10+ years ago the IW women's division was seen as being superior to WWE's. Te division coasted on it's reputation for years until even the most die-hards could not deny the dip in quality. At the same time as the Knockouts' division's decline the WWE women's division started to climb upwards with the advent of NXT up to Women main-eventing WrestleMania just a week ago. However it seems to me that IW's women's division has overtaken WWE's  main roster divisions in terms of overall quality without many peoplenoticing.


Just on a match quality perspective Impact usually beats  RAW/SD on a weekly basis in terms of match quality , and usually by a pretty wide margin. Now a lot of that has to do with having Tessa Blanchard in matches almost every , who in my opinion is the top female performer in mainstream women's wrestling today especially in terms of match quality. But the rest of the division is pretty solid as well , Jordyn Grace is a much better and more mobile hoss than the likes of  Nia and Tamina, Kiera Hogan is a fun young wrestler , Madison has stepped her game up even more so in her latest stint.  and Taya who is a perfectly solid wrestler as is Rosemary.

Every week on Impact you're pretty match guaranteed to have at least one very solid lengthy women's match, and that's on one two hour show. We're lucky to get on of those on Raw or SD every month despite having 5 hours of combined programming compared to Impact's 2.

Booking wise impact seems far superior . Almost every female talent is given something to do most every week, and many even have their own non-title side feuds and storylines. Even the segments and storylines that don't turn out so great (the dark war for example imo) clearly have a lot of thought put into them. In WWE you're a lucky if there are 5 women given a focus every week, and hardly anyone has any non-title side feuds.


It's unfortunate that people's awareness of IW has sunk so low as they're killing it with the women currently.  

Apr 15, 2019 0:36:27 GMT dex said:

It's unfortunate that people's awareness of IW has sunk so low as they're killing it with the women currently.  

It's not even just the women, I only pay passing attention but the entire promotion seems to be doing really well at the moment yet their hype level is at an all time low. Maybe it was the car crash aspect that kept a lot of people interested. It is a really good creative team there between Callis, D'Amore, Kevin Sullivan with Madison and Gail having some influence as well.

You only need to look at the Impact thread here to see me saying repeatedly how good they have been doing for quite some time now, and this build up to Tessa vs Gail feels like something really notable. Everything you've said is spot on.

Apr 15, 2019 0:54:02 GMT @admin said:

Apr 15, 2019 0:36:27 GMT dex said:

It's unfortunate that people's awareness of IW has sunk so low as they're killing it with the women currently.  

It's not even just the women, I only pay passing attention but the entire promotion seems to be doing really well at the moment yet their hype level is at an all time low. Maybe it was the car crash aspect that kept a lot of people interested. It is a really good creative team there between Callis, D'Amore, Kevin Sullivan with Madison and Gail having some influence as well.

You only need to look at the Impact thread here to see me saying repeatedly how good they have been doing for quite some time now, and this build up to Tessa vs Gail feels like something really notable. Everything you've said is spot on.

Changing channels so frequently hasn't helped. But that excuse doesn't really work now that Impact shows are on twitch which anyone can view.  I also think that IW's poor reputation is still in the minds of a lot of fans, people frequently only talk about Impact to poke fun at it  I know it's past affected my desire to watch it until recently. It's basically an entirely new company now with some familiar faces.  People should judge it as such. 

Apr 15, 2019 1:11:04 GMT dex said:

Apr 15, 2019 0:54:02 GMT @admin said:

It's not even just the women, I only pay passing attention but the entire promotion seems to be doing really well at the moment yet their hype level is at an all time low. Maybe it was the car crash aspect that kept a lot of people interested. It is a really good creative team there between Callis, D'Amore, Kevin Sullivan with Madison and Gail having some influence as well.

You only need to look at the Impact thread here to see me saying repeatedly how good they have been doing for quite some time now, and this build up to Tessa vs Gail feels like something really notable. Everything you've said is spot on.

Changing channels so frequently hasn't helped. But that excuse doesn't really work now that Impact shows are on twitch which anyone can view.  I also think that IW's poor reputation is still in the minds of a lot of fans, people frequently only talk about Impact to poke fun at it  I know it's past affected my desire to watch it until recently. It's basically an entirely new company now with some familiar faces.  People should judge it as such. 

I know there was a lot of legal/copyright BS going on but I wonder whether they would have been better off completely rebranding in 2018. Perhaps all the stupidity with the GFW invasion/merger tarnished any potential that could have had. 

I saw this quote from an interview Tessa did which I absolutely love: "I’ve gone places where they’ve told me what I need to do, what I need to say, who I need to be, what moves I need to perform. And at Impact I get to just be me. I have creative control to be me and do what I want. To show people this is what Tessa Blanchard’s about and if you don’t like it, tough shit."
Unsurprisingly the neckbeards seized on this and talked about what an out of control egomaniac she is - but this is absolutely what any promotion should be doing as a counterpoint to the microproduction of WWE.

Would the poster who voted no like to explain why?

I don't see how you could on a match quality perspective at the very least.

Impact is doing a lot of things right. Overall I think the KOs and Divas are about on par with each other. If they are only rolling with 8 or 10 KOs they need to be swapping them out. To keep the product fresh.

They are doing great with Tessa, Taya, and Rosemary as the top KOs. Rosemary really needs to get out of the undead realm. Jordyn is a really good addition. Scarlett oh hot damn. Gail is a special attraction and should only be used as one. Like the feud with Tessa. Kiera is still pretty green. She needs to leave, learn a new hold, learn how to talk, and come back better. Madison is a solid worker, but I don't want to see her long term. Su has run her course. She can go and maybe give Spinelli a chance to be herself. Alisha sucks and has no business on tv. I do like how they use the occasional jobber.

The average match quality, storylines, and booking is usually better in IW. But the matches quality reach higher peaks in WWE. Since most of the match are good in IW nothing really stands out as better. In WWE, a lot of the tv matches are just ok but they really try to stand out at ppv. In WWE, they have a similar problem with the actual women. Most of them are all considered top tier talent by WWE standards so they have to use 50/50 booking on a lot of them making almost no one stand out.

Apr 16, 2019 14:00:11 GMT X-zero said:

The average match quality, storylines, and booking is usually better in IW. But the matches quality reach higher peaks in WWE. Since most of the match are good in IW nothing really stands out as better. In WWE, a lot of the tv matches are just ok but they really try to stand out at ppv. 

I think the Tessa vs Taya street fight was as good as anything from WWE in the past six months or so, except for the Charlotte/Becky LWS match at Evolution. 

Apr 16, 2019 23:32:06 GMT @admin said:

Apr 16, 2019 14:00:11 GMT X-zero said:

The average match quality, storylines, and booking is usually better in IW. But the matches quality reach higher peaks in WWE. Since most of the match are good in IW nothing really stands out as better. In WWE, a lot of the tv matches are just ok but they really try to stand out at ppv. 

I think the Tessa vs Taya street fight was as good as anything from WWE in the past six months or so, except for the Charlotte/Becky LWS match at Evolution. 

I only saw highlights from it but I think a lot of big matches in the WWE pasted 6 month meet or was better than it. Charlotte/Becky, Charlotte/Ronda, Charlotte/Becky/Asuka TLC, and haven't seen the WM match yet but I am guessing that will.

I believe Impact has surpassed WWE in terms of character development.

Not really feeling the undead realm that has been a big thing going on with the TNA girls. Only character I like is Rosemary but she would be so much better in WWE.

Apr 18, 2019 0:55:13 GMT c said:

Not really feeling the undead realm that has been a big thing going on with the TNA girls. Only character I like is Rosemary but she would be so much better in WWE.

Not a chance! Look how watered down the Matt Hardy stuff was in WWE compared to Impact. The undead realm isn't exactly my thing either, but it's been a success because Rosemary and Allie clearly had a big hand it in themselves. 

Apr 18, 2019 0:55:13 GMT c said:

Not really feeling the undead realm that has been a big thing going on with the TNA girls. Only character I like is Rosemary but she would be so much better in WWE.

They would either make her Sister Abigail or just have her wrestle as her normal self.

More like Mary Rose or Rose Marie

This thread has encouraged me to try and give Impact a go again on a weekly level. What's must-see stuff from the past while (since Tessa's arrival I suppose since I'm a fan) that I should check out? @admin, dex,

Apr 21, 2019 21:03:11 GMT PB said:

This thread has encouraged me to try and give Impact a go again on a weekly level. What's must-see stuff from the past while (since Tessa's arrival I suppose since I'm a fan) that I should check out? @admin , dex ,

Pretty much every Tessa match is worth watching , even the one's against jobbers like Ray Lyn or Delliah Doom are entertaining. Jordynne Grace vs Madison was really fun, as was Jordynne vs Taya. Keyra's ( a luchadora) 2 matches with Tessa and Taya were also fun. 

Ass for segments if you like the Hardy deletion saga/Lucha Underground  stuff then you might like the Dark World storyline. The Tessa and Gail feud segments are all top notch, with Tessa trashing Gail's husbands restaurant being a real highlight. If you want to go a little further back the Allie-Maria-Laurel-Braxton storyline is very entertaining too especially the wedding. 

I'll add Rosemary Taya feud which I hope they start up again

I think Tessa's two best matches have been vs Allie at Slammiversary and the street fight vs Taya at Uncaged.