Tonight on Impact Wrestling at 10/9c on Pursuit and Twitch.
* Impact World Tag Team Championship: (C) LAX vs. Lucha Bros
* Puma King vs. Sami Callihan
* Rich Swann & Willie Mack vs. oVe
* Dark Allie vs. Kiera Hogan
* Trey vs. Rohit Raju
* United We Stand Main Event announcement tonight that will feature the return of a former world champion on April 4
Impact tonight on Pursuit Channel and on Twitch – 10/9c
* Lucha Bros & Taurus vs. LAX & Daga
* Psycho Clown vs. Fallah Bahh
* Su Yung & Dark Allie vs. Kiera Hogan & Jordynne Grace
* Update on the suspended Tessa Blanchard
* Rascalz vs. Eddie Edwards & Eli Drake
* Friend or Foe? What is the history between Sami Callihan and Rich Swann? Will we ever know the real story? What will happen when the truth comes out?
* Killer Kross & Moose vs. Brian Cage & Impact World Champion Johnny Impact
Impact tonight on Pursuit Channel and on Twitch – 10/9c
* Impact World Championship: (C) Johnny Impact vs. Killer Kross
* Rich Swann vs. El Hijo del Vikingo
* Ethan Page vs. Trey
* The Desi Hit Squad vs. The Rascalz
* Impact Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie returns to action
Impact tonight on Pursuit Channel and on Twitch – 10/9c
* LAX vs. oVe
* Rich Swann vs. Trey
* Jordynne Grace vs. Dark Allie
* Eddie Edwards vs. Ethan Page
* Scarlett Bordeaux select winner of talent search
* Heath update on Taya Valkyrie
Although IMPACT Wrestling has been streaming programming through Twitch for some time, there was a special curiosity regarding the promotion’s new distribution strategy: to air on domestic television via the Pursuit Channel and stream concurrently on Twitch on Friday nights.
In numbers available on SullyGnome (a Twitch statistics and analysis website) for the 7 day period of January 8th-14th, IMPACT Wrestling peaked at 10,422 viewers (at some point on Friday night). The channel is programmed nearly 24/7 and over 155 hours in the last week averaged 318 viewers for a total watch time of 51,662 hours. IMPACT gained 4,816 followers for the week (and now has 67,320 followers on the platform).
IMPACT was the most watched program in the Wrestling category. In comparison, AAA was ranked second. The AAA promotion had no specific destination programming this week but did stream 144 hours of content. It peaked at 194 viewers and averaged 60 viewers with a total watch time of 8,731 hours.
Over the last 365 days, the most watched 5 promotions were the following:
1. IMPACT
2. AAA
3. Rocky Mountain Pro
4. House of Hardcore
5. Capitol Wrestling
Source: WrestlingINC
Impact premieres tonight on Pursuit Channel and on Twitch – 10/9c
* Johnny Impact is out for revenge
* Lucha Bros vs. The Rascalz
* Willie Mack vs. Sami Callihan
* Tessa Blanchard in action
* Is Dark Allie here to stay?
Anthem President Ed Nordholm led a backstage meeting and gave a speech to the wrestlers before last night’s Impact Wrestling TV tapings in Nashville, according to PWInsider. The speech was said to be very positive.
Nordholm reportedly said the company accomplished what they set out to do in 2018. He said 2017 was a “learning year” for Impact following the Anthem takeover, but 2018 was about getting them in position for the future. Nordholm added that everyone is optimistic an enthusiastic for what it coming for the company in 2019.
Nordholm also said Impact will continue to be a big part of The Fight Network, which Anthem also owns. He touted the growth of the network internationally. Regarding Impact moving to the Pursuit channel this coming Friday night, Nordholm said one of the reasons Anthem took Impact over was so that they could have it to use with their own assets. Anthem also owns a minority stake in Pursuit.
The roster was allowed to ask Nordholm questions during the meeting and one had to do with the rumors on Anthem possibly being interested in selling Impact last year. Nordholm assured everyone that this is not the case, and that they should not be worried about anything like a sale of the company.
Impact brought Scott Steiner back for last night’s tapings in Nashville as a bonus for Friday’s Pursuit debut. This was done just for these tapings and was not the beginning of a new Impact storyline for Steiner, but the door does remain open for more work down the line.
Source: WrestlingINC
During last night’s Impact Homecoming PPV it was announced their weekly Impact show will also air on its Twitch channel beginning January 11 at 10 pm ET.
As noted, the promotion will also be moving to the Pursuit Channel on that same day and time. You can check out their new promo in the videos above or below.
Last month, WrestlingINC spoke with Impact Executive Vice President Scott D’Amore about the move to Pursuit and had hinted that it may not be the only place their flagship show would end up on.
“We’ve been looking at moving on, doing some other things, as we looked at the options it seemed like the best time to make a move to Pursuit, which is a sister company to Impact Wrestling,” D’Amore said. “There’s an ownership stake that [Impact parent company] Anthem Sports & Entertainment has in them and Pursuit is a male dominated demographic. They’re excited to have us, it gives us a nice home base and it doesn’t mean that we don’t have long term plans that we hope for Impact to be as a television show and a wrestling company. We’re excited to have a partner that is excited to have us.
“The first part of this deal is what we’re doing now, the flagship Impact broadcast, airing on Friday nights at 10 pm E. And I know people look at that and go, ‘Oh my God, it’s the death spot.’ Well, if you look back, when we debuted on Spike TV, it’s a different era and network, but wrestling fans find good wrestling. When we went on Spike TV at 11 o’clock on Saturday, we went out there and did probably about 850k viewers when we debuted. We’re excited to work with Pursuit on building it as a platform. We have some ideas and things in the work for other properties on Pursuit. Also, looking to expanding our domestic and international distributions.”
Source: WrestlingINC
Tonight is the final Impact before this Sunday’s Homecoming pay -per-view and is also the final Impact on Pop TV before it moves to it’s new home, Friday Jan. 11 – 10/9c on The Pursuit Channel.
* Brian Cage & Johnny Impact vs. Lucha Bros (Pentagon Jr. & Fenix)
* Fallah Bahh & KM vs. Desi Hit Squad
* Allie vs. Kiera Hogan
* 10 Man Tag: Willie Mack, Rich Swann & The Rascalz vs. Sami Callihan, oVe, Matt Sydal & Ethan Page
* Eli Drake’s Homecoming Address
As we previously reported, Impact Wrestling will move to Friday nights on the Pursuit Channel beginning on January 11th. Impact reportedly had talks with Syfy, TruTV and WGN America regarding a new television deal.
The show is now moving to a channel owned by their parent company, Anthem Entertainment. Despite Anthem owning the station, the show will remain at 10 p.m. ET, which is the timeslot that Pop TV moved it to last October. Impact has drawn its lowest viewership in their history in the 10 p.m. timeslot and faces a further uphill battle as they will be available in far fewer homes. 30 million homes have access to Pursuit, which is a 55% drop from the 67 million homes that receive Pop TV.
It was revealed in the latest edition of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter that “there were forces attempting to sell Impact” to the yet-to-be announced All Elite Wrestling promotion a few months ago. That would indicate that the talks would have taken place before AEW filed for their trademarks, as that didn’t happen until early November. The Observer noted that the proposal for the sale was declined.
Impact Executive Vice President Scott D’Amore spoke with Wrestling Inc. last Friday and said that the company was excited to work with their new partners, and that they have “some ideas and things in the work for other properties on Pursuit.”
“The first part of this deal is what we’re doing now, the flagship Impact broadcast, airing on Friday nights at 10 pm ET,” D’Amore said. “I know people look at that and go, ‘Oh my God, it’s the death spot.’ Well, if you look back, when we debuted on Spike TV, it’s a different era and network, but wrestling fans find good wrestling. When we went on Spike TV at 11 o’clock on Saturday, we went out there and did probably about 850k viewers when we debuted. We’re excited to work with Pursuit on building it as a platform. We have some ideas and things in the work for other properties on Pursuit. Also, looking to expanding our domestic and international distributions.”
Source: WrestlingINC
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