The writing’s been on the wall about this one for a while, but Impact Wrestling made it official today (June 4) during a media call promoting their July 22 Slammiversary pay-per-view (PPV) event from Toronto. Their Grand Championship - matches for which were booked “shoot” style with rounds and a panel of judges scoring the “fight” - is no more.
The in-story explanation is that Austin Aries has decided to “merge” the Billy Corgan-introduced Grand Championship with Impact’s World Title now that he holds both belts again after defeating Pentagon Jr. on last Thursday’s episode of Impact Wrestling. A-Double’s also returned to playing a villain in between dropping the company’s main strap to and winning it back from Pentagon, so he’s heeling it up about the move online:
BREAKING NEWS: @AustinAries has officially merged the IMPACT World and Grand Championship into one undisputed World Championship. pic.twitter.com/bY77HbJPqm
— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) June 4, 2018
The final Grand Champion and the Grandest @IMPACTWRESTLING World Champ of them all, so said the mirror mirror on the wall. https://t.co/oeIsIVsoaI
— Austin Aries (@AustinAries) June 4, 2018
Impact returns to a four title operation - World, Knockouts, X-Division and Tag Team.
Like the decision? How they accomplished it?