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Since TNA and GFW are no longer, figured a new thread should be in place.

Tonight, the new creative team and feel of Impact take effect. Plus, the 4 sided ring is back.

In other news, looks like Jeremy Borash accepted a job with the WWE. Remains to be seen how long he will be doing commentary, since everything is taped weeks in advance.

Nice signing by WWE. Grats to Borash.

Any reason to believe Impact should be successful under its new leadership - other than having Austin Aries?

I am a huge fan, but realistic. All Impact can ever hope for is to be slightly profitable and to help new talent or misused talent get to WWE, assuming they want that.

Eli Drake has had a good run as champ, but with the recent defections, it just feels like Impact just starts over multiple times a year. Aries will be a good signing, but will he put them "over the top"? No, but I don't think anyone will ever be able to.

It really is a new era, everyone from the TNA era is gone. Styles and now Borash. old TNA is well and truly dead.

Anybody watch on Thursday? Thoughts on Aries winning the title? Pretty solid wrestling show.

RonMexico915 wrote:Anybody watch on Thursday? Thoughts on Aries winning the title? Pretty solid wrestling show.

too rushed. No buildup and they just have him come back and win after everything with Drake. Was rather poor.

Brian Cage should help Impact - even though he failed tryouts with them in the past.

Had no idea Shaun Ricker ended up here. I thought he was a can't miss for WWE.

Ruzious wrote:Brian Cage should help Impact - even though he failed tryouts with them in the past.

absolutely. Cage is fantastic and its about time they brought him on board. Hopefully they bring in Cobb and Riddle full time and there, 3 main event talent immediately.

Stanford wrote:Had no idea Shaun Ricker ended up here. I thought he was a can't miss for WWE.

He's been there since 2015 I believe. Was in a stable with Drew Galloway and Micah back then. Micah is Mengs son who is currently in NJPW.

Of interest to Joshi fans in here: Gail Kim in a podcast says Impact has interest in Io Shirai, though in what type of capacity (part time or full time) is unknown.

Podcast:
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/patreon-posts/bhgT-xL0AJ21GLiTc4CyJA6_nKiIo1lf1Iw-ByHBtYn01qYbNOHTEHhmsPFtz4l4.mp3

Gail Kim also said she finished up a DVD with Impact. So they will be releasing something like they did with AJ, Roode, and EY.

Don Callis tweeted about Io Shirai today. These Io rumours are not going away. It's both an indictment of where Impact is at right now talent wise and a compliment to Io's reputation that she'd probably immediately become one of Impact's biggest draws on the current roster, man or woman, if she did any kind of work for them.

I'm watching the Impact vs. Lucha Underground show right now. It's been very entertaining thus far. I don't follow Impact, so I'm not familiar with a lot of their guys, but I love Lucha Underground, so I am familiar with all of theirs.

The tag match with Mack and Killshot was awesome.

Alberto was fired by Impact and now the main event for Redemption is the same 3 way from IW vs LU. Sucks, they really were building that Aries vs AEP main event into something.

RonMexico915 wrote:Alberto was fired by Impact and now the main event for Redemption is the same 3 way from IW vs LU. Sucks, they really were building that Aries vs AEP main event into something.

They'll be better off without him. He's not nearly good enough in the ring to justify the headaches he causes. I'd also be much more interested in seeing a triple threat match between Aries, Pentagon, and Phoenix than a boring Patron/Aries match.

improper wrote:

RonMexico915 wrote:Alberto was fired by Impact and now the main event for Redemption is the same 3 way from IW vs LU. Sucks, they really were building that Aries vs AEP main event into something.

They'll be better off without him. He's not nearly good enough in the ring to justify the headaches he causes. I'd also be much more interested in seeing a triple threat match between Aries, Pentagon, and Phoenix than a boring Patron/Aries match.

Put Callihan in there too (or as LU calls him, Jeremiah Crane)

RonMexico915 wrote:Alberto was fired by Impact and now the main event for Redemption is the same 3 way from IW vs LU. Sucks, they really were building that Aries vs AEP main event into something.

Aries vs Pentagon vs Fenix would be better anyway.

Besides, we'll get a perroscope of it surely.

Sounds like Redemption was a pretty good show, did anyone watch it? What did you think of it?

Also, the new belts all look great (the tag team belt especially).

I for one can't wait to see how WWE ruins Pentagon some day.