Don Callis Thinks Chris Jericho And Kenny Omega Would Have Signed With Impact If Not For AEW
As with seemingly every wrestling promotion, Impact Wrestling also had a huge event last week with United We Stand on Thursday. Before the event, Impact VP Don Callis took part in a media Q&A and Nick Hausman of Wrestling Inc. was on hand.
Nick asked Callis if the company planned on bringing in any big names in the future and he mentioned one that appeared at United We Stand.
"I think we're always looking for names but for me it begins and ends with the athleticism," said Callis. "[We're] not looking to bring in guys who can't go anymore and are just names?we're gonna continue to go after stud athletes like Rob [Van Dam]."
At one point there was talk about Chris Jericho or Kenny Omega joining Impact and Callis was asked just how close the company came to signing them.
"That's a tough one. You'd have to ask them that?. We made an offer to Chris that was a real good offer and I think if you could go back a year and it was us and WWE and New Japan, I think we would have had both of them," stated Callis.
Callis talked a bit about AEW arriving on the scene and even though Jericho and Omega ended up there, he's still on good terms with them.
"I just saw Kenny last week and remain good friends with both guys," said Callis.
It was in December 2017 that Callis and Scott D'Amore were named as new vice presidents at Impact and they knew it would be a process to rebuild the Impact roster in their liking.
"We talked about reshaping the roster. We talked about a 12-18 month plan and that the roster would be evolving all the time," Callis said before adding that his position is similar to being the GM of a football team where you are constantly making roster changes.
"People leave. We bring new people in. Rob Van Dam signing was huge. I got to call a lot of Rob's matches in ECW?so having Rob Van Dam here is massive for us because Rob hasn't really lost a step."
The full media scrum with Callis was on Tuesday's special episode of the WINCLY, which you can check out below. The episode also include Nick recapping his WWE WrestleMania 35 weekend, the full audio from Tessa Blanchard's Impact Wrestling United We Stand press scrum and more.
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