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WHO IS EL PHANTASMO? A PRIMER FOR IMPACT WRESTLING FANS

Impact Wrestling announced during tonight’s show that New Japan Pro Wrestling junior heavyweight star El Phantasmo will debut next week.

El Phantasmo joined New Japan as a member of Bullet Club in 2019, pinning current IWGP World Heavyweight Championship holder Will Ospreay in his first match.

Since then, he has won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships twice with Bullet Club stablemate Taiji Ishimori - who also made regular appearances for Impact throughout 2017 and 2018.

El Phantasmo is originally from Vancouver, Canada but was a regular face on the British wrestling independent wrestling scene before joining New Japan. He lost to Hiromu Takahashi on the first night of Wrestle Kingdom 15 on January 4 in his biggest match to date.

His last match in Japan was on the second night of Castle Attack on February 28, when he and Ishimori lost the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships to El Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru (who have since lost the titles to SHO and YOH).

El Phantasmo has recently been using a new maneuver called Sudden Kick, a normal superkick which seems to be unnaturally strong. He attributes the move’s effectiveness to his intense training regime of kicking trees in British Columbia while he was unable to travel to Japan due to the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic, but there are "heavy implications" that his boot is loaded.

Impact and New Japan have been exchanging talent over the past few months, with Impact’s Chris Bey competing in the Super J-Cup last year and FinJuice (David Finlay and Juice Robinson) winning the Impact World Tag Team Championships this year. El Phantasmo's impending debut is the latest exchange between the two companies.

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