On Saturday, during Bound for Glory, IMPACT Wrestling announced the much anticipated and much requested return of the IMPACT Wrestling Knockouts Tag Team Championships, which were last seen on TV in 2013. After seven years and a roster that is more than capable of succeeding with these belts, IMPACT made the call to bring them back announcing new champions would be crowned at Hard to Kill on January 16th. On Tuesday night, IMPACT expanded on the initial announcement, confirming that an eight-team tournament would take place to crown the new champions starting in three weeks.
Having arguably the best booked women’s division among all pro wrestling companies, the decision to bring back the tag titles seems like an easy one for IMPACT Wrestling. Especially since lately the promotion has been teasing such a move by effectively aligning most of their women’s wrestlers in individual duos. We’ve seen Neveah and Jessicka Havok form an unholy alliance, Susie paling around with Kylie Rae, Tasha Steelz and Kiera Hogan attached at the hip, Taya and Rosemary becoming the best of friends, and even Deonna Purrazzo establishing an alliance with Kimber Lee. IMPACT has done well to set the stage for the introduction of these titles by focusing on the women and their friendships/partnerships/alliances over the past few months. They’ve even booked several women’s tag team matches, including most recently an eight-woman tag that will likely make up half the field of this upcoming tournament.
Are @HoganKnowsBest3 and @RealTSteelz the favorites in the Knockouts Tag Team Title Tournament? #IMPACTonAXSTV pic.twitter.com/MriL6Ace28
— TNA Wrestling (@ThisIsTNA) October 28, 2020
Assuming IMPACT utilizes all of the established women’s teams on their roster for the tournament, receiving spots would be Steelz/Hogan, Lee/Purazzo, Neveah/Havok, and Taya/Rosemary. Due to her now reigning as the Knockouts Champion, we’ll keep Susie/Su Yung and Rae outside of this one. Jordynne Grace, who seems fully immersed in the intergender scene, has also recently been working with Alisha Edwards, marking a duo that very well could make up the fifth team in the tournament. But if both Grace and Yung are occupied elsewhere, that leaves four additional spots and IMPACT would be wise to fill them with a combination of past Knockouts tag teams as well as top independent wrestling duos such as the Sea Stars (Ashley Vox and Delmi Exo), the Bird and the Bee (Willow Nightingale and Solo Darling), Davienne and Hot Scoop Skylar, and the Killer Baes (Heather Monroe and Laura James) just to name a few.
As for past teams, Taylor Wilde has been teasing a comeback for months and one has to wonder if this is exactly what she’d return for. Wilde alongside partner and fellow retiree, Sarita, were the first-ever Knockouts Tag Team Champions, holding the belts over a decade ago. And then there is Madison Rayne. Currently one half of the commentary team these days, when the rumors around the tag titles returning began to surface, Rayne teased finding herself a partner in order to compete for the titles that she previously held twice. Rayne first won the titles alongside Velvet Sky as a member of the Beautiful People before capturing her second reign a year later with Gail Kim as her partner. Now, both Sky and Kim are retired these days, though coming back for a one-time run wouldn’t seem out of the question. Rayne could also find a partner already on the roster in seemingly the last Knockout not currently aligned with anyone, Tenille Dashwood. A Rayne/Dashwood team could certainly work as an entry in the tournament.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lHMPmXeEUo
While unlikely, IMPACT could also involve the last team and longest-reigning team to win the Knockouts tag titles, Eric Young and ODB. The comedic route may not fit in with the division IMPACT is trying to foster in 2020, but hey, at the very least, let Young and ODB lose in the first round to pull in more history of the titles before advancing on to the next chapter of the championship’s lineage.
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can catch IMPACT Wrestling on Tuesday nights on AXS TV and Twitch.TV as well as all the time on IMPACT Plus.
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