3 is treading water a bit at the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017, he is cemented as a perennial main eventer on the Impact roster. He could still make huge moves in the year ahead, especially if the company decides to play off the loss of his storyline aunt from the roster.
Drew Galloway: I am not a fan of Galloway as a heel. He made one of the best faces the company had to offer, while as a heel he feels like just another bad dude in a sea of bad dudes. But he has definitely made waves since his in ring return and looks to have a solid run as Grand Champion.
Decay: After Total Nonstop Deletion, Abyss and Crazzy Steve are in a bit of a random space, but they continue to be one of the best units on Impact Wrestling, even if it seems unlikely they will challenge for the tag titles much this year.
Davey Richards: Davey's path upon his return seems clear. After a short uniting of the Wolves for a few weeks, he will take a heel turn against his former partner. Hopefully, Impact uses Angelina Love as his mouthpiece during his heel run, because while Davey can go in the ring, he is still one of the worst talkers on the Impact roster.
Jade: If Impact is smart, they will start to build a major part of their promotion around Jade. The perennial #1 contender to the Knockouts title, the former Mia Yim has to be on WWE's radar now. She has the potential to be a game changer in the world of women's professional wrestling and Impact would be wise to market on that.
Moose: Unlike Mike Bennett, Moose was smart to make the jump from ROH to Impact. Impact not only gets him in front of more eyes, but it also helps him develop more attention on his career as it continues to grow. He might still have a future in WWE, but with a more solid place on Impact, he can develop the same kind of following that has helped names like Styles, Roode and Samoa Joe in WWE.
Eddie Edwards: He finished 2016 as TNA World Heavyweight Champion, but his obvious impending feud with Davey makes the continuation of his reign seem unlikely, especially with Lashley after him this week. But Eddie has cemented himself as a growing star for the company, and arguably far more valuable than Davey.
Lashley: It seems likely Lashley will win the title just a few hours after this posts. Outside the #1 pick, no one on this list did as good a job as reinventing themselves in 2016 as Donald Trump's former wrestling buddy. His dominant work week in and out on Impact Wrestling builds upon his goal of making professional wrestling seem credible and he does a great job of that even when he's warring with Eddie Edwards at the Hardy compound. I never thought I'd say it, but I've became a big fan of this man in the last year.
Rosemary: The Knockouts Champion is easily one of the most over talents on Impact television. With a compelling character, a unique in ring style and a propensity to do things in the ring to make a true impact, the former Courtney Rush is a figure a company could be built around. Along with Jade, she makes a strong case for Impact to double down on the Knockouts side of the roster.
The Broken Hardys: Broken Matt Hardy was the top wrestler of 2016 as chosen by the readers of The Wrestling Weekday and the staff of the ESO-PRO podcast. But Brother Nero did his own reinvention in the second half of the year and even freed from his obsolescence, he still is in a much better place in his career in 2017. No tag team is as in demand in 2017 as the Hardys. The twenty year veterans look to make a huge mark with international matches that will likely be rebroadcast on Impact Wrestling broadcasts, even as they continue to push the boundaries of storytelling in the year ahead.
It is often quite interesting to look at all the major stars from Ring of Honor's past that eventually found themselves in a WWE ring. Back in the promotion's earliest days, it seemed only a handful of stars could ever attract the attention of the world's largest promotion, but that time has changed. Now as we look back at a main event from ROH on HDNet in 2009, we see six men that have found their way into NXT at one time or another.
The American Wolves are top stars in TNA now, but they
had one brief grand NXT moment. Image credit: Wikipedia.
The heel team has a far less storied history with WWE. Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards seemed like they would be the next huge signing for WWE when they made a single appearance on NXT against The Ascension. But The American Pitbulls of Derek Billington and John Cahill would never sign a full contract with WWE and moved on to TNA.
This last week has not been a pretty one for televised wrestling. Raw took a massive drop in ratings to get one of its lowest ranked shows ever. Ring of Honor also took a massive plummet. But even Impact Wrestling fell while still advertising two solid title matches in one night: a thirty man Iron man battle for the vacant tag titles and the long awaited showdown between Ethan Carter III and Kurt Angle for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship.
By all accounts, both matches delivered. The battle between Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards, The Wolves, and Austin Aries and Bobby Roode, the Dirty Heels, was a thirty minute modern classic by four stars at the top of their game. With a full thirty minutes to work the crowd and each other, this seemed to be the perfect match to answer all the complaints that Impact Wrestling matches rarely spread out over a maximum of ten minutes. But the four men appear to have made fans flee the program instead of stay with it. This of course brings into question what television wrestling fans are really hoping to get out of Impact every week. Are the fans that want longer matches the true movers of the program? Or is it the more casual fans drawn up in the often overly complicated storylines.
But no match on Impact in recent months had as much build as Ethan Carter III versus Kurt Angle. The build for the two men's title match has been huge. Over the past two years, the former Derrick Bateman proved he was a capable main eventer in TNA. Nowhere could he prove that more aptly than in a main event title match against a multiple Hall of Famer like Kurt Angle.
EC3 would walk away with his first TNA World Heavyweight title, but he would not lead the show to good ratings.
Impact Wrestling is already on fragile ground. I am not a doomsayer for the company, nor am I a person that ever believes everything Dave Meltzer writes about its future. But it is a company in need of viewers and a path. With the current set of spoilers for the next month, it seems to be finally on the path. But it is anyone's guess whether the viewers will ever return.
