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Mickie James Vacates IMPACT Knockouts World Title Prior To Sacrifice PPV

By John Canton • Published 14th April 2023
mickie james impact hat

Mickie James delivered an emotional promo on IMPACT Wrestling this week where she announced she was vacating the Knockouts Title.

In the second half of 2022, Mickie James began a storyline in Impact Wrestling called “The Last Rodeo.” The story was that Mickie would start at the bottom and try to earn a Knockouts Title match. However, if she lost a match then she would retire after wrestling for 23 years.

At Impact Wrestling’s Hard To Kill pay-per-view in January, Mickie managed to accomplish her goal by beating Jordynne Grace in the main event to become the Impact Wrestling Knockouts World Champion. It was Mickie’s fifth time as the Knockouts Champion to go along with six Women’s Titles in WWE to make her an 11-time World Champion.

Sadly, Mickie James suffered a broken rib injury leading to an announcement that took place during Impact Wrestling this past Thursday. While speaking in an empty arena, Mickie delivered an emotional promo about how a doctor didn’t clear her to compete, so she’s vacating the Knockouts Championship ahead of Sunday’s Rebellion pay-per-view. After the announcement, Mickie left her championship and her hat in the ring.

It is unknown when Mickie James will return from this injury.

That means that the match between Jordynne Grace and Deonna Purrazzo, both of whom are former Knockouts Champions, at Rebellion is for the vacant Knockouts World Title.

The updated lineup for the Impact Wrestling Rebellion PPV from Toronto looks like this:

* Kushida vs. Steve Maclin for the vacant Impact World Championship

* Jordynne Grace vs. Deonna Purrazzo for the vacant Impact Knockouts World Championship

* Team Dreamer (Tommy Dreamer, Frankie Kazarian, Yuya Uemura, Killer Kelly, and Bhupinder Gujjar) vs. Team Bully (Bully Ray, Kenny King, Masha Slamovich, Brian Myers, and Moose) 10-wrestler Hardcore War

* Trey Miguel (c) vs. Jonathan Gresham vs. Mike Bailey in a three-way elimination match for the Impact X Division Championship

* Bullet Club (Ace Austin and Chris Bey) (c) vs. The Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) Ultimate X match for the Impact World Tag Team Championship

* The Design (Deaner, Angels, Callihan, and/or Kon) vs. Dirty Dango, Joe Hendry, and Santino Marella in a Six-man tag team match

* PCO vs. Eddie Edwards (with Alisha Edwards) in a Last Rites match