Ahead of its upcoming Slammiversary pay-per-view, Impact Wrestling released a new teaser video featuring footage of several recently released WWE superstars. This has led to speculation that the company might hire some of these wrestlers in the weeks leading up to the event.
The video, as seen below, aired on Tuesday night’s episode of Impact! , and started out with what looked like a man pouring a drink into a glass and sitting down to watch television. An actor playing a news reporter then appeared on the man’s TV screen, saying that “over 20-plus superstars” were released by an unnamed company amid the coronavirus pandemic.
After the reporter said that he wishes the released performers the best in their future endeavors, a series of images was quickly displayed — respectively, these featured Eric Young, a Bulgarian flag (seemingly pertaining to Rusev), Luke Gallows, Karl Anderson, Drake Maverick, Curt Hawkins, Mike and Maria Kanellis, and EC3. The teaser ended with a shot of the man still sitting down, albeit with the television turned off, followed by details for Slammiversary , which is scheduled to air on Saturday, July 18.
You never know where future endeavors may lead.
Slammiversary is Saturday, July 18th LIVE on PPV. #Slammiversary pic.twitter.com/MBezL1HIOW
— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) June 3, 2020
Although most of the aforementioned wrestlers had competed for Impact Wrestling at some point in the past, WrestlingNews.co noted that none of them have officially been signed by the promotion, as they were all released on April 15 and have 90-day noncompete clauses that prevent them from wrestling for a rival company. But with these clauses set to expire just a few days before Slammiversary , the outlet speculated that it’s possible at least a few of the wrestlers featured in the teaser will end up inking a deal with Impact right before the event takes place.
“The video seems to be a clever way to generate some buzz for the pay-per-view,” WrestlingNews.co added.
Out of all the ex-WWE superstars included in the advertisement, the publication singled out Maverick as the least likely to sign with Impact. While he had a notable stint in the company under the ring name Rockstar Spud, recent reports have hinted that WWE is expected to offer a new contract to the British grappler, who, as of this writing, is still in the tournament for the interim Cruiserweight Championship.
It’s still far from certain whether Impact Wrestling will beef up its roster with more former WWE stars ahead of Slammiversary , but one individual from the April 15 batch of releases has already made her return to the company official. Last week’s episode of Impact! featured a promotional vignette for Deonna Purrazzo , who, just like the other NXT talents who were let go in April, was only bound by a 30-day noncompete clause.
