Impact Wrestling results: Best of 2020, part one

By Antonio Garza
Published: 22 Dec 2020, 19:40

Impact Wrestling returned with a two-week holiday special, showcasing the best matches of 2020 as well as their Year-End Awards.

Scott D’Amore and Josh Matthews hosted the show tonight. Throughout the night, we had a series of showcase matches, award announcements, and backstage segments building towards Genesis and Hard to Kill.

The awards given on this episode were focused on the performers themselves, awarding the best of each division:

Deonna Purrazzo won the Wrestler of the Year 2020. She said that she just wasn’t the Knockout of the Year, the best technical wrestler of the year, but as voted by the fans, the Best Wrestler of the Year, all in less than 7 months since her debut. She invited us all to enter the era of Virtuosa.
Purrazzo also won the Knockout of the Year 2020. She brought up how she became a 2-time Knockouts champion this year, had the best matches of the year, and became the first-ever Ironwoman in Impact history.
Ace Austin won the 2020 X-Division Wrestler of the Year. He cut a promo accepting it, saying that he really just spent only about 4 months in the X-Division, but it was enough for him to win it. He said he’d like to revisit the X-Division soon.
The North won the 2020 Impact Tag Team of the Year. We saw Ethan Page call Alexander on the phone giving him the news, telling him that even if they are going through some hard times, they’re still the best, as voted by the fans. Alexander agreed that maybe this was how things would get better, but when he called back, Karate Man answered the phone and Alexander raged.

Matches shown throughout the night:

X-Division champion Ace Austin defeated Trey Miguel at Hard to Kill
The Good Brothers (Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows) defeating Impact Tag Team champions The North (Ethan Page & Josh Alexander) at Turning Point
Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo defeating Jordynne Grace in a 30 Minute Ironman Match at Emergence Night 2.
Moose defeating ECIII at Bound For Glory

In addition, we had segments announcing updates on the Genesis and Hard To Kill 2021 cards:

Chris Bey has been added to the Hard To Kill X-Division title match, making it X-Division Champion Manik vs. Rohit Raju vs. Chris Bey.
Taya Valkyrie cut a great promo and made a challenge to Deonna Purrazzo for Hard To Kill.
We got a promo by Matthew Palmer, one of the independent wrestlers that worked as security last week who unfortunately angered Moose in the Willie Mack pull apart. Moose had said that none of these ‘indie wrestlers’ couldn’t hang with him for more than 3 minutes. Palmer accepted the challenge.

The participants and first-round matches to the Super X Cup were announced. The tournament takes place at Genesis on January 9th. Matches are Ace Austin vs. Suicide, Daivari vs. Cousin Jake, Crazzy Steve vs. Tre Lamar, and KC Navarro vs. Blake Christian.

We got a new Christmas-themed commercial from AEW’s Tony Khan and Tony Schiavone. Khan said he could stop Omega from appearing at the Hard to Kill event, but if Impact wanted Omega wrestling their guys, then he’s fine with it. Khan also invited Impact wrestlers to make an appearance on Dynamite. After Schiavone ran down the card for tomorrow’s Dynamite, Khan said he has been looking at Impact’s Tag Team contracts and that Omega better win at Hard To Kill.

Finally, we got a promo by Kenny Omega and Don Callis. Callis brought up a story of how Omega told him as a kid that he wanted to run the wrestling business one day. Omega said he was always meant to be the AEW World Champion, the only championship “worth a damn”. Callis compared Omega’s Impact arrival as a Christmas gift and that he was seven stars right out of the womb. Omega said he was often imitated but never duplicated.