By all accounts Slammiversary 2023 was pretty good; A lot new and older faces returned to company around this time, new champions were crowned and business was doing great for the promotion especially when it came to this event…Welcome to Pop Culture Sports and here are 10 Interesting Facts About Slammiversary 2023.
10. King Became the 3rd DMC on an IMPACT Preshow
In March of 2024 AAA wrestler, Laredo Kid defeated Crazzy Steve to become the brand new Digital Media Champion at the preshow of that year’s Hard To Kill pay-per-view…I bring this upon because before Kid captured his first singles title in IMPACT, you’d have to go back several months to find the last person to do what the Laredo accomplished.
During the Slammiversary 2023 preshow a match involving Kenny King and Joe Hendry took place with the latter’s Digital Media Championship on the line. Despite Hendry and the crowd’s attempts at distracting Kenny by bringing up his history as a male stripper, the former TNA X Division Champion became the new Digital Media Champion in a shocking upset.
This win made Kenny King only the third person to have won the Digital Media Championship on the preshow on an IMPACT Wrestling event with the previous two being Brian Myers and Jordynne Grace.
Myers would go on and defeat Rich Swann at the 2022 Against All Odds preshow to become champion while Grace became the very first Digital Media Champion after winning the belt at the preshow of Bound For Glory 2021.
9. Taylor Wilde’s First Slammiversary in Over a Decade
Taylor Wilde’s out of nowhere return to pro wrestling in the 2021 didn’t have too many highlights but one of the most notable would have be her sudden change into a card reading, all black wearing priestess in 2023 which could best described as the Wild Wilde Witch.
During Taylor’s time as IMPACT’s resident Wild Wilde Witch, she turned heel on Killer Kelly in a tag match and soon aligned herself with KiLynn King to former the short lived tag team known as ‘The Coven’ with both ladies becoming the Knockouts Tag Team Champions not long after their creation.
When Slammiversary ’23 rolled around Wilde and King were set to defend their Knockouts Tag Titles with the this bout being Taylor’s first match at Slammiversary in 14 years!?!
That’s right the last time the former Knockouts Champion competed at Slammiversary AEW wasn’t even a pipe dream, NXT was almost a year away from being a thing and IMPACT was still on SPIKE TV at the time.
Props to Wilde who could still be able to have a good match in the ring despite being away from the squared circle for over a decade.
8. MK Ultra Makes History
Remember how I mentioned in the previous entry that Wilde turned heel on Killer Kelly…Well after that match and a segment the following week which saw KiLynn and Taylor form The Coven, Killer Kelly needed to find a tag team partner in order to get her revenge.
Although it took some time before she found the right partner, Kelly would team up with one time rival, Masha Slamovich to create the androgynous but masochistic duo known as ‘MK Ultra’ with the team taking on The Coven for the aforementioned Knockouts Tag Team Titles which they won.
Because Kelly is Portuguese and Masha was born in Moscow Russia, upon winning the tag titles together it made them the first female wrestlers of their kind to win championship gold in IMPACT/TNA.
7. The Original Plan was D’Amore & PCO versus Bully & Maclin
Although some section of fans were too pleased with the idea of Bully Ray coming back to the ring and becoming major part of IMPACT programming in 2023, the man proved he still had what it took be a great bad guy with his work during this time being some of his best alongside his singles run in early to mid 2010’s.
Bully’s reign of terror over the IMPACT locker room saw him getting into conflict with then TNA President, Scott D’Amore including two different instincts were the former Team Canada member was put through a table.
Add in PCO and Steve Maclin into the mix and the stage was set to see all four men face off in a tag team match at Slammiversary and in D’Amore’s own hometown of Windsor Ontario Canada….However this match would get shaken up in the weeks after it was announced as Maclin was suffering from an injury he sustained following the company’s first trip to Australia and so he was out.
PCO would be out of the match as well although the reasons why were never revealed, but credit to IMPACT who decided to write off the French Canadian Frankenstein in insane fashion with Maclin and Bully pouring battery acid drop PCO’s throat, covering him in gasoline and then finally setting the former Ring of Honor Champion on fire…God pro wrestling is weird.
The company soon had to shoehorn Cody Deaner into the rivalry to take Maclin’s place in the match with Bully accepting Deaner as his partner on the Busted Open Radio show.
So who was Scott D’Amore’s partner you might be asking? Well…
6. The Story Behind Eric Young’s Involvement
When looking back at all of the IMPACT/TNA wrestlers who crossed over to the WWE and saw their stock plummet as a result perhaps no wrestler encapsulates this more than Eric Young…Okay maybe Braden Walken or Taya Valkyrie or Sting but you get the idea.
Anyway, on the December 1st edition of IMPACT! the show closed with a segment that saw Violent By Design members, Cody Deaner and Eric Young having a tussle in a prison cell before Deaner “stabbed” EY thus writing the former world champion out of the company as he looked ready to return to the WWE now that Triple H was in charge.
Those plans were halted when Vince McMahon schemed his way back into power in early 2023 and because of the amount of insidious sexual assault claims around Vince plus EY’s own feelings about how McMahon booked him during his first run in the WWE, led to Eric requesting his release in April which was granted.
After EY’s 90-day non-compete clause expired, he took a flight to Canada and returned to IMPACT just in time to be Scott’s tag team partner at Slammiversary…Of course the company would find a way to explain away Eric Young’s “stabbing” and he continues to wrestle for the promotion today.
5. An X Division Title Match with No Ultimate X
Chris Sabin’s final run in the X Division might just be the best of his entire career as he was able to have never before seen matches with the likes of Trey Miguel, KENTA and Mustafa Ali while also showing he still has what it takes to keep up with the X Division stars of the day.
By the summer of 2023, Sabin won his ninth TNA X Division Championship and after finishing his feud with Miguel over the title, a new challenger stepped up in former of WWE Crusierweight Champion Lio Rush thus paving the way for these two to have a first time ever match at Slammiversary.
This match is notably for two things with the first being that this is the first time that the X Division Title wasn’t on the line in an Ultimate X as the previous title bouts happened under the division’s signature match.
The last time the belts was defended at Slammiversary without Ultimate X being involved you’d have to go back to the 2020 edition of Slammiversary where a newly debuted, Chris Bey defeated Willie Mack to become the new champion.
4. Shortest Title Change in Slammiversary History
The second most notably thing about Chris Sabin and Lio Rush’s match at Slammiversary has to be how long the match actually lasted.
Upon Rush making his entrance, Chris Sabin was the next to come out which saw Rush sneak attacking the champion before the bell even rang; When it did rang, Rush finished off the champion in mere moments to become the new X Division Champion in a match that lasted 1 minute and 20 seconds which is perhaps the quickest time a title hand changed hands in Slammiversary history.
In comparison, Awesome Kong defended her Knockout Championship at Slammiversary against future AEW star, Serena Deeb in a match that lasted 2 minutes and 26 seconds before Kong defeated another challenger right after in Josie Robinson aka Sojournor Bolt a match that was 1 minute and 42 seconds.
As quick as Kong and Rush’s title matches were they don’t come close to Devon who retained his TNA Television Title against Joseph Park via countout in just 35 seconds at Slammiversary 2013…People say the company didn’t given much attention to their mid card titles back then.
3. The Violinist in Purrazzo’s Entrance
Before returning to the WWE as an entrant in the 2024 Women’s Royal Rumble match, Naomi spent much of 2023 as the newest addition to the IMPACT Wrestling roster.
Under her real life name of Trinity Fatu, the former WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion wrestled the likes of Gisele Shaw, KiLynn King, Sonny Kiss, Jordynne Grace and even Deonna Purrazzo who was the reigning Knockouts World Champion going into their match at Slammiversary.
Although the match failed to live up to expectations, Purrazzo’s entrance for the match was iconic as her theme song was being played in unison with a violinist who was on stage playing an instrumental version of Deonna’s music.
That violinist was a young lady named Brittany Iwanciwski who lived in Canada and well trained in playing not only the violin but also the fiddle and is also known for playing Irish music and collaborating with various musicians.
Iwanciwski was given the task to do perform during Deonna Purrazzo’s entrance and most would agree she did a fantastic job.
2. Alex Shelley’s Only Singles Win
The main event of this show saw Alex Shelley defend his newly won IMPACT World Championship against Nick Aldis who had returned at the Rebellion pay-per-view with the goal of becoming the new world champion.
Both put on a great performance in this match with Shelley and Aldis getting vicious with their technical offense in various points of the match with the crowd been everything leading to Shelley retaining his title but also as it turns out, picking up his very first single win at Slammiversary…Seriously?!?
In all of his six appearances at Slammiversary before 2023, Shelley only had won three match in 2011, 2020 and 2022 with all of them coming in tag team matches. His other matches at Slammiversary saw him losing to guys like Shocker, Bob Backlund and losing the first evert King of the Mountain Match for the X Division Championship.
Fitting that Shelley’s first win as a single competitor at Slammiversary happens to coincide with him retaining his world title in the main event.
1. The Attendance & Buyrate Doubled from the Previous Year’s Event
According to IMPACT Commentator, Tom Hannifan who posted on Twitter/X not long after the show concluded: “Slammiversary 2023 is the most attended Impact Wrestling event in 4 years” .
While some might think that this is just Tom being a company man making claims to prop up the company in a positive way…It turns out he was absolutely right.
Slammiversary 2023 pulled in about 1,500 people which almost a thousand more compared to the 2022 show and 300 more than the 2019 event. In fact the buyrate also saw an increase as the show did 4,400 buys which went up by 3,140 buys again compared to the 2022 event.
Although it’s almost half of what Rebellion 2021 did with that show pulling in 9,300 buys, the numbers proved that IMPACT’s momentum was running wild and the business side of things were looking up for the former TNA Wrestling.
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