Being a life-long wrestling fan, I have never seen a company make as many questionable business and booking decisions as I've seen over the past 19 years with Impact Wrestling (formerly TNA Wrestling). A few years ago, after yet another weird, incomprehensible moment, I coined the phrase "TNA gonna TNA", which morphed into "Impact Gonna Impact" after a name change. What it meant was that no matter who owned the company, no matter who was the booker, no matter who was writing, no matter what network they were working with, the company could not help but some asinine decisions.

Essentially every decision that looked dumb from the outside looking in could be chalked up to "Impact Gonna Impact". Remember when the X-Division was on fire, led by AJ Styles, Samoa Joe and Chris Daniels? TNA's response was to make AJ & Daniels a tag team and Joe became a whining heavyweight babyface. Remember the Samoa Joe-Kurt Angle cage match with a build like UFC shows, which did their biggest buyrate and highest paid attendance at the time? They never did that again. Remember when Awesome Kong and Gail Kim were doing the best tv ratings and were the best received matches? They let Gail Kim leave the company instead of giving her a raise. Remember when the company was full of hot, young, hungry talent ready to step up? TNA let Hulk Hogan bring in Scott Hall, Sean Waltman, the Nasty Boys, Orlando Jordan and Val Venis, who all got to beat that aforementioned talent. Remember when Jeff Hardy was the only babyface that would get more people coming to their house shows and buy their ppv's? They turned him heel. I could go on for another 1,000 words, but you get the point.

Last year due to a combination of the pandemic locking everyone down and a plethora of mental health issues, I began looking for anything to distract me and somehow, someway, that brought me to Impact. I began religiously watching Impact, every week as I became enthralled by the action and, more specifically, the wackiness of the show. You had Moose declaring himself TNA Champion, the rise of Rich Swann, Heath using appearances by Chuck Norris and Nancy Kerrigan to convince Scott D'Amore to give him a job (seriously!) and who can forget the amazing summer a dozen wrestlers spent in Wrestle House? In between skits where the romance of Rosemary and John E. Bravo blossomed came a tag team I had never paid attention to previously: The North.

Ethan Page and Josh Alexander were amazing together and managed to stand out in a division full of either far more spectacular teams, like The Rascalz (NXT's MSK), Motor City Machine Guns, and Rich Swann & Willie Mack, or gimmick teams, like XXXL and Sami Callihan & Ken Shamrock. Ethan would be a goofball who would get his straight-as-an-arrow partner in one tricky predicament after another, but at the end of the day they held the Impact Tag Team Titles twice, including for over one year. Eventually Ethan's contract ran out and he complained that Impact took his match where he wrestled himself and made it comedy. I still don't know what he was expecting.

Anyway, once Ethan left, Josh just kept going. He racked up win after win on tv and slowly, but surely, began getting over as a single. He won the X-Division Title in April and proceeded to have great matches with every single wrestler he faced, including Ace Austin, Black Taurus, and Chris Sabin. He also participated in Impact's first ever 60-minute Iron Man Match, where he defeated TJP in June.

As this was going on, AEW had invaded the main event scene. When Kenny Omega won the AEW Title, his first interview was days later on Impact and thus started a unique year that saw Omega and several other AEW wrestlers appearing on the show. Tony Khan, himself, got into the fun by cutting heel promos on Impact during paid advertisements on the show. Omega proceeded to defeat every top name on the roster, beating Rich Swann twice (once for the Impact Title), Sami Callihan and Moose. As this was going on and Impact was being put down left and right, I just sat back and said, "Someone is going to beat Omega and get the rub as the Impact guy to take the title back".

Plans change. After beating the entire roster, Omega was never going to have to do a job. Instead, he lost the title to AEW star Christian Cage, who would finish the storyline. Ultimately everyone involved understood there were bigger fish to fry and building Christian as a legitimate threat to Omega's AEW Title meant more than whatever small uptick in business Impact would experience.

Finally, we get to Bound For Glory, where Josh Alexander, the MVP of the X-Division, the fastest rising star, the chosen one so-to-speak, got to submit the AEW interloper. He was the one who got to cleanly submit Christian in the middle of the ring. His time was now. A new star was made. The era of Alexander was here. Sure, he didn't beat Omega, but at the end of the day he was one of very few people to defeat Christian this year. We got our happy ending, even if Tony Khan wasn't going to get smacked around by someone tired of him talking shit all year long.
Everyone was happy…and then Impact Gonna Impact. Moose won the Call Your Shot Gauntlet earlier in the night, giving him what amounts to a Money In The Bank trophy that he can cash in on any champion anytime. This is the same Moose who had already failed in World Title matches with Kenny Omega, Rich Swann and, going back a few years, Austin Aries. Moose, who had until Bound For Glory 2022 to cash in, instead immediately ran out, beat Josh Alexander in seconds and won the Impact Title.

Impact spent an entire year building up that one person was going to get the rub of beating an AEW star in their ring. They sacrificed seemingly every other top star they had to get the angle over. At the same time, they built a brand-new star and outside of a one-time confrontation, he never crossed paths with Omega. He was booked like a star and like a star, he won the World Title on the grandest stage. Then they showed all of us that he was really such a loser that he couldn't even make it one night as champion. Now I am sure the detractors will say that now Alexander can beat Moose, but what's the point? He's already had his moment. He's already had his chance and like every inept babyface before him, he failed. And with it, went my enthusiasm for one of only two wrestling shows I made sure to watch every single week.

Why? Because Impact gonna Impact.