Tony Khan Talks Impact Wrestling Partnership
In a recent interview with Wrestling Observer Live, AEW President and CEO Tony Khan addressed the current working relationship with Impact Wrestling. Speaking to Khan, Bryan Alvarez of WOL asked, “The Forbidden Door with Impact Wrestling: Is that Forbidden Door still open? Because there were rumors that there might be a doorstop at the moment.”
Khan responded, “No, you know what? Still open to do stuff. I like those guys a lot. We’ve done a lot of great stuff. We don’t have anything booked right now, and that’s different than how it had been for the last year or so, because for most of 2021, we had stuff on paper planned, and we don’t really have anything locked in right now, but that’s no reason we couldn’t come up with something. I mean, Scott (D’Amore) and I talk pretty regularly, and I’ve enjoyed going to Nashville and working with those guys.”
The partnership between AEW and Impact Wrestling kicked off in December 2020, and it led to some cross-promotional matches that mostly revolved around the Impact Wrestling World Championship, which was won by AEW’s Kenny Omega. He would later lose the title to Christian Cage, who’s also signed with AEW but has a long history with Impact.
Christian lost the title to Impact Wrestling’s Josh Alexander at Bound for Glory, who would moments later drop the belt to Moose. Speaking of which, Moose had previously competed for the Impact World Title, facing off against Kenny Omega in a losing effort.
It looks like, for now, the Impact World Championship will be contested for exclusively by Impact talent. Though per Tony Khan’s own words, it’s still a possibility that we’ll see cross-promotional work between the two companies at some point down the road.
While the AEW/Impact partnership was somewhat interesting on paper, it didn’t seem to reach its full potential. If the working relationship between the two promotions continues, here’s hoping we get some more engaging angles that feature more wrestlers on both sides.
