On October 31 at Destiny Wrestling in Canada, "Speedball" Mike Bailey officially signed with IMPACT Wrestling.
Bailey had just wrestled former IMPACT World Champion Josh Alexander when Scott D'Amore entered the ring and offered him a contract. Bailey signed the deal on the back of Alexander.
“I look forward to starting with Impact Wrestling,” Bailey told Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated. “The response from people has been overwhelming. Not that I didn’t expect the response from the crowd and the internet to be positive, but it was so positive. Some of the comments I’ve read have been so positive that they’ve almost brought me to tears. I love wrestling. And when wrestling works, it works for everyone. It brings people together in a way that is really hard to describe. There are so many ways to fail and it is very unforgiving, which is why it is so satisfying when you succeed.”
On May 21, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer reported Mike Bailey and WWE were "working on a deal." WWE was reportedly working on getting Bailey's visa issues resolved first.
Speaking about his talks with WWE, Bailey said, "We went through a process and we had some pretty in-depth discussions. I didn’t sign a contract. It pretty much went up to that point of me accepting an offer and going through the proceedings that would lead up to me signing for several months, and them deciding they were going in a different direction.”
D'Amore said Bailey is likely to debut for IMPACT in the first part of 2022.
Fightful provides live coverage of IMPACT Wrestling beginning at 8 p.m. ET every Thursday.
