Impact Wrestling has announced the inductors for their 2023 Hall of Fame ceremony.
It was announced on Thursday’s Impact Wrestling episode that Impact president Scott D’Amore will induct the longtime broadcast team of Don West & Mike Tenay at the 2023 ceremony set for the Countdown to Bound for Glory pre-show on Saturday, October 21.
In addition to his current role as company president, D’Amore has worked as on-screen talent as a manager and authority figure in Impact for much of its 20-plus year history.
It was also revealed that Impact Hall of Famer Gail Kim will induct Traci Brooks at this year’s ceremony. Kim was inducted herself as the sole member of the Class of 2016.
West is being inducted posthumously after passing away late last year.
Brooks, Tenay, and West comprise the Class of 2023, bringing the total of Impact Wrestling Hall of Fame inductees to 14.
The complete list of Impact Wrestling Hall of Fame inductees:
The voices of TNA/Impact Wrestling are set to take their rightful place in the company’s Hall of Fame.
During Victory Road, it was revealed that Mike Tenay & Don West will be inducted into the Impact Hall of Fame at Bound for Glory this October. The pay-per-view is being held at Cicero Stadium in Cicero, Illinois on Saturday, October 21.
West is being posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame. He passed away in December 2022 following a battle with cancer.
Before becoming a pro wrestling broadcaster, West was already well-known as a sports collectibles pitchman. He and Tenay worked together as announcers from TNA’s launch in 2002 until 2009. Tenay was later paired with Taz on commentary.
Tenay won Best Television Announcer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards in 1997 and from 2002-2005. Tenay’s first win came while he worked for WCW and the other four were while he was in TNA.
The Impact Hall of Fame was introduced in 2012. With Tenay and West’s inclusion, there have been 13 total inductees:
Dave Meltzer and I are back with Wrestling Observer Radio. We opened up the show talking the latest news in wrestling as well as in today’s issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter including the following:
The latest on Cash Wheeler’s situation
Dave’s story on the CM Punk, Ryan Nemeth, and Adam Page situation
The WrestleMania 40 gate
Shows he’ll be seeing in the UK
Then, Mike Tenay joined the show to talk about the passing of someone who influenced both he and Dave greatly, Koichi Yoshizawa.
After popular demand and a personal request, our Wrestling Observer Radio interview from this past weekend featuring former WCW & TNA broadcaster Mike Tenay remembering the late Don West is now free for all.
Enjoy this near-hour long talk with Mike, Dave Meltzer and Garrett Gonzales by clicking below.
If you would like to listen to this show in your podcast player of choice, it’s available on our Free Show RSS feed in addition to F4W Classics. You can also search for Wrestling Observer when searching in your podcast player and can find our free feed.
Everybody goes to this card, the larger-than-life personality, Don was the definition of that. The definition of larger than life personality and he had a heart to match.
You can see by the social media reaction, universally loved by everybody that worked with him and I think equally respected even by those who didn’t work with him. We’ve seen by TV tributes from both the WWE, which I have to say was a very pleasant surprise, and by AEW.
In the wrestling business, and I think it’s just by the nature of the business, you make a lot of great aquaintences but very few great friends and that’s exactly what he was.
Tenay was asked about what made Don succeed in his role and what was his best trait as a broadcaster.
Simply his energy. If we look back on the history of wrestling announcers, and I’m willing to be corrected here, I don’t think there really was anyone before that was really like him from that energy standpoint.
He was hired to be the voice of the fan. I’m not sure thinking back on it that I thought that he was going to succeed right from the start but when you see someone’s energy level, which is one thing, combined with the passion that they have for it, I think that’s where it’s different from somebody who is just playing a role and being loud.
Tenay also reflected on something Meltzer once said that is perhaps the greatest compliment his commentary pairing with West ever received.
As I think back on it, the greatest compliment we got came from you, Dave, which didn’t come until really the last couple of years and that was when AXS TV started replaying some of the older TNA and some of the older Impact shows and you had explained to me that you had watched the first-run Impact show and you essentially started to go back to work and you had left the TV on and as you sat there you heard that energy, you heard that passion from Mike Tenay and Don West. I think, not to put words in your mouth, but I think your level of appreciation for what we did grew greatly because you realized at that point that nobody really was doing that kind of an announcing job.
Wrestling Observer Radio with Dave Meltzer and Garrett Gonzales is back once again with special guest Mike Tenay.
On this edition of the show, we talk about why WWE fired Zelina Vega as well as the tweets from both former U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang and SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris about the issue.
We talk about the AEW and NXT ratings, the Full Gear PPV buyrate, and Seth Rollins taking a break shortly.
We then discuss the 2020 class of the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame, who was closest to getting in, who did well in the different voting groups, and what “drawing” means in 2020 and how WWE talent will fare on future ballots.
Timestamps:
Start: Hall of Fame general thoughts
3:23: Zelina Vega released, ex-WWE guys in Impact
27:41: Seth Rollins reportedly taking time off
28:25: AEW, NXT ratings
43:09: AEW Full Gear buyrate, next AEW title match
1:00:55: Hall of Fame
