AEW’s Matt Hardy and Private Party Invade Impact Wrestling

All Elite Wrestling’s crossover with Impact Wrestling was kicked into another gear Tuesday, as Matt Hardy and Private Party made a surprise appearance on this week’s Impact. Early in the show Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson hit the ring to brag about their reign as Impact World Tag Team Champions, only to get interrupted by Chris Sabin. He argued that the Motor City Machine Guns deserve a title shot, but was quickly reminded that Alex Shelley wasn’t in the building. James Storm then walked out and agreed to team with Sabin, only for Hardy’s AEW music to hit.

“Big Money Matt” brought Private Party to the ring and pushed for Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen to get a tag title shot. Eventually the three groups came to an agreement — Private Party would face Sabin and Storm later in the evening, and the winners would get a future title shot against The Good Brothers.

Stay tuned for updates on how that title match unfolds.

While speaking with Renee Paquette on this week’s Oral Sessions, Tony Khan explained how the crossover between AEW and Impact came about. Hardy referred to the relationship between the two companies as “open borders” during the episode.

As for Impact, Omega pinned Impact World Champion Rich Swann during the Hard to Kill main event. That, on top of Omega’s logo being front-and-center of the April Rebellion pay-per-view, means he’ll likely play a role in that show’s main event as well.

Later in the night Tony Khan and Jerry Lyn revealed they were backstage at Impact and would be watching the show’s main event. Khan also revealed he personally sent Hardy to Impact, since he’s a big enough “carny” to combat Don Callis’ recent tactics.

In a new interview with Renee Paquette this week, Khan explained how the AEW/Impact crossover was originally pitched by Omega.

“It was Kenny’s idea,” Khan said. “He asked me about it, and I love good ideas. I don’t do every idea. But this is something that Kenny brought up that I thought was a great idea. He put a lot of thought and time into this. I give 100 percent of the credit to Kenny.

“Don Callis and Kenny have a very close relationship and, you know, I think that was behind it, but I also think Kenny believed that Don would be a very powerful advocate for him; the role of a really, really strong heel manager for Kenny as the top heel in the territory,” he added. “Really, I think Kenny is the top heel in wrestling right now. I think that’s what people wanted to see… I think people were really ready to see this Kenny Omega. He was excited to present it. He put so much thought into innovating and changing. That’s why I think the two best wrestlers in the world are Kenny and Jon [Moxley].”