IMPACT Wrestling Slammiversary 2020: Ranking the surprises at the PPV
IMPACT Wrestling's Slammiversary was a show that did exactly what it set out to do. Impact Wrestling needed positive buzz in the wrestling world. After a few months away due to the ongoing pandemic, the company returned and was met with some controversy.
The IMPACT World Champion Tessa Blanchard had an abrupt departure from the company which vacated the title. Their top heel, Michael Elgin, was marred in the #SpeakingOut movement and released from the company along with Joey Ryan and Dave Crist. All the while, the promotion built a card that featured their up and coming roster as well as had the added intrigue of surprises teased in the form of returns and debuts.
New stars to the company were getting their first title matches. The entire women's division was on display in a gauntlet match. Two arch-rivals teamed for the tag team gold, while the promise of a former IMPACT World Champion showing up for the main event hovered over the night.
In this article, we will take a look at all the surprises from IMPACT Wrestling Slammiversary and rank them from worst to best. All the shockers worked in their way. We will see here that some just were more effective than others.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article belong to the writer and doesn't necessarily represent Sportskeeda's stand.
#6 Heath (Slater) Miller
During the middle of Slammiversary, while Josh Matthew and Don Callis were recapping the show, the man formerly known as Heath Slater jumped the guardrail and got in the ring. Now being referred to as just "Heath", the former One Man Band declared that he arrived in Impact Wrestling.
Heath referred to himself as a "free agent" and of course that he had kids. He wanted to accept the Rascalz' challenge or take part in the IMPACT Wrestling World Championship Match. However, Heath was then interrupted by Rohit Raju. Before long, Raju attacked Heath, but the former WWE Superstar took him down with a "Zig Zag" type maneuver.
Later in the night, Heath met up with his former tag team partner, Rhino, who invited him to Slammiversary. Head of Impact talent relations, Scott D'Amore was not too pleased to see Heath and asked him to leave due to it being a closed set. Rhino then told the former Slater to come on Tuesday to the AXS TV taping.
The reason this surprise ranks the lowest was due to what they had Heath doing. Choosing Rohit Raju as the wrestler to interrupt Heath positioned him in the lower card which is where he was in WWE. The later backstage segment did add some intrigue as well as putting Heath with Rhino is a good decision to introduce him. However, it all screams lower-card feud, which for fans of Heath is probably not where they wanted him to be in IMPACT Wrestling.