The Magnificent Seven: The Top 7 WWE-Impact Crossover Stars

Back when WCW was still in operation, one of the graatest honors a wrestler could achieve was to have won a world championship in both the WWF and WCW. While that metric for success was diluted a bit over time with more frequent title changes, and more frequent defections between the two companies, it still stood as a marker for guys like Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and even The Big Show that they could appeal to the fans and management enough in these separate, at times disparate companies enough to be trusted with the top spot.

There’s not really an equivalent to WCW today as a US-based promotion of comparable (if not greater) resources and exposure, but the closest thing over the last sixteen years has been Impact Wrestling, formerly known as TNA. So, this week’s focus is on stars who crossed over to thrive in both WWE and Impact.

The criteria for this countdown include kayfabe success like winning championships and working featured matches. I also considered factors like longevity with and importance to both companies. There’s no exact formula, but I aimed to strike a balance between succeeding in both promotions. So, for example, CM Punk’s record in WWE wound up to be pretty great, and he did work for TNA, but never accomplished anything of note there. A guy like Bobby Roode stands out on the Impact side, but hasn’t yet done enough on the WWE main roster to quite crack the countdown. As always, my personal opinion weighs heavily.

#7. Samoa Joe

Though he’d hone his craft in ROH and on the indies, Samoa Joe is among those featured WWE talents whom Impact can essentially claim as their own, homegrown guy. Still in the early days of the company, Joe emerged as a dominant force in the X-Division, a tremendous rival for Kurt Angle, and a world champion. It’s a travesty that Joe only had one reign with TNA’s top prize, though at least it was fairly meaty at nearly a half year long. He’d go on to largely get squandered in the upper mid-card without much direction for six years to follow.

When WWE began to broaden its perspective and welcome indie-bred stars, and guys who didn’t look like bodybuilders, Joe was fortunate to still find himself at the tail end of his prime, ready to finally make the leap to the big show. He thrived in NXT, including two championship reigns there, before moving up to the main roster, and getting a surprisingly serious run, there, too, as an upper card threat who even got to pose as a credible PPV challenge to Brock Lesnar’s Universal Championship.

Since Joe bounced back from injury, the company has demonstrated a similar level of faith in him, including a program with Samoa Joe and, at the time I’m writing, a WWE Championship program with AJ Styles. There’s every possibility he’d climb higher on this list if I were to revisit in a year or two.

#6. Alberto Del Rio

From the perspective of 2018, it’s hard to remember the good of Alberto Del Rio’s tenure with WWE. However, for as bad terms as he left on, and for as lackluster as his second run with the company was. The guy assembled a deceptively impressive WWE resume and really was a hot act, particularly for his first year or so in the Del Rio gimmick. His accomplishments include four world titles, winning the lone forty-man Royal Rumble, and a Money in the Bank briefcase win. You can add onto that that he’s among the elite club of wrestlers to have successfully defended a world championship at WrestleMania.

Impact scored a contract with Del Rio after he left WWE the second time, and emerged as one of the hottest free agents in wrestling history. The Pride of Mexico’s work with TNA wasn’t entirely even, including the controversy of a suspension connected to a domestic violence charge, and ultimately leaving the company on ugly terms. Still, his importance to the brand while he was there can’t be understated, winning the Impact Wrestling Championship upon his debut, and shortly thereafter winning the GFW Championship, and then unifying the world titles.

#5. Bully Ray

Bully Ray—known in WWE as Bubba Ray Dudley–is a legend of tag team wrestling for his work as half of the Dudley Boyz tag team that was so decorated in the Attitude Era, and still succeeded in the years to follow, racing up ten tag title reigns in all. The duo would come back for a reasonable enough nostalgia run in 2015. No, the experiment of running him as a singles wrestler didn’t really take in WWE, but the tag work was more than sufficient that his Hall of Fame induction felt like an inevitability before it finally came to pass this year.

With Impact, Bully Ray would get al lthe more opportunities to shine. Under the Team 3D moniker, he and D-Von got to further their legacy as a tag team. All the more noteworthy, in 2013, as the leader of the Aces and Eights stable, Bully Ray got to spend more than half the year reigning as TNA Champion, finally getting the opportunity to shine as a top singles star, and make the most of his considerable talents, particularly on the mic.

So, Bully Ray was as much of a legend as a tag guy can be in WWE, and went on to truly star in Impact, making him a top-tier crossover star between the two promotions.

#4. Christian

There are ways in which Christian blazed the trail that Bully Ray would walk down years later. Paired with Edge, he assembled a truly great tag team run in WWE that would establish the pair of them as one of the all-time great duos the company has ever seen. When the two went their separate ways, though, it was Edge who enjoyed a push, while Christian continually bumped his head against the mid-card glass ceiling.

So, Christian made the bold choice to defect to TNA, in an era when stars who made that choice (as opposed to being released by WWE and resorting to TNA) were few and far between. The move paid dividends as he was still in his prime and got thrust into the main event picture for most of his TNA run as a featured heel and two-time world champion who feuded with the likes of Sting and Kurt Angle, and headed up the Christian Coalition faction with AJ Styles and Tyson Tomko backing him.

All of the above would place Christian on this countdown, but it was his triumphant return to WWE that pushed him ahead as Captain Charisma went on to be the face of the WWE ECW brand. Later, he’d get a singles push on the main roster proper, and when Edge was forced into retirement, Christian got the opportunity to reach the peak of his career as World Heavyweight Champion. While he ran the risk of going down as a guy who was only technically a world champion by virtue of his time in TNA, and then ECW, his time with the big gold belt, however short, solidified him as a talent more than worthy of Hall of Fame consideration, all on his own.

#3. Jeff Hardy

Jeff Hardy enjoyed an unlikely rise through the ranks of the wrestling world. In WWE, he started as the more popular, charismatic half of the Hardy Boyz tag team, then transitioned into a fair enough role as a solid mid-card act for himself. It looked as though Hardy might have risen as far as he would, though, when he opted not to re-sign with WWE citing burnout. Hardy found himself in TNA in the aftermath. A big fish in a small pond, he enjoyed reasonable success as a fringe main eventer.

Things took a more unexpected turn in the years to follow. First, Hardy returned to WWE and his organic connection with the fans led him to a world title shots, culminating in actually winning the World Heavyweight Championship in late 2008. He’d beat Edge to win that title again the following summer, and though neither reign would last long, he nonetheless cemented his place as a bona fide single star under the WWE banner.

Hardy wound up back in TNA afterward, and would end up a three-time world champion there, most notably serving as the lead in-ring performer for Hulk Hogan’s Immortal stable for some time. As a cherry on top, working with his brother Matt, the Broken Hardys threatened to take over TNA programming on every level for the last year of their run, and the success of the gimmick would ultimately lead the brothers back home to WWE for their current run.

For longevity, championships collected, and using each run with WWE and Impact to build upon itself, Hardy scores a top three spot in this countdown.

#2. AJ Styles

For the first decade-plus of its existence, Impact Wrestling had AJ Style as one of its defining stars. As a homegrown guy who was there from the beginning and repeatedly proved himself at the main event level, he stood behind only stars like Jeff Jarrett and Sting to be considered the franchise player for the fledgling promotion.

Styles’s nearly twelve years with the promotion saw The Phenomenal One evolve from a bright young up and comer to old standard bearer. In one of his final big angles, he played a mix of aloof hero Crow Sting and edgy-on-the-cusp-of-leaving 2011 CM Punk, winning his last of five world championships under the TNA banner at Bound for Glory—the biggest show of the year.

It always seemed that Styles would go down as one of the great talents of his generation not to work for WWE. When he did make his surprise debut for WWE in 2015, it seemed he’d hit the upper mid-card glass ceiling—too small, too southern, too technical, and too old for WWE to give him a shot at the main event. Styles proved himself as the ultimate cream-rises-to-the-top guy in earning the respect of management and his peers alike. Seven months after his debut, he’d be defeating John Cena clean in a borderline five star match at SummerSlam. Nine months after his debut, he’d win his first of to-date two WWE Championships. At forty, Styles was more famous and universally respected than ever, not to mention that he was second man after only Christian to win a world title in WWE after winning his first in TNA (and the first to do so without having pre-established himself at all in WWE previously). Remarkably, he since assembled the longest SmackDown-exclusive world title reign in WWE history.

#1. Kurt Angle

There are guys who catch on to pro wrestling quickly, and then there’s Kurt Angle. After winning an Olympic gold medal in amateur wrestling, he signed with WWE and, in his first year on TV, grew into one of the very best wrestlers in the world, a King of the Ring, European Champion, Intercontinental Champion, and World Champion. Scarily enough, he really was just getting started and would spend the next six years further honing his craft as one of the most remarkable total package talents WWE has ever seen.

Those six years would make Angle an easy pick to headline a WWE Hall of Fame class. He’d have a messy split with the company, though, when he refused to take time off to heal injuries or resolve his issues with painkillers. The leap to TNA would end up redefining Angle’s career, as he proceeded to have a remarkable decade working there. Angle became the first WWE main event guy to defect while he was still in a place in his career to work quality main events. In the years to follow, he’d put particularly great matches against top shelf workers like AJ Styles and Samoa Joe to prove that, even hurt, he was still one of the greatest talents in the world, and give these worthy dance partners the rub in the process.

By the time Angle returned to WWE for a Hall of Fame induction, an authority figure role, and part-time wrestling career, Angle could claim six world championships under the WWE banner, and six under TNA—stats that accurately portray him as one of the very best of the last twenty years, and the greatest WWE-Impact crossover star there has ever been.

Whom would you add to the list? Bobby Lashley, Matt Hardy, Rob Van Dam, Sting, and Austin Aries were among my top runners up. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Read more from Mike Chin at his website and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.