In the 20 year existence of IMPACT Wrestling/TNA, a number of wrestlers can lay claim to being the best ever to compete in the company. When one thinks about the greatest wrestler in IMPACT/TNA history names such as AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, Sting and Bobby Roode among others all come to mind. There is another name that can be added to that list when it comes to debating who the all time greatest wrestler is in IMPACT/TNA history. That name is Josh Alexander and he is the current IMPACT Wrestling World Champion in the midst of an incredible run.
Back in 2018, while he was thriving on the Canadian Indy scene, Josh Alexander first made his IMPACT Wrestling appearances as enhancement talent against Trevor Lee, Sami Callihan, Killer Kross and Matt Sydal. Alexander must have made an impression on IMPACT EVP Scott D’Amore who signed him to three year deal in February 2019. That signing was a memorable one as it occurred in the ring at a Destiny Wrestling/Blackcraft Wrestling joint event after Alexander successfully defended his title against Simon Grimm. It was quite obvious that signing Alexander was a priority for IMPACT and it has paid off incredibly for the company.
Alexander made his debut as an official member of the IMPACT Wrestling roster on March 22, 2019 in Windsor, Ontario. He was placed with long time partner Ethan Page in a tag team known as The North. The North immediately thrived and became one of the top tag teams in IMPACT Wrestling. They held the IMPACT Wrestling Tag Team Titles on two separate occasions. The run of The North ended when Ethan Page left IMPACT and signed with AEW in 2021. This opened the door for Josh Alexander to prove that he can be a top singles star in the world of professional wrestling.
While all of Canada knew just how great Alexander was, the entire world was about to find out as well. As a singles competitor, Alexander rose up the ranks in IMPACT Wrestling very quickly. At IMPACT Rebellion on April 2021, Josh Alexander captured his first singles title in the company as he won the X Division Championship by defeating Ace Austin, who was the champion, and TJP in a triple threat match.
Josh Alexander defended the X Division Title in an IMPACT Wrestling ring 8 times and numerous times on the indy scene. His title defenses were all becoming must see matches. He had numerous memorable X Division Title defenses against El Phantasmo, Ace Austin, Black Taurus and Chris Sabin. It was an epic iron man title defense against TJP that got fans really talking about how incredibly talent Josh Alexander was. It was after his successful title defense against Chris Sabin at Victory Road 2021 that Alexander decided he wanted more.
After then IMPACT Wrestling World Champion Christian Cage defeated Ace Austin at Victory Road 2021, Alexander entered the ring and exercised option C for Bound For Glory 2021. At Bound For Glory 2021, Alexander defeated Cage to win the IMPACT World Title for the first time but that reign was very short lived as Moose, who had won the call your shot gauntlet, cashed in and won the title. This led to a terrific feud that between Moose and Josh Alexander over the IMPACT Wrestling World Title.
In his quest to be come IMPACT Wrestling World Champion again, Alexander was victorious in a number of outstanding matches that included encounters against Jonah, Minoru Suzuki and Matt Taven. I believe after his incredible victory over the legendary Minoru Suzuki people started to consider Alexander as possibly one of the very best in the world. It was a high profile international match that really opened many eyes to the talents of Josh Alexander.
Alexander went on to defeat Moose for IMPACT Wrestling World Championship at Rebellion 2022 only this time, the belt was staying around the waist of Alexander. After retaining against Moose in their rematch, another huge title defense with international attention took place against New Japan Pro-Wrestling superstar Tomohiro Ishii. In another epic match, Alexander defeated Ishii to keep the IMPACT World Title. He has successfully defended the IMPACT World Title in an IMPACT ring 10 times and numerous times on the indy scene.
It appears that IMPACT Wrestling has been making the attempt to push Alexander as one of the greatest champions in the history of the company. This is evident as Alexander has been placed in title defenses against IMPACT Wrestling past greats such as Eric Young, Eddie Edwards, Alex Shelley and Frankie Kazarian. Alexander was victorious in all these challenges and each match can be labelled as MOTY candidates. He has an upcoming title defense against former TNA World Champion Bully Ray.
Josh Alexander completed quite a feat over the course of two days on November 18th and 19th. On November 18th, Alexander successfully defended the IMPACT World Title at Over Drive in an epic match against Frankie Kazarian that lasted over 30 minutes. The following night on November 19, Josh Alexander defended the IMPACT World Title during a TV taping against Mike Bailey in another epic match that latest over 59 minutes. There are very few talents that would be able to pull that off. Two epic matches in two nights for a total of 90 in ring minutes.
Josh Alexander is currently the second longest reigning IMPACT Wrestling World Champion. On January 5th 2023, Alexander will pass Bobby Roode as the longest reigning IMPACT World Champion as he will have held the title for 257 days. In my opinion, this was the goal of IMPACT Wrestling from the get go, to promote Josh Alexander as one of the all time greats to ever to set foot inside an IMPACT Wrestling ring.
Josh Alexander can have terrific matches against any type of wrestler. Whether he is facing a high flyer such as Mike Bailey, a monster such as Jonah, or a technical master such as Minoru Suzuki, if Josh Alexander is in the ring, the fans know they can expect an outstanding match and it seems that he never disappoints.
A talent like Josh Alexander doesn’t come around too often and we should be very thankful as fans today that we get to experience first run and live matches involving Alexander. Many years from now when Josh Alexander is no longer wrestling, future fans of pro wrestling will be wishing that they got to see Josh Alexander wrestle live. One thing is for certain, the name Josh Alexander has become synonymous with the words “epic match”.
While the title of the article asks if Josh Alexander is the greatest wrestler in TNA/IMPACT history, I won’t go as far as calling him THE greatest of all time but I will call him ONE of the greatest. So the next time you are involved in a conversation about who is the greatest wrestler of all time in TNA/IMPACT history and you hear the names AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle and Sting make sure you say the name Josh Alexander because he belongs in that conversation.
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