IMPACT Wrestling Australian Tour – Talent Announcements
Following its recent Australian tour announcement on behalf of IMPACT Wrestling, Oceania Pro Wrestling and the New South Wales Regional Events Accelleration Fund, IMPACT has begun announcing talent for the tour.
PWDownunder will keep you updated on talent announcements in the coming weeks.
PLEASE NOTE: There are spoilers galore in the below write-up if you haven’t yet seen Under Siege!
Tour overview:
IMPACT will hold two shows in the regional NSW city of Wagga Wagga on Friday 30 June and Saturday 1 July.
Also announced for the tour is a live podcast hosted by Conrad Thompson with special guest, IMPACT Wrestling President Scott D’Amore.
Tickets to all shows are available through intix.com.au.
Talent announcements:
Steve Maclin
Accolades: Current IMPACT World Champion
Maclin’s reign as IMPACT Champion commenced in April with a win against KUSHIDA after longtime champion Josh Alexander was forced to surrender the title due to injury. Since then he’s successfully defended the title against Rhino, and just the other day he beat PCO in a squeamish war at IMPACT Wrestling Under Siege.
Maclin’s current stint with IMPACT commenced just under two years ago, before which he was part of the ill-fated WWE Forgotten Sons faction. Maclin was famously a bystander as one of his faction mates pissed off the entire locker room with an insensitive tweet at the height of Black Lives Matter, and was strangely released from WWE before that idiot faction mate.
Since joining IMPACT Maclin has steadily climbed the card to become a believable champion, and one who will become much more engaging with more matches like the recent ones against PCO and KUSHIDA.
Deonna Purrazzo
Accolades: Current IMPACT Knockouts World Champion, 2 previous IMPACT Knockout World Champion reigns, former ROH Women’s World Champion, former AAA Reina de Reinas Champion, AAA Womens Lucha Libra World Cup 2023
Purrazzo is a dynamo of women’s wrestling, having wrestling everywhere from World Series Wrestling in Australia, to RevPro & PROGRESS in the UK, to Japan’s STARDOM, to SHIMMER, WWE’s Mae Young Classic and NXT, ROH, AEW (albeit just long enough to drop the ROH title), and now a mainstay of IMPACT’s Knockout’s division, which continues to be the best women’s division in American wrestling.
After her cancellation off March’s WSW tour, this will be The Virtuosa’s first tour of Australia in five years, and with a resume of achievements and opponents equal of any wrestler in the world, she deserves to be treated as one of the top stars of this tour.
Joe Hendry
Accolades: Current IMPACT Wrestling Digital Media Champion
If you’re going to be in Wagga for IMPACT weekend, be careful of the conversations you’re having, because SAY HIS NAME AND HE APPEARS!
Hendry was a hard-working indy guy who made his way into ROH in 2019, had a major match at 2019’s Final Battle, and was a victim of ROH’s closure when the world shut down in 2020.
Since becoming an IMPACT regular late in 2022 though, he’s become one of their most watchable, most enjoyable wrestlers to watch. He beat Brian Myers (the former Curt Hawkins) for the Digital Media Championship in October 2022, has beaten other really credible IMPACT opponents like Moose and Matt Cardona, and is now in the midst of a feud with Dirty Dango that should hopefully continue to play out on the Australian tour. (I believe in Joe Hendry, Dango, and IMPACT to give us that match!)
ABC – Chris Bey & Ace Austin
Accolades: Current Impact Tag Team World Champion, both former IMPACT X-Division Champions
ABC, which is kind of an IMPACT sub-faction of Bullet Club, form one of the most entertaining tag teams in wrestling today, and to me they (along with Purrazzo) are the real stars of this tour. They had an incredible tournament in the 2022 New Japan Pro Wrestling World Junior Tag Team, winning their way through to the final before losing to the CHAOS duo of Lio Rush and YOH.
Bey & Austin have been IMPACT Tag Team Champions since beating Motor City Machine Guns in an incredible match in February, and have since defended the belts against MCMG, the TMDK duo of Shane Haste & Bad Dude Tito, and Subculture.
Stay tuned to PWDownunder and follow us on Twitter @PWDownundercom for further updates on the upcoming IMPACT Wrestling Australian tour.
Tickets are available to both IMPACT Wrestling shows, and to the Conrad Thompson podcast at intix.com.au
IMPACT announced that this tour will have a presence on Fite TV – we will keep you informed of that when news comes to hand.
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