Various: Tom Hannifan on Impact Signing, PWG Announces BoLA 2022 First Round Matches, Indies

WWE

Jan 11, 2022

Tom Hannifan Comments on His Recent Signing with Impact Wrestling

A recent episode of the Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette podcast had Tom Hannifan, former Tom Phillips in WWE, as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Hannifan’s thoughts on his recent signing with Impact Wrestling to be their new lead announcer.

“It’s only really developed within the last month. You know, I love how people on the internet try and come up with concepts and rumors and stuff like that but, you know, I have a lot of friends here that kind of connected me with the powers that be and just had some good conversations and honestly, the schedule was very attractive because as you know, I just got done doing a 52-week-a-year schedule for about nine years so I was like, ‘This is great. This is really cool’ and everything that I was told about what the locker room is like in IMPACT, what Scott D’Amore and Josh Matthews [are like] and everything. Everything’s been accurate thus far and I worked one day but everything’s been awesome so, it was cool, and you know how it is. When you know a whole bunch of people there and like, just showing up yesterday and seeing Matt Rehwoldt and him being like, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ So, it was really cool.”

Hannifan also gave his thoughts about his commentary debut for Impact at this past Saturday’s Hard to Kill 2022 event.

“You [Renee Paquette] and I have seen it over the years where they wanna debut either like an in-ring talent or an announcer on a pay-per-view and it’s like — on paper, it’s like, ‘Oh, that sounds super cool’ and it’s like no, in reality, it’s like really nerve wracking. I was nervous as hell.
Thank you [Hannifan responded when Paquette said he didn’t sound nervous]. It was a lot of fun. Working with D’Lo [Brown] was a breeze so it was just, I don’t know. I hadn’t called a wrestling match in like six months so I hadn’t done something the caliber of a pay-per-view since March so I was like, ‘Oh, okay. This is different.’ Like once I got into it, it was so much fun, crowd was hot, it was awesome.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

PWG Announces New Competitor & Full First Round Matches for Battle of Los Angeles 2022 Tournament

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla recently announced that they have pulled Phillip Five Skulls from the field of their upcoming Battle of Los Angeles 2022 tournament due to Skulls recently “retiring” from wrestling. The company also announced that “Speedball” Mike Baily will be replacing Skulls in this year’s tournament.

PWG also recently announced the full list of First Round matches for Battle of Los Angeles 2022 tournament, which takes place on January 29th & January 30th in Los Angeles, California:

Bandido vs. “Speedball” Mike Bailey
JONAH vs. Buddy Matthews
Jonathan Gresham vs. Davey Richards
JD Drake vs. Black Taurus
Lee Moriarty vs. Alex Shelley
Jack Cartwheel vs. Lio Rush
Kevin Blackwood vs. Daniel Garcia
Aramis vs. Rey Horus

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

During a recent interview with Tokyo Sports, CyberFight President Sanshiro Takagi stated that the company’s current plans for their DDT Pro-Wrestling promotion this year is to focus mainly on expanding their presence in international markets. Takagi stated “This year, DDT will focus all of its attention on overseas markets.” (English translation via PostWrestling.com)

The Chris Jericho Cruise announced that they have postponed this year’s planned cruise event from its original scheduled date of March 2022 to a new date of February 2-6, 2023. The official reason given was due to COVID-19 related issues and feedback from customers who preferred a longer period of time in between cruise events.

WrestleCon announced that Lucha Libre AAA will be holding a new event on March 31st in Dallas, Texas as part of this year’s WrestleCon set of indie events and festivities in the city.

WrestleCon also announced that Impact Wrestling will also be holding a new event on April 1st in Dallas, Texas as part of this year’s WrestleCon set of indie events and festivities in the city.

Game Changer Wrestling announced that CM Punk will be officially inducting Dave Prazak into their Indie Wrestling Hall of Fame.

GCW also recently announced a new match for the card of their Say You Will event on January 15th in Hoffman Estates, Illinois: