Impact Wrestling held its Under Seige pay-per-view event this weekend. The show was main evented by Josh Alexander defending the Impact World Championship against NJPW’s Tomohiro Ishii in a hard-hitting affair as well as The Briscoes winning the Impact Wrestling Tag Team Championships. The company was hoping to ride the momentum from the PPV into its next set of TV tapings, but that didn’t go as planned.
Rumors circulated online that ticket sales for their television taping in Newport, Kentucky. The greater Cincinnati area didn’t seem very interested. Seats moved incredibly slow leading up to the event.
On the latest Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed just how bad things were. It was noted that Impact Wrestling was trying to give away free tickets to the event at an independent show four hours from the venue. The promotion was desperate to get bodies in seats.
“They did TV today. So, it was Josh Alexander and Eric Young going for the championship and then they announced a women’s King of the Mountain match, so that was some of the stuff that was done today. They had a very poor advance for today’s TV taping, like very, very poor. To the point that there was a show, they were in Kentucky, and there was a show four hours away, I can’t remember the city it was in. It might be like Michigan or something.
They were handing out free tickets at a show four hours away on Friday night, an independent show that a lot of the Impact wrestlers were on. And when I heard that, I was like, ‘If you’re handing out free tickets at a show four hours away for a TV taping,’ that’s like… I mean, whatever. It’s what they were doing.”
Impact Wrestling has been putting on very good wrestling shows. The lack of strong national television exposure and many big names choosing to sign with AEW or WWE have hurt fan interest. This isn’t the first time that Impact has had trouble as a draw. We will have to wait and see if the promotion can once again bounce back.
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Transcription by Ringside News