Last night on Impact Wrestling, Scott D’Amore announced that the match between Rich Swann and Moose at Sacrifice will be a title unification bout. This seemingly puts an end to the year-long resurrection of the TNA World Heavyweight Championship by Moose.
Technically, D’Amore only recently officially re-instated the title. Moose first began claiming himself to be the title-holder at last year’s Rebellion PPV, however.
Moose Revives The TNA World Heavyweight Title
The spring of 2020 was an interesting time. Impact Wrestling’s planned Rebellion PPV that April underwent some changes due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was instead turned into a 2-night event on AXS TV with no fans in attendance.
At the time, Tessa Blanchard was the Impact World Champion. Fans didn’t know it yet, but she would not return to the promotion. At Rebellion, she was scheduled to defend the title against Eddie Edwards and Michael Elgin. With her out, some improvising needed to take place.
In the midst of this, Moose recovered the TNA World Heavyweight Championship and began referring to himself as the rightful title-holder. It was then decided he would defend that title against Edwards and Elgin at Rebellion. Edwards missed the tapings too and instead Hernandez was thrown in as a replacement. Moose won the triple threat match and defended the TNA World Heavyweight Championship for the first time, albeit unofficially.
Blanchard, meanwhile, would officially be stripped of the title before July’s Slammiversary PPV.
Moose’s Title Defenses
Despite the title not officially being recongnized over the last year, Moose has defended it numerous times. Granted, he usually had to force David Penzer into announcing his matches at title matches, but he won the bouts nonetheless.
Unofficial Title Defences:
- Rebellion 2020: defeated Michael Elgin and Hernandez (triple threat rules)
- 5/12/20: defeated Suicide
- 5/19/20: defeated Suicide
- 6/16/20: defeated Hernandez
- 6/30/20: defeated Crazzy Steve
- Slammiversary: defeated Tommy Dreamer
- 7/19/20: defeated Heath
- 7/19/20: defeated Fallah Bah
- 8/18/20: defeated Trey Miguel
- 2/23/21: defeated Jake Something
When Rich Swann won the Impact World Championship, Moose was quick to refer to it as the #2 title in the promotion. Swann will have a chance to prove Moose wrong about this at Sacrifice.
The Former TNA World Heavyweight Championship
When the company first started, NWA-TNA used the NWA World Heavyweight Championship as its top title. The Impact World Championship wasn’t introduced until 2007. In 2017, with Impact dropping the “TNA” from its name, it was re-branded as the Impact World Championship.
Kurt Angle holds the record for the most reigns with the title (6) and total days spent with the title (608). The longest-single reign with the belt is 256 days by Bobby Roode from 2011-12. Moose’s unofficial reign with the TNA World Heavyweight Championship sits at 333 days as of this writing.
Who Wins Between Moose and Rich Swann?
The question then becomes if Moose can turn this reign with the TNA World Heavyweight Championship into an undisputed championship run. To do that, he’ll have to defeat Rich Swann at Sacrifice. These two have been building up this match for a long time and likely have a special performance planned out for Saturday. With the dangling carrot of a match against Kenny Omega for the AEW World Championship next month, this is the biggest match in the careers of either Swann or Moose.
Impact Wrestling is a far different company than it was when it went under the TNA name. The company that once focussed on bringing in ex-WWE stars now seems to have a focus on talented in-ring performers, creative cinematic scenes, and matches, and proving to fans they are not the same company they used to be. With the prospect of an AEW vs Impact World Title match happening next month, this is an important period for Impact Wrestling. On Saturday, we will find out if it will be Moose or Rich Swann leading the charge for the company moving forward.
