Impact Wrestling preview (June 8, 2017): The Mumbai Zone

Impact Wrestling returns tonight (June 8) from Mumbai, India with their first of the most recent set of tapings. Here are our five questions about Impact tonight.

1) How much of an impact will Sonjay Dutt and Mahabali Shera have?

With Impact emanating from India, it’ll be curious to see how much focus home town wrestlers will get. Mahabli Shera is a native of India and will likely get some time in front of a home crowd. While he’s mainly a lower card act in Impact, he’ll likely have a bit of an elevated status while performing in his country. While I don’t think he’ll be getting a world title match, he’ll definitely be featured.

Then there’s Sonjay Dutt, who is way more established than Shera. It looks like he’s about to embark upon a feud with Low Ki for the X Division title. (Low Ki is defending his title against Caleb Konley tonight but the safe bet is he’ll retain to eventually face Dutt.) While Dutt/Low Ki could easily be a Slammiversary match, they may initially run the match in front of the home crowd of India. They can always rematch it at the PPV.

2) Is the main event of Slammiversary set?

As of now, the main event for Slammiversary is Impact champion Bobby Lashley vs. GFW champion Alberto El Patron. Right now, there’s no word if both titles are on the line. However last week at this time, the main event was Bobby Lashley vs. EC3. Then EC3 lost his spot in a GFW title match against Alberto on last week’s episode. If things could change last week, there’s a chance they can change again.

We may get a better idea of that when Alberto and Lashley are in the same ring tonight... alongside Bruce Pritchard of course. Pritchard and EC3 have issues with each other and I’d be surprised if the One Percenter didn’t interrupt this segment.

Slammiversary is four episodes of Impact away. There’s plenty of time to alter it again before they confirm it for good.

3) Is the story involving Braxton Sutter and Allie’s issues with Sienna, Laurel Van Ness, KM, and Kongo Kong done?

Tonight, Laurel Van Ness will face off against Rosemary, who will be defending her Knockouts title.

For a couple months, the story was that Sienna blamed Allie and Braxton Sutter for Maria’s departure and Laurel’s descent into madness. It was a story that ended up adding KM, Kongo Kong, and Mahabali Shera, but it didn’t really go anywhere.

Then things shifted when Rosemary saved Allie from a 2-on-1 beatdown from Laurel and Sienna. Now the story looks to be that Rosemary has taken it upon herself to protect the innocent Allie. It’s also possible she has her eyes set on Sienna’s GFW Women’s title as well.

Things are always more interesting with Rosemary involved.

4) What’s going to happen with the GFW NexGen title?

This is kind of tongue in cheek, but it’s also a legit question.

All of the GFW titles have made an appearance in Impact. Hell, the promotion’s tag titles were vacant and they went out of the way to crown new ones. (LAX defeated Veterans of War to claim those last week.)

Cody Rhodes is GFW NexGen champion. But it looks like he won’t be back with Impact. He wasn’t at the last set of tapings. He’s not on this set. And he’s got another Ring of Honor title match against Chris Daniels this month that I’d be a bit surprised if he doesn’t win.

If he’s not going to be part of Impact/GFW, are they going to crown a new NexGen champ as well? It would only make sense the way things are going.

5) How will the announcers feud be represented overseas?

Jeremy Borash and Joseph Park vs. Josh Mathews and Scott Steiner is set for Slammiversary. How will they build it while in India?

It’s a safe bet that Steiner didn’t travel to Mumbai to sell this. So we won’t see him in front of the crowd again until the PPV itself. They can always do some taped stuff in the states with him to make his presence felt.

Last we left this feud, JB was having big time second thoughts since he found out he’d be facing the Big Bad Booty Daddy. Joseph Park convincing Borash to compete will likely be how they represent the story in Mumbai.

Impact Wrestling returns tonight at 8 EST on Pop TV. Who’s watching?