10 Current WWE Wrestlers You Completely Forgot Had Runs In Impact Wrestling

At one point, Impact Wrestling was the second-largest wrestling promotion in the United States. But they dug their own grave due to bad management, and other poor decisions. Despite all of this, Impact is still active in the wrestling business. They may not be as huge as they once were, but the promotion does provide great opportunities to wrestlers.

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Current WWE stars like Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley went to Impact Wrestling and reinvented themselves before returning to WWE and having the run of their life. The following stars also used to work for Impact once, but most people don't know about it.

10 Dexter Lumis

Dexter Lumis was one of the surprising WWE releases earlier this year. He was recently brought back into the company after Triple H took over. Dexter first joined WWE in 2019, and before that, he was in Impact Wrestling as Samuel Shaw. He made his Impact debut in 2010 at Hardcore Justice and attacked Tommy Dreamer during his match against Raven.

His first year in Impact was pretty forgettable as he was signed to a developmental contract and didn't have much spotlight on him. Lumis started appearing on Impact regularly in late 2013 when he became Christy Hemme's stalker, a gimmick similar to what he's doing on Raw these days.

9 Zelina Vega

Impact Wrestling gave an opportunity to Zelina Vega in 2011, after Tommy Dreamer scouted her. Vega worked as Rosita in the Knockouts division. She was also part of the Mexican America stable and even won the Knockouts Tag Team Championship with her tag team partner, Sarita.

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Behind the scenes, it was Sting who helped Zelina get this title victory in Impact Wrestling. The Stinger liked her work and suggested Dixie Carter put a title on her.

8 Karrion Kross

Karrion Kross got his start in wrestling with Global Force Wrestling. After working for different promotions for the next few years, he landed in Impact Wrestling and worked as Killer Kross.

While Kross didn’t win any championships in the promotion, he did win a few big matches against the likes of Tommy Dreamer, Brian Cage, and Johnny Impact.

7 Scarlett

A month after Karrion Kross’ Impact Wrestling debut, Scarlett also joined the promotion. Dubbed “The Smoke Show,” she used to attract people using her charm and even had a sketch show called The Smoke Show.

She left Impact a few months before Karrion, because Impact granted her release but not Karrion’s, for some reason. A segment involving her and Scott Steiner did go viral, but other than that, there’s not much she accomplished in Impact Wrestling.

6 Angel Garza

Angel Garza made his wrestling debut in 2008, and for the next decade worked mostly for Mexican-based wrestling promotions. Although he did have a brief stint in Impact Wrestling as Garza Jr.

Garza and Laredo Kid joined the promotion together. Laredo Kid still works for Impact, but Angel left the promotion after eight months. During this time, he didn’t do anything significant.

5 Xavier Woods

Two years after his wrestling debut, Xavier Woods showed up at Bound For Glory 2007. That night, he teamed up with Ron Killings to face AJ Styles and Tomko for the Impact World Tag Team Titles, replacing Adam Jones. Initially, he worked as Rasheed Lucius Creed but later rebranded himself as Consequences Creed.

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Next year, he aligned with Jay Lethal, and their tag team was known as Lethal Consequences. For the remainder of his Impact run, Woods and Lethal were a pair and were also tag team champs at one point. Woods was released from his contract in 2010.

4 Max Dupri

Max Dupri had worked for WWE for a short time before joining Impact Wrestling in 2015. However, he didn’t make his WWE television debut until 2021.

In Impact Wrestling, he worked as Eli Drake. Despite being a former Impact World Champion, a lot of fans don’t know about Dupri’s run in Impact. That is probably because after Dupri left Impact, he didn’t do anything significant for the next two years.

3 Cameron Grimes

Before joining WWE in 2019, Cameron Grimes was working as Trevor Lee in the independent circuit. He also had a 3-year spell in Impact Wrestling from 2015-2018.

Initially, he worked as a tag team wrestler with Brian Myers. The duo even won the Impact World Tag Team Championships. Grimes then moved onto the X Division and won the X Division Championship by defeating Tigre Uni in 2016. He won this title two more times in his Impact career. Grimes left Impact in 2018 and signed a contract with NXT the next year.

2 Ciampa

Ciampa is currently performing on the Raw brand, as The Miz’s lackey. A lot of fans are unhappy with Ciampa’s main roster run, considering his spell in NXT was great.

Ciampa’s first run in WWE saw him work as one of Muhammad Hassan’s lawyers before WWE repackaged him as Dr. Thomas, an Anger Management Specialist. Ciampa also had a brief run in Impact Wrestling that lasted for only two matches.

1 Joaquin Wilde

Joaquin Wilde signed with Impact Wrestling in July 2011. A year later, he won the X Division Championship by winning a tournament. In 2013, he joined The BroMans as their personal DJ. Later, he also changed his name to DJZ.

Wilde continued working for Impact until 2018 and later joined WWE. Despite being fairly successful, fans don’t really know much about Joaquin’s time in Impact Wrestling. He’s currently active in WWE as part of the Legado del Fantasma stable.