TNA Footage Being Used In WWE?! HUGE Title Change On IMPACT!

 

Last night Impact Wrestling held their Redemption PPV, the main event of which saw Austin Aries defend his Impact World Championship against Pentagon Jr and Fenix. However there were also a few surprises along the way – so if you’re a UK viewer waiting for the show to air this Wednesday you may want to skip ahead as we’re about to drop some spoilers.

The first surprise was WrestleTalk’s Insider and Oli Davis’ new best friend Don Callis joining Josh Matthews to provide color commentary for the show. Scott Steiner became one half of the tag team champions with Eli Drake after beating LAX, and Tessa Blanchard made her Impact Wrestling debut – setting up a future feud with Taya Valkerie. Blanchard has been wrestling for Shine and Stardom and also took part in WWE’s Mae Young Classic last year, losing in the first round to eventual winner Kairi Sane. She’s also worked on NXT as enhancement talent. Also on the show, Matt Sydal retained his X-Division Championship over Petey Williams, Allie retained the Knockout’s Championship against Su Yung, and OVE defeated Eddie Edwards, Moose and Tommy Dreamer in a House of Hardcore rules match.

New Impact World Champion!

AND NEW IMPACT World Champion – Pentagon Jr! #Redemption18 pic.twitter.com/Yx8XObefgd

— TNA Wrestling (@ThisIsTNA) April 23, 2018

And in the main event, Pentagon Jr. defeated Austin Aries and Fenix to become the new Impact World Champion. According to Wikipedia, Pentagon is also Lucha Underground Champion, Mexican Strong Style Champion, PCW Heavyweight Champion, WAR Tag Team Champion and WS World Submission Lucha Champion. Which I think makes him more of a belt collector than Austin Aries.

This three-way was set up at Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore show in New Orleans over WrestleMania weekend, and was a rematch from the Impact vs. Lucha Underground show a few days prior. The main event of that show was supposed to be Austin Aries and Fenix vs. Pentagon Jr. and Alberto El Patron, but Patron no-showed the event and it was changed to the three-way. Shortly after no-showing the event, Impact Wrestling announced they had severed ties with Alberto El Patron – who was supposed to be in the main event of Redemption against Aries. If you want to hear more about that, here’s the WrestleTalk Insider episode with our man Don Callis, who talks about it in detail.

 

 

New Impact Championship Belts

Introducing the brand new IMPACT World Championship. #Redemption18 pic.twitter.com/28ECTXffYX

— TNA Wrestling (@ThisIsTNA) April 22, 2018

And along with a new world champion came new championship belts! Impact Wrestling revealed the designs via Twitter prior to the show, debuting the new Tag Team, X-Division, Knockouts, and World Championships. One belt missing from that list is the Impact Grand Championship. It had been speculated that Impact were set to phase out their Grand Championship, and Don Callis told us on WrestleTalk Insider that the company wanted to put the focus away from that belt and onto the World Champion and X-Division Champion.

Pentagon winning the Impact World Championship is another step in the relationship with Lucha Underground – but they’re not the only company Impact have been doing dealings with.

Impact Footage On WWE DVD Release

During the WWE Hall of Fame 2018 a commercial was played to hype some upcoming shows on the WWE Network – including the return of The Edge & Christian Show That Totally Reeks Of Awesomeness, Bruce Prichard’s Something Else To Wrestle, and WWE24 shows on Ronda Rousey and The Hardy Boyz – the latter of which will feature footage from their run in TNA and Impact Wrestling. This will be the first time that Impact footage has appeared on the WWE Network. But that’s not the only Impact footage we’ll see on a WWE release.

WWE Home Video UK revealed that the upcoming Twist of Fate: The Best of the Hardy Boyz release was a collaborative effort between WWE and Impact Wrestling, and will cover Matt and Jeff’s entire career including their time in TNA and Impact.

For the first time ever, a WWE DVD release will feature footage from Impact Wrestling events, as part of The Best of the Hardy Boyz’ candid look at the “Broken Universe”!

WrestlingDVDNetwork have since watched the documentary and confirmed that they do talk about the Broken gimmick and Final Deletion – with the Global Wrestling Network logo watermarked on the footage. For those who don’t know, GWN is a streaming service that features content from Impact Wrestling. Not only that, but the end of the DVD features the following notice:

To watch all the Hardys’ Impact Wrestling matches in their entirety, download the Global Wrestling Network app. Available on all your favorite streaming devices!