Impact Wrestling returns tonight (May 24) from the Impact Zone in Orlando, Florida. It is the fifth episode from the most recent set of tapings.
Here’s what’s advertised for tonight:
- Matt Sydal (c) vs. El Hijo de Fantasma for the X Division championship
- Moose vs. Kongo Kong
- oVe vs. Drago & Aerostar
- LAX vs. the Cult of Lee
- Dezmond Xavier vs. Petey Williams
And as per usual, here are our five questions about Impact tonight:
1) What’s the plan for Matt Sydal?
Matt Sydal looked to have found a really good angle with his heel spiritualist gimmick. They even paired him with uber heater Josh Mathews, who everyone hates.
However, since defeating Petey Williams at Redemption, his character has meandered a bit. They moved Josh back to full time announcing, taking an aspect of the heat from Sydal. Matt also hasn’t had a chance to cut many promos to put over the character he was doing so well with. And the last matches he’s won, he’s won clean.
Those things combined makes it seem like they’re walking away from his heel persona. A talented wrestler who wins clean and doesn’t do much to annoy the crowd isn’t a heel. If the plan is to veer away from bad guy, I don’t understand why.
He defends his title against El Hijo de Fantasma tonight, who also hasn’t had a chance to develop a character recently. Perhaps we’ll see more of the obnoxious spiritualist out of tonight’s bout.
2) Where do the luchadors fit in?
Piggybacking off point one, Impact has a handful of masked luchadors from Lucha Underground who don’t have much of a character. They’re very talented in the ring and most, like Impact champion Pentagon Jr, have natural charisma. But right now, they’re in the “exhibition match” roll.
They’ve given us a little more on Pentagon since he’s the champ, but even in that case, we don’t know too much about who he is in Impact. We don’t know anything about Drago, Fantasma, nor Aerostar. Last year, they had a small “Impact vs. Triple A” feud but that was a different regime and feels like ages ago.
They certainly can take these talent shares and make characters out of them. I felt Ishimori’s feud with Matt Sydal helped him show some personality. (I still laugh thinking about when he read a scroll calling Sydal a “douchebag.”)
Will these Lucha talents get the same chance to show that charisma? If given an opportunity, they should definitely be able to.
3) Where is Eddie Edwards heading?
Last week, Eddie finally defeated Sami Callihan in a hardcore match at a House of Hardcore show. He immediately kept attacking Callihan post match, swearing that this isn’t over until he says it is.
Is the next chapter in Eddie’s story about him fighting Sami more? Or is it going to be more focused on the path he’s found himself walking ever since this all started? Tommy Dreamer has been with him trying to prevent him from fully giving into the darkness. Is that going to be the focus more than his issues with Sami?
4) Who is going to be the man to knock off Kongo Kong?
Ever since Jimmy Jacobs became the monster handler to Kongo Kong, the big man has been on a tear. He’s defeated fellow monster Abyss, and he’s beaten Johnny Impact. His next challenge comes tonight in Moose.
He and Moose already fought at different promotion and Jimmy Jacobs ended up getting his monster disqualified when he looked to be in trouble. That alone leaves Moose looking like the best chance to defeat Kongo.
Moose is probably the biggest man who’s faced Jimmy’s beast. (While Abyss is big, Moose has significant height on Kong.) But if Moose can’t get the job done, then who? Is Johnny Impact going to return from the injury at the hands of Kongo with and get revenge? Is Kongo going to end up as another notch in the belt of Brian Cage?
We’ll have to see if he can get past Moose tonight first.
5) When will Don Callis be back on commentary?
The last two week’s Josh Mathews has been calling Impact alone since they’re selling the beating that Don took at the hands of Sami Callihan weeks back.
Honestly, I don’t mind Josh as a down the middle play by play when he has someone else there to share the duties. But I don’t care for Josh alone. If Callis isn’t doing it to sell the story, they should bring back Sonjay Dutt, who acquitted himself quite well in the role.
Impact Wrestling returns tonight at 8 EST on Pop TV. Who’s watching?