Chris Bey Believes Partnership Between IMPACT And AEW Has Potential To Change The Industry

Chris Bey is excited about the future of the wrestling business.

Speaking with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp (full interview above), the former X Division Champion was asked how he felt about all of the IMPACT/AEW integration that has been occurring as of late, replying with nothing but enthusiasm. Here is what he had to say:

“I feel the same way all the fans feel. I feel excited about it. It’s very exciting. It’s a great time to be a wrestling fan. I always like feel it’s a good time to be a wrestling fan. Especially since I’ve gotten in the business. I just feel like things have just been, every year, just stacking and stacking and stacking and companies are rising and rising and rising and places like AEW come and they just build and build and build. All this younger crop of talent, this person’s nineteen, this person’s twenty, this person’s twenty-one, and they’re just amazing performers. Everything’s just getting incredible, bro. I just think it’s a great time to be a performer, a great time to be a fan. You just don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

In February 2020, Cody Rhodes shared that he had done a YouTube deep-dive on Bey, which, of course, led to speculation that he may join the new promotion. Quickly after, however, Bey announced that he had signed with IMPACT, a company that he has unabashedly professed his fandom of for many years.

As fate would have it, Bey may not have to wait very long to work with AEW if they continue collaborating with IMPACT. As he sees it, this inter-promotional synergy has the potential to be game-changing.

“So, with everybody that’s been talking to me over the last year like, ‘Man, AEW was interested in you. Why didn’t you go there?’ Now it’s looking like I don’t even have to have made that decision to still make it happen, you know? For me, it’d be even better if I can do it wearing the IMPACT! banner and holding the IMPACT! flag while I do it, you know? I think it’s just going to set up some dream match scenarios. If this keeps going in the direction it’s going in we can provide history for the fans that we possibly look back to for the foreseeable future of our business and be like, ‘Man, that’s when things really changed in this industry.’ This could be the start of something.”

Chris Bey will be in action at IMPACT’s Hard To Kill PPV (January 16, 2021), where he and Rohit Raju will challenge for Manik’s X Division Title in a three-way match.

The card is set to be headlined by a reuniting Bullet Club; Doc Gallows, Karl Anderson, and Kenny Omega will square off against The Motor City Machine Guns and Rich Swann.

Fightful will have live coverage of the event.