Johnny Swinger Signs New Deal With IMPACT

Grab your poker chips and make your way to Swinger’s Palace, as Johnny Swinger has signed a new deal with IMPACT Wrestling.

The cult favourite revealed on the House of Hardcore podcast that he’s sticking around until 2023 at the earliest, telling Tommy Dreamer:

“Brother, I’m telling you man and he [Scott D’Amore] said to me, he called me on fourth of July 2019, I was out by the pool so that’s why I remember — he didn’t call me, he sent me a text, said, ‘I got an idea for you in IMPACT, it’ll be fun and easy’ and my response was, ‘When do I start?’ I didn’t ask what it was, I didn’t care because I knew that he knows what to do with me so I’ll just trust in that. So it was three weeks after that before he told me what I was finally doing and when I talked to him, he goes, ‘We’ll either get three months out of this or we’ll get three years out of it,’ and you know, obviously he’s still happy with it.

“They’re offering me another year and there’s a lot of people — I started thinking about all the people I’ve worked with there over the last three years that aren’t around anymore that were really big time talent so, you know, I was just in awe of Ken Shamrock when I first came in, because I never really knew him before that but I got to kind of be friendly with him, really cool guy and I was thinking, you know, after a year-and-a-half, he was gone and I’m still here three years — that makes me feel good that I’m a pliable character that you just cameo into something and you have a good idea and it’s like boom, it’s an easy, simple thing and everybody gets it and I’m just grateful for the chance to come back on a TV level and do this character which it’s not really a character. It’s just what I am and what I’ve seen and I add a lot of colour to it and I watch a lot of people,” said Swinger.

One of wrestling’s true journeymen, Swinger was part of the original ECW before it closed in 2001, and has recently been working as an agent for the NWA:

“You agented down in the NWA which you really, really liked and I feel that you can do that as well and I feel that’ll be something for you because think of, like you said, your résumé. You’re one of the few guys, WCW, ECW, WWE, TNA, IMPACT. Lot of people don’t have that and you’ve worked with everybody,” said Tommy Dreamer.

“And it’s like you just said there, I’ve seen some advertisements of some of the matches I agented and excited, man, I produced that match, you know what I mean?” replied Swinger. “To me, it’s like working… If I come in the ring, have a match this week at TV, it’s the same as producing a match because you’re involved with and they’re asking you, ‘What if I did this’ or, ‘How should I?’ So, we’re a part of the match as a producer too so I could really see that as a future [for] me too. You know, people don’t wanna see me in the ring at 54, you know? This is a way I can continue with the business and still enjoy it and contribute something.”

H/T: POST Wrestling