GFW Impact preview (July 6, 2017): What’s next?

GFW Impact (yeah, I’m still getting used to it too) is back tonight with their fallout from Slammiversary. Here are our five questions about tonight’s episode.

1) When will we see new titles?

After Slammiversary, three titles were unified: The world title, the Women’s title, and the tag titles (which were technically unified weeks ago). They didn’t present any new titles at the pay-per-view and there’s rumor that we may not see them until August. Of course, that’s only rumor.

Eventually, they’re going to need to either decide on a title (likely the GFW title given it’s now the name of the promotion) or present a new one to represent the new eara. Because there’s only so long a bunch of people can carry around two titles.

2) What’s the significance of the World X Cup?

Impact will be hosting the World X Cup, a single elimination 8 man tournament that represents different promotions. You can see all the participants here.

Obviously, GFW will have the most competitors. But promotions such as Wrestle Circus, Pro Wrestling NOAH, and Triple A are also participating. The biggest non-Impact name in this is ACH, who used to wrestle in Ring of Honor, and will be repping Chicago’s AAW. He’s quite the talent.

This is a fun concept. Tournaments often deliver and there’s already motivation to do your promotion proud. But is there more to it? Does the winner win a title shot or something along those lines? Is this going to be a yearly thing?

Those things will be revealed with time. But this could be an enjoyable exhibition even if there isn’t more to it.

3) Have we seen the last of DeAngelo Williams?

The former Panthers and Steelers running back had a great showing at Slammiversary. Yes, he overshot the frogsplash through the table, but otherwise, he looked like he belonged out there.

Chances are this was a one-off. It’s entirely possible that a football team will sign Williams before the season starts and that was all she wrote. And Moose told TMZ that he doubts we’ll see DeAngelo in the squared circle again.

But what if he doesn’t get signed or doesn’t like what’s out there? Would he turn back to wrestling. If he still has the itch, surely GFW will try to get him to come on board.

4) Is this Storm injury legit?

I feel bad even asking that because questioning a concussion seems wrong. At the same time this is pro wrestling, a business that has trained its fans to question everything.

GFW is reporting that James Storm sustained a rather severe (grade 3) concussion at Slammiversary. And given the match’s ending, a real injury makes sense.

The Storm/EC3 match ended with Storm collapsing in the middle of the ring when setting up for his second superkick. The announcers put over the idea that a rough bump prior caught up to him. Carter ended up hitting another move on a downed Storm before getting the win. While awkward, it played smoothly enough that my first instinct was a work.

But concussions are serious and at this point, wrestling should shy away from using it as part of a story. The business has a bad history with brain injuries so it wouldn’t make any sense for them to use that injury to work fans. Why try to get people thinking there are more head injuries than the reality when that’s the exact opposite impression they want to give?

5) Who’s the newest member of LAX?

After LAX retained their tag team gold at Slammiversary, Konnan got on the mic and said a new member would be making themselves known soon.

Now we speculate.

LAX stands for Latin American Exchange so we’re likely looking at someone of Latino descent. Of course, that’s not definitely the case (Owen Hart was in the Nation of Domination after all), but it’s probable.

GFW has a relationship with Triple A so there are plenty of people who aren’t in Impact they can use. I saw the idea of them recruiting Alberto El Patron floating around and that could be an interesting turn.

Any guesses? Leave them in the comments.

GFW Impact airs tonight at 8 EST on Pop TV. Who’s watching?