Has the AEW-Impact partnership lived up to its potential?

The idea that wrestling companies are working together in one way or another tends to intrigue wrestling fans.

Such partnerships are filled with potential confrontations that they might not otherwise have been able to see. It was certainly on the forefront of fans’ minds when the AEW-Impact partnership was revealed. There were a lot of matches that could happen.

But what is strange is that very little has come out of this partnership, except for the strange Double Tony commercials during the Impact. After four months, the AEW-Impact partnership hasn’t yielded much in terms of cross-matches and it could have been a lot more already.

Launch of the AEW-Impact partnership

In front of the camera, the partnership between these two companies began on December 2, 2020. Kenny Omega challenged Jon Moxley for his AEW World Championship on the now infamous Winter is coming. Kenny defeated Moxley with the help of Impact executive vice-president Don Callis.

The moment turned to full force at Omega and launched the AEW-Impact partnership. Naturally, this ignited social media with theories about what was going on between the two companies. It’s been a little over four months and things are not quite right.

Kenny Omega has appeared on the Impact lineup several times. Likewise, the now former Impact World Tag tag team champions, The Good Brothers, appeared on AEW Dynamite almost every week. Matt Hardy and Private Party also made appearances on Impact, challenging The Good Brothers.

Oddly enough, NJPW also got in on the action with Kenta appearing on Dynamite before facing Moxley in Japan for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. And NJPW’s FinJuice is the current Impact team world champion.

If that’s not confusing enough, NWA’s Thunder Rosa has become a mainstay of AEW programming over the past few months. At the same time, AEW’s Serena Deeb is the reigning NWA Women’s World Champion. Honestly, this is all getting a little hard to follow.

But the heart of it all is the AEW-Impact partnership. The odd thing about the whole situation is how limited the interactions turned out to be, with far fewer crossovers than fans were hoping for.

Not all that it could be …

While there is certainly a lot of cooperation between various wrestling promotions around the world, the AEW-Impact partnership hasn’t amounted to much. Only a handful of talent from each side has been involved so far.

At this point, The Good Brothers might have more screen time on AEW programming than they do on Impact. But outside of Kenny Omega, Matt Hardy, and Private Party, very few AEW roster members have made a similar leap.

To be fair, Sammy Guevara was supposed to be part of an Impact angle but he refused. This apparently caused some slight behind-the-scenes issues between the two companies, although it has passed. Interestingly, no new angle has started since.

The only other crossovers were Tony Khan “buying” weekly airtime to appear during the Impact alongside Tony Schiavone. Promotions are really weird, which sometimes works, and sometimes they bring other AEW talent with them. But these are not matches.

So far, the AEW-Impact partnership hasn’t really given rise to many important and unexpected confrontations. If anything, it seems like it was just an excuse to get The Good Brothers on AEW lineup, which is a choice they could have made much sooner.

At the start of AEW’s genesis, the wrestlers behind the company called some of their WWE friends and asked them to join. AJ Styles, Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows have chosen to stay in WWE. Gallows and Anderson were kicked out of the business soon after.

It is safe to say that The Good Brothers regretted this choice. In the end, they signed with Impact and did pretty well. Their appearances on AEW Dynamite allowed them to work with their friends, once again, and to make up for some lost time.

The future of the AEW-Impact partnership

Keeping in mind that it’s only been four months, the partnership hasn’t yielded much in terms of collaborative matches. There were a lot of possible pairings that could have produced some great fights for the fans, none of which have happened yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loJcWcc4u1c

But the key word in this statement is “still”. There are still a lot of opportunities to make these cross matches. In particular, this could be of great benefit to the female divisions of both companies, which have great talent that deserves more attention.

Impact stars Tenille Dashwood, Rosemary and Deonna Purrazzo could set up some great fights with AEW stars like Big Swole, Britt Baker and Red Velvet. Plus, watching Jordynne Grace and Leyla Hirsch pounce on Dynamite could be amazing.

The male division of the two companies has similar potential. But there is no guarantee that all of this will happen. Hopefully the AEW-Impact partnership will ultimately bear much more fruit than what fans have seen so far.