Impact Wrestling made history at Hard to Kill on January 8th with the first Women’s Ultimate X match. According to the winner, Tasha Steelz, she had to push for the match to happen.
Steelz appeared on Busted Open on SiriusXM with Dave LaGreca and Bully Ray to discuss her win and how the Women’s Ultimate X match happened. She shared that her win on January 8th is one of the biggest accomplishments in her professional wrestling career. The win earned Steelz an Impact Knockout Championship opportunity for a later date. She also revealed she and Jordynne Grace had to repeatedly pitch the match to Executive Vice President Scott D. Amore last year.
“…This is something that a lot of people weren’t expecting us, women, to do, said Steelz. She continued, “…I believe since last year like Jordynne Grace and I, we were bugging the hell out of Scott. We were just backstage, like, we can do it, we can do it, we can do it. I know we can do it. Slammiversary, we saw that structure go up for the guys, and we climbed up there ourselves, and we were like, Scott, we can do this.” Steelz believes that Amore had to see Grace and her climb the structure to accept the idea. However, once Amore saw Steelz climb, he began to think about when the Women’s Ultimate X match could happen.
Backstage Reaction After the Match
Impact Wrestling fans were excited to see the historic match at Hard to Kill, and the anticipation added pressure for the wrestlers to perform well in the match. The company also decided to have the Women’s Ultimate X match start the Hard to Kill event. With the spotlight on the wrestlers, some fans felt that the match exceeded expectations and proved that female wrestlers could participate in an Ultimate X match. After the match, Steelz says all participants were happy with the match.
“…After it was all said and done, the emotions came out of all of us. I mean, we were all backstage just bawling our eyes out. You know me. I’m a thug. I don’t like to cry, but I couldn’t help it, said Steelz. She continued, “It’s just one of those things where like I said, there were people kind of doubting that we wouldn’t be able to do it and that we did do it and no one got seriously injured. No one got seriously hurt, and we put our bodies on the line, and we accomplished the match, and we got all the chants. We got the Holy ish chants, we got the this is awesome chants, and it just ran through us. It was just something backstage, like that emotion we just grouped hugged and said we did it.”
Later in the night, Mickie James defeated Deonna Purrazzo to retain her Impact Knockout Championship. James will also compete in the WWE Royal Rumble on January 29th. It’s unclear when Impact will have Steelz challenge James for the title. However, she’s looking forward to getting her opportunity and taking the championship away from James.
