Since coming into Impact Wrestling, Ethan Carter III has run roughshod over the competition. He had not been pinned or submitted by anyone that stood in his way for 30 months. That list includes Hall of Famers, like Sting, Olympic Gold Medalists, like Kurt Angle and numerous World Champions, like Bully Ray, Bobby Lashley and Matt Hardy. This is why I was so perplexed as to why it was decided that Mike Bennett was chosen by Impact Wrestling management to be the 1st guy in EC3’s tenure with Impact Wrestling to get the pin over him on the April 26th edition on Impact Wrestling on POP Tv.
Mike Bennett was brought into Impact Wrestling on January 5th as “The Miracle” from Ring of Honor Wrestling. He spent 4 1/2 years with the company, achieving mid-card status and then linking up with Matt Taven as Adam Cole’s lackeys. They had some success, a run as IWGP and ROH tag team champions. But a lot of their (and Bennett’s) success could be said comes straight from Bennett’s wife, Maria Kannellis. It really wasn’t until she showed up on ROH tv that Bennett was really able to shine. She followed him to Impact Wrestling, sort of being a Jim Jones-like character prophecying that we, as professional wrestling fans, needed a “miracle” and her husband is just that. Maria’s character is FAR more worth investing in than Mike’s.
The interactions between Bennett and EC3 had been few and far between before April 26th. What kicked off this newfound rivalry was due to Bennett’s interference in EC3’s match with then-Impact Wrestling World Champion Matt Hardy. It’s was a No-DQ match, so it was well within the rules for Bennett to come in and attack EC3. Obviously, anybody would be mad if somebody cost them the World championship, so naturally there was a match between the 2. While it was a great match and a great background story to it, Bennett, a guy who has been with the company for 4 months, was put over the biggest star in the company cleanly. To further stick it in my crawl, Bennett was able to compete in a #1-contender’s match to see who would be the next challenger for the World title, AFTER 4 MONTHS WITH THE COMPANY!!! It took EC3 20 months to get that shot.
The last thing that made this decision so mind-boggling is the obvious question, where does everyone go from here? Carter is arguably the biggest homegrown star Impact Wrestling has ever had. If not for the way Impact Wrestling has done business in the past and the horrible decisions they have made, he’d be seen as one of the top 5 stars in the entire wrestling world. Fans don’t buy into Impact Wrestling much anymore because they feel like they are the Cleveland Browns of the wrestling world: Making 1 bad decision after another with their wrestlers. Carter SHOULD end up going on this long redemption tour and get his win back over Bennett and move onto the World title by year’s end. While that should happen, that would end up making Bennett look like the big loser and crushing him booking wise. Which would make anybody ask the question, why put Bennett over the biggest start in the company so early in his career?
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