Impact Wrestling: Fantasy Booking A World Cup Tournament In 2018

Credit: Impact Wrestling

Tournaments are fun. Impact Wrestling should revive their World Cup Tournament and run it every year.

As we say reminisce on the 2018 FIFA World Cup, fans of soccer/football will be looking for ways to fill the void left by the month-long tournament’s conclusion. What with it only happening every four years, it makes it all the more special, and harder to part. Once upon a time, Impact Wrestling used to host a World Cup of its own. It’s hard to say if it helped taper off the post-Cup-hangover but now seems like a good a time as any to bring it back.

Initially, the first tournaments ran as part of the company’s X Cup series, for its X-Division competitors. For the uninitiated, the X-Division is a style of wrestling that is fast-paced, high-flying, and high-risk. So it’s kind of like Cruiserweight wrestling, without the weight limits, and a different name. The World X Cups occurred in 2004, 2006, and 2008. Unlike FIFA’s, this Cup only featured four nations — USA, Canada, Mexico, and Japan.  A team of usually four wrestlers would represent each country, where they would compete for points in a variety of matches.

In 2013, as part of then-TNA‘s One Night Only concept, the tournament was revived. As time went on, the focus became less about representing individual nations. Instead, the competition centered around uniting individuals from different parts of the world. Given how diverse Impact Wrestling’s current roster is, there’s no reason the tourney shouldn’t revert to aspects of its original format. That’s not to say that some parts of the latest editions shouldn’t stick around.

In this first part, we’ll establish some ground rules. For fantasy booking’s sake, you’ll finish this piece knowing the rosters of the tournament’s usual suspects.