Alberto El Patron may have captured the Impact Wrestling championship from Bobby Lashley at the tapings tonight in Orlando on the first day of the new regime.
They did a finish where there were two referee bumps, as well as a belt shot by El Patron, and then both referees thought one guy had won. Earl Hebner and Bruce Prichard came out and El Patron left with the title. It wasn’t clear if it was a title change or not.
There were a number of changes at the tapings, including the televised dumping of the TNA name.
Thus far there was a return of ODB, the announcer feud with Josh Mathews and Jeremy Borash, plus newcomers Laredo Kid, Garza Jr., Rachael Ellering, and Reno Scum. They also announced the next PPV will be Slammiversary on July 2nd.
Bruce Prichard came out and said how the new owners know how to make wrestling great and brought out Lashley as the centerpiece of the promotion. He said that there was nobody on the roster who could beat Lashley when Alberto came out dressed up. This set up a match later in the show.
Prichard and Dutch Mantell were both in the role of former executives who buried the previous regime. Mantell said that TNA was great eight years ago, with the idea of “Let’s make Impact Wrestling great again” theme we wrote and talked about.
He talked about how the former leadership was the reason Sting, A.J. Styles, Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, Bobby Roode, Christian, and Kevin Nash left and said his boss are the fans, Impact Wrestling is about the fans, and did “We the people, will make Impact great again.”