I’m an IMPACT Wrestling fan, let me be clear about this. I want the promotion to succeed and thrive. I want them to be huge, and their talents well taken care of financially. That being said, they lied.
They posted an announcement earlier this week that on the Press Pass Podcast, where they were going to interview Josh Alexander, that they would introduce a returning former IMPACT champion of sorts live on air. The exact quote was;
By all accounts, every single one, this was made to sound like a talent not under contract who was gone from the promotion was going to return to IMPACT on this press call.
That is NOT what happened. Alexander was interviewed for about 30 minutes, but most of it wasn’t aired due to audio issues. After a string of badly asked questions; none of which asked about his visa issues, the conversation turned to the “returning IMPACT champion”.
The individual turned out to be none other than Rosemary. The same Rosemary who was just on last weeks’ IMPACT in a segment with James Mitchell. They announced that Rosemary had re-signed with the company, and then they spent time hyping up her match with Allie in a few weeks.
Rosemary re-signing is great news; and had they announced a former IMPACT champion has re-signed and to “- find out on the Press Pass who it is!” then ok. They distinctly made a misleading post though, to get fans to tune in.
I’m utterly disappointed that this is how they chose to market this, knowing full well how fans will take it. Yet, I’ll say this – Josh Alexander revealed that he wears headgear because someone kicked him in the head so hard that his ear exploded, and the doctors had to remove it and reattach it – prompting his decision to wrestle with headgear while he recovered.
Also, it should be noted that Josh Mathews literally outed himself as 
WrestlingINC’s news source on the media call. IMPACT has retweeted several WrestlingINC posts as of late, all by Nick Hausman I believe, about IMPACT contract signings. The fact that Josh would have Hausman on air, and then reveal that he’s his source is the most bush-league and stupidest thing Mathews has ever done. What a stooge.
In Other News…
As noted previously, Kevin Matthews aka KM has not re-signed with the promotion as of yet and according to Mike Johnson of PWInsider, he won’t be getting a new contract. Yet, Johnson also stresses that KM is not leaving the promotion, but will work per-date as needed going forward.
In more IMPACT news, they’ve announced that Dante Fox, Kotto Brazil, Jack Evans and their own talent of Jake Crist will all be part of the Ultimate X-Match at United We Stand. However, today we found out Pat Buck is part of the show as well. That means IMPACT (Crist), AAA (Evans), MLW (Brazil), Lucha Underground (Fox) and now WrestlePro (Buck) will all have representatives in this match. That would stand to reason that the last spot will be for someone associated with either OVW, D’Amore’s BCW or another promotion that IMPACT has done business with in the past.
Quick Hits – NJPW released a statement saying that their wrestlers have obtained visas for work in the United States. Dave Meltzer is reporting that had Triple H not been cleared for WrestleMania, the backup plan was Batista vs. The Undertaker. Mike Johnson has confirmed that Madison Rayne has left ROH over creative unhappiness. Buddy Murphy‘s announcement from yesterday was that he’s going on vacation back to Australia for a few weeks and won’t be on 205Live. More news from PWInsider claims David Finlay injured his shoulder and will be replaced in the New Japan Cup; though his replacement has not been named yet. And in MMA news, Ariel Helwani is reporting that Chael Sonnen will take on Lyoto Machida in a huge bout for Bellator.