GFW Impact preview (Aug. 31, 2017): Celebrate good times, come on!

GFW Impact returns tonight. (Aug. 31) from the Impact Zone in Orlando, Florida with the third episode from their last set of tapings.

Here’s what’s announced so far:

• Eli Drake championship celebration
• Eli Drake & Chris Adonis vs. Johnny Impact & Eddie Edwards (if Eddie or Johnny score a pinfall, they will be first in line for the title)
• Petey Williams is back in action
• Fallah Bahh and Mario Bokara vs. oVe

And here are our five questions about tonight’s episode:

1) Who’s Eli Drake’s next challenger?

Last week, Eli Drake survived the 20-man gauntlet match to become the new GFW Global champion. Tonight, the man rightfully celebrates.

But in wrestling, two things are usually guaranteed:

• Celebrations are usually interrupted
• There’s no rest for the wicked.

Meaning we should have an idea of who will be challenging the Neighbor of Dummies next for the GFW title. It looks like the two guys who are in the front of the line were the last two eliminated last week. That’s Eddie Edwards and Johnny Impact. In their preview video, Jim Cornette sets up a tag match between Johnny/Eddie and Eli Drake/Chris Adonis. If Johnny or Eddie get a pin, that man will be have the first opportunity to challenge for the title..

We don’t know what will happen if Drake’s team wins.

2) How long will he hold the title?

This is a bit of a follow up to what I wondered last week.

Is Eli Drake their guy now? Are they giving him a chance to run with it? Or are they going to start hot shotting the title a bit more?

I’d like to see Eli get a legit run as champion and the opportunity try to establish himself as a top guy. He’s got the talent, but his booking was inconsistent coming into this. He was like a quarterback who has gone through multiple systems in just a couple years. He never got a chance to settle in. Sometimes he was a midcard champion. Sometimes he was doing comedy bits with Tyrus. Sometimes he was feuding with EC3. Sometimes he was putting over NFL players. But during it all, he was entertaining.

So I’d prefer him hold it at least until Bound for Glory, but who knows what’s in the cards. (People who have read the spoilers, that’s who.)

3) Is Matt Sydal still an X Division guy?

Matt Sydal defeated Bobby Lashley two weeks ago to earn the chance to choose a title match.

Up until that bout with the Destroyer, Sydal had been exclusively an X Division guy. But then he went and defeated Bobby Lashley. Given that, there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t cash in this opportunity against Eli Drake.

But it’s possible they keep him in the high flying division to help bolster it. With Petey Williams back and in action tonight, the division is continuing to strengthen.

Petey may end up feuding with Trevor Lee, since it was his interference that helped champion Sonjay Dutt retain his title against Lee. (To be fair, Trevor had Caleb Konley helping him first.)

Either way, we now have multiple guys who can fight for the X Division championship and they can all be sharp matches. We’ll see if Sydal is in that mix.

4) So we’re really getting a story involving Lashley’s MMA team?

In last two weeks, Lashley was on the losing side of matches while his MMA team, America Top Team, was at ringside. Both times someone from his team attacked the official.

Jeff Jarrett has gotten involved, though mainly backstage, and we’ve seen James Storm have words with them in a backstage segment as well.

Is this going to lead to Jarrett in a match? That’s always something hanging over us as a possibility. Will Storm be the one to fight for GFW? What’s the overall plan here?

The story is a bit ridiculous so far but we’ll see where it goes.

5) Are they going to write off Low-Ki?

Despite only returning a few months ago, Low-Ki is already done with GFW. Rumor has it that he wanted to remain in the title picture while they wanted him in the X Division. This may be shorter than his stint in the Beat Down Clan, but I haven’t crunched the numbers.

There’s a good chance they will write him off television. But it’s also possible that they didn’t know for sure until after the tapings he’d be leaving and he’ll just disappear. Given how quickly he was eliminated from the championship battle royal last week, my guess is they already knew he’d be leaving.

Since he wasn’t around that long, I don’t think he needs any big story sending him back on his way until next time. But if they can explain it, they probably should.

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