Exclusive: Josh Mathews discusses the next Impact Wrestling pay-per-view- Rebellion
Impact Wrestling has certainly had its share of ups and downs in recent times. But there has been one front on which they've delivered on every single occasion, and that is quality pay-per-views.
Beginning with Redemption last year, which is when the new management of Don Callis and Scott D'Amore came on board to work with Anthem and Ed Nordholm, Impact Wrestling has been putting on one quality pay-per-view event after another. The latest was Homecoming, which took place in January, this year.
I had a chance to catch up with Josh Mathews during a conference call and ask him about Impact Wrestling's newly announced pay-per-view event called Rebellion, which takes place on April 28th in Canada. I also asked him if this means there will be four pay-per-views in 2019 (if you count Slammiversary and Bound For Glory), and not three like last year!
This is what Mathews had to say:
You're probably right. We will see four going forward. You have your staples like Bound For Glory and Slammiversary. And then, I think you can play around with the other ones. Obviously, next year, if we don't go to Nashville, I don't see how you call that show Homecoming. I don't think you can have Redemption again, so now you have Rebellion. And I think that's cool.
Mathews spoke about the existing pay-per-view names and their limitations based on where Impact Wrestling plans their shows:
Being a part of WWE for as long as I was and watching all the different names of all the different pay-per-views and then it sort of fell into- Backlash. I forget all the other ones that we had (laughs). You can't have Redemption again or Homecoming unless you do Nashville again, and call it Homecoming Part 2. It's cool to change up the branding and I know that our graphics design team Ben and Dan would probably love to have them stay the same (Laughs), so they don't have to change graphics a lot.
Mathews also spoke about why four pay-per-views a year makes sense for Impact Wrestling:
But then again, I'm a fan of the 6-week story arc. I'm a fan of themes. Pay-per-views changing names. Four pay-per-views. I think that's cool. I think that's what you'll see going forward. And I think the two name changes, rotating names, different themes...I'd bet along the lines of you'll see different names of different shows going forward!
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