As their respective teams continue to fight their way through to January s Hard To Kill, Impact World Champion Rich Swann will face Karl Anderson, one half of the Impact Tag Team Champions, in a non-title match next Tuesday.
On Tuesday s Impact, Swann (pictured) and the Motor City Machine Guns went looking for Anderson, Luke Gallows and AEW World Champion Kenny Omega on their bus but the former Bullet Club members got the jump on them with another beatdown.
The two teams will headline Impact s January 16th pay-per-view. Omega has been a presence on the show since winning the AEW title at December s Winter Is Coming as part of a bigger plan with Impact VP Don Callis.
The show opened with a Brodie Lee memorial graphic.
Scott D’Amore and Josh Mathews hosted the show. Throughout the night, we had a series of showcase matches, award announcements, and backstage segments building towards Genesis and Hard to Kill.
The two big awards left for this show were Moment of the Year and Match of the Year.
Moment of the Year Award was given to the Slammiversary XVIII debuts and returns, where we saw the return of the Motor City Machine Guns, the return of ECIII, the debut of Heath, the debut of Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows, and the five-person main event with Ace Austin, Eddie Edwards, Trey Miguel, with the returning Eric Young and Rich Swann. Eddie Edwards would go on to win that match to become a two-time Impact World champion.
New Impact X Division Champion Manik will have not one, but two former champions as challengers in his first title defense at January s Hard To Kill pay-per-view.
Announced Tuesday during the first of two yearly recap shows, a segment was shown where Chris Bey came out of Scott D Amore s office. Rohit Raju walked up and Bey told him that based on his DQ win over the champion in a non-title match on last week s show, Raju s rematch was now being made a triple threat match.
Manik (aka TJP) defeated Raju for the title at December s Final Resolution event. The same three men did battle in October with Raju winning the title in a three way when Bey was the champion.
Tony Khan Invites Impact Wrestling Stars To AEW Dynamite
AEW President and CEO Tony Khan once again appeared on Impact Wrestling on AXS-TV this week. This was the third straight week that the AEW boss appeared alongside lead announcer Tony Schiavone on the show, and he did so this week by inviting Impact Wrestling to come to AEW Dynamite for the first time since the two promotions began working together via Kenny Omega s appearances at Impact.
Schiavone spoke about how Khan was the only wrestling promoter in the world that s not a carny, and Khan talked about how he and Schiavone were in Nashville (Impact s home) because he is a partner of Activist Artist Management, a group that represents some music stars in town. He also spoke about the upcoming Impact Hard To Kill PPV event where AEW World Champion Kenny Omega will tag with Impact Tag Team Champions Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows against Impact World Champion Rich Swann and the Motor City Machine Guns. He also extended the afore
Impact Tag Team Champions Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows and AEW World Champion Kenny Omega will reunite to take on Impact World Champion Rich Swann and the Motor City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley) in a six-man tag team match at
Hard To Kill on Saturday, January 16.
Omega, Anderson and Gallows are most known for their association in Bullet Club in NJPW, but a recent tweet from Don Callis hints at what this trio will be known as.
Callis tweeted, “Can’t wait for #HardToKill when this Super Elite unit rocks the world of @IMPACTWRESTLING“
It appears “Super Elite” will be the name of the trio of Omega, Anderson and Gallows going forward. The name would be a variation of The Elite and The Golden Elite as the trio are not longer formally part of Bullet Club despite the many homages to that era.