Impact Wrestling Archives: That Time Taya Valkyrie Became Impact Wrestling and Triple A Women's Champion By Hakeem Fullerton

Intro: Being a champion in professional wrestling is a great thing; It often means that the promotion trust you enough to represent the brand not only as a spokesperson for the company but also as a fighting champion.

It's another thing when you become the only person in recent history to hold two championships from two different companies at the same time...which the indeed the case for the woman who is at the center of today's article: Taya Valkyrie.

Who Is Taya Valkyrie?

Kira Forster-Hennigan is a Canadian born athlete who went from various activities like bodybuilding and being a ballerina to become a pro wrestler whose best known for her work in Mexico as well as other promotions like AAA, Lucha Underground and most notably Impact Wrestling.

Under the name 'Taya Valkyrie', Mrs. Hennigan has gone through various personas in her career, from a Game of Thrones/Vikings like gimmick known as "Lucha Royalty" to a Hollywood A-Lister alongside her husband and pro wrestler John Morrison/Johnny Mundo/Johnny Impact to wearing outfits that resembles that of the famous Disney villain, Cruella De Vil.

Along the way, she has wrestled some of the best wrestlers in the world, not signed by the WWE like Rosemary, Jordynne Grace, Tenille Dashwood, Su Yung and others.

While her achievements are numerous to say the least, today I'll be focusing on one of the more lesser known but impressive accomplishments made by the self titled "Wera Loca" or Crazy Blonde of Impact Wrestling and that's when she held the Impact Knockouts Championship and the Triple A Reina de Reinas Women's Championship at the same time.

Winning The Knockouts Title

Our story begins around the latter half of 2018, when third generation star and current Impact World Heavyweight Champion, Tessa Blanchard was the Knockouts Champion at the time following her win against Su Yung and Allie in a triple threat match for the title.

After months of being the KO Champion and defeating almost everyone on the active women's roster, Taya would appeared during the company's trip to Mexico in 2018. There Taya would announce via the titantron that not only would she be returning to Impact Wrestling but she also called out Tessa for a shot at the Knockouts Championship, which Tessa accepted.

The match would take place at that year's Bound For Glory event and it would be Taya's first match back in Impact Wrestling after losing a "Demon's Dance" match to Rosemary before disappearing from Impact TV for five months to take care of other obligations for places like AAA.

The match between Tessa and Taya at BFG 2018 was amazing however due to so sneaky shenanigans with the ring apron at the hands of Tessa, the third generation star ended up defeating Taya and retaining the gold in the process.

However, this wouldn't be the last time these ladies would face off against each other on PPV as the next PPV, 'Homecoming' saw the two square off for the Knockouts championship but this time with former KO champion and Impact Hall of Famer, Gail Kim serving as the special guest referee.

Following Tessa's decision to focus more on referee Gail Kim than on her opponent in the final act of the match, Taya Valkyrie would defeat Tessa Blanchard to become the Knockouts champion for the very first time in her career.

Shortly there afterwards, another match between Tessa and Taya would take place in Mexico but this time it was a street fight and once again Taya defeated Tessa to retain her championship.

Triple A and Impact Invade New York

When the announcement was made that Lucha Libre AAA would be hosting an event inside Madison Square Garden, it was seen as a big deal as it marked the second time a non WWE wrestling promotion would be hosting one of their shows at the legendary Garden in New York City.

However, problems arose when the ticket sales weren't moving as fast as AAA were expecting and the deadline to the event was reaching closer and closer, the rumor is that AAA was hoping to work some kind of deal with AEW to promote the event but nothing came of it and as a result they turned to their old ally and partner, Impact Wrestling to co-promote the event whilst also inviting the stars of the Impact roster to participate at the show as well.

While it was a last minute thing to include Impact to be apart of the show, it managed to work as a reported attendance number for the event called "Lucha Invades NY" was around 3,000 people.

One of the matches that were announced for the show would see Taya Valkyrie (who was at the time, close in becoming the longest reigning Knockouts champion in company history) challenging the then current reigning and defending AAA Reina de Reinas Women's Champion.

And who was the Triple A Women's Champion at the time you might be asking well that would...Tessa Blanchard; Taya vs. Tessa Part 4 would take place once again but this time inside Madison Square Garden's Hulu Theater.

Becoming A Dual Champion

The match between Taya and Tessa for the Reina de Reinas Women's Championship lasted only 10 minutes but with that said the ladies put in a lot effort for they amount of time they were given as the match was action packed from top to bottom complete with both them taunting each other throughout.

The match ended with Valkyrie hitting her finishing maneuver, The Road To Valhalla onto Blanchard and covering her for the 1..2..3 and as a result Taya Valkyrie became the AAA Women's Champion for a third time in her career.

After the match Tessa shook Taya's hand in victory and looked as if see was going to leave the ring until see turned around and attacked Valkyrie from behind, embracing her heel persona once again.

Of course, since what happened at this event had no bearings on the actually Impact Wrestling timeline, Tessa's heel turn was never brought up on Impact programming as she was still a babyface around this time during her feud with Sami Callihan.

This win was a monumental accomplishment for Taya as she not only won the Triple A Women's Championship but she did it while she was the Impact Wrestling's Knockouts Champion making her the first woman to achieve a feat like this in recent memory.

Present Day

As of the writing of this article, Taya Valkyrie is still the AAA Reina de Reinas Women's Champion, however her time as Knockouts Champion has come to an end after losing the belt to the Texas Powerhouse, Jordynne Grace on the January 18th 2020 episode of Impact.

On a positive note, Taya held the belt for 377 days (making her the longest reigning Knockouts champion but also the longest reigning champion in company history), she also won an award for Knockout of The Year in 2019 and she most recently battled her archenemy, Tessa Blanchard in March of this year for the Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship making it the first time two Knockouts have ever fought each other for the title.

Taya is still seen on Impact programming where it looks like she's working a program with her old rival turn friend-enemy Rosemary, where will this all lead to is unknown but considering the history these two have it bound to be interesting.

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Impact Wrestling Archives: That Time Taya Valkyrie Became Impact Wrestling and Triple A Women's Champion By Hakeem Fullerton

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