5 Things IMPACT Wrestling Should Do in 2023

Happy New Year everyone, we are officially a week or two into 2023 and things are looking pretty good especially if you’re Impact Wrestling going into a sold-out ‘Hard To Kill’ pay-per-view on Friday the 13th in Atlanta Georgia.

But as is always the case, many fans are already making predictions as to what the year will bring for some of their favourite (and least favourite) companies and in this article, I’m going list five things Impact hopefully are able to do or get confirmation about in the year 2023.

#5. The Return of Lockdown

Starting off this list is the resurrection of one of the company’s most iconic pay-per-views in its history: Lockdown

So for those who don’t know, back in early 2020 Impact announced the return of Lockdown as an Impact Plus Special. On 28th March at the St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario, Canada two lethal lockdown matches were announced for the card and fans were more than excited to see the most dangerous pay-per-view and its signature match make comeback. Well, that was until a certain pandemic caused every wrestling promotion compromise to all of their future events.

While fans would begin to come back to wrestling events sometime in 2021, unfortunately, no mentions have been made by Impact’s website or social media accounts about Lockdown making a comeback following the 2020 cancellation.

Now considering the crop of wrestlers that Impact currently has on their roster plus their partnerships with other promotions like New Japan Pro Wrestling, perhaps the year 2023 would be the best time for Lockdown to return. The show itself could also be a great excuse to finally have a NJPW vs. Impact cross-promotion event with names like Will Ospreay, Tomohiro Ishii, Jeff Cobb, Minoru Suzuki and Bullet Club taking on some of Impact’s greatest like Josh Alexander, Moose, Rich Swann, Eddie Edwards and the Motor City Machine Guns in what will certainly be match of the year quality bouts.

On top of being a good way to do some cross-promotion, Lockdown would also give fans the opportunity to see the blood-soaked violence and numerous ‘HOLY SHIT!’ moments that have been associated with the event.

#4. Having Shows Outside the U.S. (Specifically in Canada, the U.K. and India) 

The previous year saw Impact Wrestling hitting the road again for the first time in a long while as the company held events in places like Kentucky, Las Vegas, Texas, New York, Florida, and Tennessee. Many of these shows being sold out or getting a great reception from the fans in attendance.

However, while Impact has been doing alright with its plan of holding shows in various parts of the U.S., to see which locations do the best business for the company, there have been a few places that they haven’t managed to visit. There are many places they haven’t been to in a while like Canada, India and the United Kingdom.

With COVID-19 restrictions placed in Canada, you can probably understand why Impact hasn’t held any shows up north but even more surprising they haven’t gone back to places like India or the United Kingdom since the mid to late 2010s and it’s not like fans aren’t asking them to come back. In fact, many of them are constantly using social media demanding that the promotion make plans for a return in the near future and when you think back to the success Impact had during their tours of the U.K., and Canada while being the first U.S. wrestling promotion to have episodes of their weekly show take place in India, 2023 could be the right time to make things happen.

Upon announcing their partnership with the European streaming service DAZN in late 2022, many fans (myself included) think that this could lead to a possible Impact return to the U.K. When you consider that competitors like AEW and WWE are already gearing up to bring their products to the United Kingdom in 2023, it’s safe to say that if the former TNA Wrestling wants to still have a fanbase in this area or in places like India and Canada then they better start announcing a date for that return ASAP.

#3. A Bigger Focus on the Tag Team Divisions

When looking at the divisions that are inside Impact Wrestling, the ones that tend to get the most attention are the Knockouts Division and the X Division. This isn’t too surprising as one of them helped to redefine what female wrestling could be in the United States and the other has been a staple of the promotion since its very first event back in 2002.

Another division that has also helped in establishing Impact as a powerhouse is its tag team division. The early to late 2000s were the golden age of tag team wrestling in the former TNA, but it could be argued that some of the shine that was once on the division has really slipped off over the last several years. This is probably due in no small part to the departure of teams The Lucha Bros, The Kingdom and Santana & Ortiz and places like All Elite Wrestling becoming a monopoly for tag team wrestling since its inception.

Nowadays the male and female tag division’s in Impact could best be described (in my opinion) as ‘okay but could use some improvement’. Now my reasoning for saying this surrounds the fact that there really isn’t anything in the tag division’s that are standing out: The rivalries (aside from a small few) aren’t really all that memorable, the storytelling feels formulaic at best and yes there aren’t enough teams to make the divisions feel special or interesting…heck Impact Knockout, Gisele Shaw even made a reference to the state of the division when she told Deonna Purrazzo in a backstage segment that

“The Knockouts Tag Titles are just sitting there, waiting to be taken.”

…Yeah you know it’s bad when even the company is unintentionally making digs at its own division.

So with all that said, my hope is that Impact this year can at the very least sign some new teams to the division or create teams that don’t feel like comedic or jobber duos you see wrestling on BTI. Furthermore, a better storyline could be beneficial in making the rivalries really stand out and perhaps more gimmick matches or the creation of a tag team tournament even once and a while could really help to make the division feel special.

#2. A Partnership with World Wonder Ring Stardom 

As mentioned previously, the Knockouts Division is one of the standouts in Impact Wrestling, yet despite putting on a solid product that surpasses the women’s divisions in WWE and AEW, many tend to downplay their success.

What if there was a way to fix that and it involved Impact partnering with another promotion that has great experience with women’s wrestling, STARDOM? Since its formation in 2010, World Wonder Ring Stardom is considered the key place for Japanese female wrestling with many of the sport’s best modern stars competing inside of its squared circle.

Much like how Impact’s partnership with NJPW has helped both promotions in terms of cross-over appeal and the potential for dream matches the same could be the case for Impact partnering with Stardom. The idea of an all-female event seeing the Knockouts take on the women of Stardom in a battle for company supremacy could become of the best in recent memory.

#1. Landing a TV Deal with a Major Network

Since Impact’s cancellation of SPIKE TV, the company has been channel hopping from one place to another before finally settling on AXS TV in 2019 where it remains today.

With the promotion not having to worry about being shoved off of AXS as their parent company, Anthem Sports and Entertainment owns the network or having to concern themselves over appealing to network executive’s wishes Impact is finally in a place where it can do whatever they want and not have to face repercussions as a result. However, one of the downsides of being on AXS TV is that the channel isn’t widely available and thus very few people (who aren’t subscribed to the Impact Plus App, DAZN or Impact’s YouTube channel) get to see the weekly product.

Perhaps the new year would be a perfect time for the promotion to start looking for new places to air their content on TV. There have been a few places that fans have suggested like VICE TV and most recently the CW Network. Brad Schwartz is the newly elected president of the network and a former TV executive of POP TV. This might make more sense as POP TV was a network that had Impact on their programming with Schwartz being one of the biggest advocates in getting Impact on POP.

Overall, while the other entries on the list are something a group of hardcore fans would like to see happen in the months and years to come, getting Impact a major TV Deal would most certainly be the thing that could help the company get its name out there. This is undoubtedly the number one thing Impact should do in 2023.

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What other things are you hoping Impact Wrestling does in 2023, leave your thoughts down below in the comment section and for more content from me be sure to click the link to the article down below:

Every Impact Wrestling 2022 Pay-Per-View Ranked From Worst To Best | Lace ‘Em Up (baminreallife.com)