Impact Wrestling: Why Rosemary Is The Face Of The Company

Impact Wrestling has seen some of its most talented wrestlers depart the company in 2018, making it increasingly obvious that their promotion’s best representative is the eminently talented and likable Rosemary.

If you had to make a shortlist of the best characters in wrestling, Rosemary would be on it. If you had to make shortlist of the most beloved wrestlers across all promotions, Rosemary would be on it. And if you had to make a shortlist of the most influential wrestlers in the world today, Rosemary would once again be among the names that spring to mind.

Rosemary’s “Demon Assassin” character resonates with fans of all ages, genders, and wrestling allegiances. By that last point, I mean that even wrestling fans who prefer, say, WWE or NJPW to Impact Wrestling can appreciate Rosemary’s character and talent.

Despite the fact that she is over with the crowd and regularly receives chants, Rosemary still has her trademark eery delivery in her promos and hasn’t lost touch with #TheHive. Her interviews with media outlets are still done in the style of her promos, but they skillfully answer the question while still maintaining the integrity of her magnificently obscure character.

Even though she shrouds her face in paint and speaks with a vocabulary that can be difficult to decipher, Rosemary relates to so many people because that’s the overall message she gets across as a performer.

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Here’s what she said in an interview with Bleacher Report last year, “The Hive is a collection of all sorts of social misfits from all walks of life, all colors and creed and countries, it doesn’t matter. If you identify with what we are doing you are welcome here.”

There aren’t many babyfaces in wrestling who connect with the entirety of an audience and come across as badasses who aren’t afraid to break their opponents in a fight. Rosemary checks off all the boxes as a hero in pro wrestling, and you can always sense the arena’s excitement whenever her theme, “Left Behind”, hits.

Rosemary has been with Impact Wrestling since the beginning of 2016, starting her tenure as a heel in the stable Decay before becoming the new face of the Knockouts Division after Impact legend Gail Kim retired last year.

But Rosemary is more than just the face of the Knockouts Division and someone who helps elevate the likes of Allie, Taya Valkyrie, and Su Yung. She’s such an ambassador and star for Impact that it’s hard to put anyone else above her as being the face of the company as a whole.

Think about it. Who else is there? Johnny Impact comes to mind, but his promo work and character work just aren’t as interesting as Rosemary’s. He doesn’t get the crowd behind him like Rosemary does, nor is he has unique as she is. Austin Aries has all the titles and is someone the fans respect for his in-ring work and name recognition, but how behind him are they really?

Currently, Rosemary has been feuding with Taya Valkyrie, whom she was originally scheduled to feud with at Bound for Glory last year.

The start to their rivalry has been late due to issues out of everyone’s control, but it’s been more than worth the wait. These are two of the best wrestlers in the world, two of the best characters in the world, and two performers who are willing to put together brutal fights.

Last week, Impact received 381,000 overnight viewers, and the main event of the show was a “Demon’s Dance” match between Rosemary and Taya Valkyrie. I wouldn’t go as far as to attribute the show’s entire bounce-back ratings-wise to this match, but it wouldn’t be far-fetched to jump to that conclusion either. Nothing else important happened on the show other than a Scott Steiner return and a match between Petey Williams and Josh Mathews.

There isn’t a bigger rivalry in Impact than Rosemary vs. Taya, which completely blows whatever Austin Aries and Alberto El Patron had going out of the water, even before El Patron no-showed the company and got himself released. While El Patron was still around, Impact tried to get the fans to buy into those two as their top stars, but most people were busy paying attention to the much better work Taya and Rosemary were doing in their program.

Because the fact of the matter is that Rosemary has paid her dues in Impact and has won the hearts of the fans the organic way. She’s done it by being great in the ring, working well with everyone in that locker room, and portraying a character that is actually compelling and different despite falling under an oft-replicated motif in wrestling.

I think a lot of fans underestimate that female wrestlers can also be the face of a company. Everyone wants to talk about the next “big stars” being male world title holders or big names in men’s wrestling like Aries or EC3, who left to NXT earlier this year, and female wrestlers sometimes get lost in the shuffle. But they are just as – if not more – likely to appeal to the majority of the audience and are also obviously just as capable in the ring and on the mic.

It’s hard to think of a wrestler in Impact who sets a better example week-in and week-out of what this company is about under its new direction. I have a suspicion that Impact feels the same way about Rosemary as a professional, given that Ed Nordholm specifically brought her up in an interview under the context of encouraging their talent to market themselves outside of Impact.

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They understand that Rosemary is important to the Impact brand as one of their top stars, and now that they have to keep building these stars with the likes of Bobby Lashley and EC3 out the door, Rosemary is in a spot where she’s at the top of the ladder when looking at both the male and female talent.

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