Kenny Omega’s world championship win at IMPACT Wrestling Rebellion is still the talk of the wrestling world. Fans, analysts and veterans of the business continue to debate the historic moment when Omega pinned Rich Swann to win the IMPACT World Championship.
During a recent episode of The Hall Of Fame podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Booker T shared his thoughts on the matter. He expressed his confusion about IMPACT Wrestling’s reasoning in having Swann drop the title to someone who’s not even on their roster. Booker T also suggested that the moment might have been beneficial to All Elite Wrestling, but it didn’t help IMPACT Wrestling.
“I don’t know what impact is thinking right now,” said Booker T. “Maybe they’re thinking, you know, the rub. Maybe they’re thinking the rub. It’s a cool moment for AEW. It’s not a cool moment for IMPACT Wrestling unless I own both companies, and I was working the fans, you know what I mean at the same time, with both of my companies.”
“For Rich Swann to go out and lose the title to Kenny Omega, it does absolutely nothing in my opinion. And just say for instance, if I was doing Deep Impact with TNA, and they wanted [the] Reality Wrestling Champion to lose and drop the belt, it wouldn’t happen. It just wouldn’t happen. If the champion gets beat, which is your franchise player, the number one guy, and he goes out and gets beat…I could be wrong, but for me, if it was my company, something like that wouldn’t have gone down.”
Booker T also described how his company, Reality of Wrestling booked a similar title vs. title match to end in an all-out brawl so that neither champion had to lose. Many fans assumed IMPACT Wrestling would take a similar approach in the match between Swann and Omega. Instead, the promotion’s top champion lost cleanly. As a result, the IMPACT World Championship is now held by an AEW wrestler.
