IMPACT continues road to redemption via British wrestling’s resurgence

Professional wrestling here in the United Kingdom is thriving, with weekly Saturday afternoon show World of Sport Wrestling recently concluding a 10-week run on ITV and World Wrestling Entertainment announcing an upcoming “NXT UK” series on WWE Network.

Also very much part of the mix are a promotion who were a key figure in the British scene when things weren’t quite so hot, something that helped it eventually reach that level today.

IMPACT Wrestling, formerly known as TNA, ran annual shows at Wembley Arena in addition to its weekly television offering being available on Challenge TV. They then stepped things up a gear with British Boot Camp, a reality-based series that helped establish such current mainstream stars as WWE’s Drake Maverick and Noam Dar, and NJPW/Being The Elite mainstay Marty Scurll.

After a period of internal turmoil nearly ended the company entirely, IMPACT are back under new management and one of the key components of their comeback plan is to restore their UK presence.

That began in earnest at September’s Wrestling MediaCon, where IMPACT wrapped up the weekend-long festival of wrestling and its coverage over the years with a critically-acclaimed ‘IMPACT vs the UK’ show streamed online via Twitch. And at the event in Manchester, several IMPACT higher-ups outlined the show as a statement of intent, if you will, for their eventual full-on return to these shores.

“The UK is a major market and a hotbed of wrestling,” Scott D’Amore, co-executive vice president of IMPACT explained. “It was grown organically before NXT UK, World of Sport or even IMPACT came over and so we’d love to regain a regular presence over here.

“When myself, Don Callis and Ed Nordholm were over here on the media circuit at the start of the year, we admitted that it would be baby steps to start. We wanted to be able to look at things at the end of 2018 and say that we had restored the reputation of the brand and were beginning to operate in the manner we wanted to going forward. And I think those early steps have gone well so far.

“They aren’t talking about whether IMPACT is going out of business. We aren’t the butt of jokes anymore. Now, when they talk about IMPACT, there’s a turning of the tide in the perception. There’s much more positive than negative. There’s a lot of hard work still to come but here in the closing stages of 2018 I can say we’re a little ahead of schedule.”

Slowly but surely, IMPACT is reinventing its reputation and not only reminding wrestling fans why TNA was such a popular alternative to the WWE juggernaut in select peaks of their tumultuous existence, with 2005-2006 and 2012-2013 standing out in particular, but drawing new eyes onto the product via their novel storytelling.

Beginning in 2016 when Matt and Jeff Hardy turned heads online with their wild ‘Broken’ characters and offbeat matches and segments filmed at their own compound, IMPACT has experimented with dramatic television segments and production. And when the Hardys returned to WWE thanks in part to this reinvention, IMPACT continued its business model to a positive reception.

“The cinematic approach isn’t something we invented but it’s something we’ve developed and taken to levels rarely seen elsewhere,” D’Amore explained.

“And there are multiple ways to tell a story on a wrestling show: you can build to a match or event by simply cutting a promo, or off the back of other wrestling matches alone.

“But the more creative, more cinematic ventures are something that have gone down really well with the fanbase.

“One of the things that’s important in this is that IMPACT finds its identity. And this sort of alternative storytelling, with things such as Matt Hardy’s Broken Universe and now the LAX/OGz gang warfare and the undead storyline featuring Su Yung and Allie, is something I feel we do as good as if not better than anyone else.

“As long as fans continue to respond positively to storytelling in this manner, we will continue to incorporate it on IMPACT television.”

This weekend, IMPACT stages Bound For Glory – a show that has been established as their annual centrepiece since 2004, regardless of their highs and lows behind the scenes. This particular edition, coming from New York City, will be the first since shaking off a lot of the problems and stigmas associated with the brand.

Fans in the UK and Ireland can watch Bound For Glory, their biggest event of the year, live this Sunday via the FITE.tv website and app, with a repeat screening on Fight Network UK at a future date to be announced. The regular weekly IMPACT Wrestling show airs every Friday at 1am on Fight Network UK and 11pm on 5Spike.