Impact Wrestling preview (Mar. 22, 2018): Now it’s time to say good night

Impact Wrestling returns tonight (Mar. 22) from the Impact Zone in Orlando, Florida. This is the eighth episode from the most recent set of tapings.

Here’s what’s advertised for tonight:

• Feast or Fired Briefcase reveal
• Abyss vs. Kongo Kong in a Monster’s Ball match
• Sienna vs. Allie (c) for the Knockouts championship
• Matt Sydal vs. Rohit Raju

As per usual, here are our five questions about Impact tonight:

1) How will EC3’s farewell be handled?

I keep thinking every week is EC3’s final and every week, they keep stretching it. But this has to be it.

Tonight is the Feast or Fired reveal and there’s no doubt in my mind he gets the fired briefcase. So what happens after he opens it? Does he give a farewell speech? Does he just ride off into the sunset?

I hoping for a moment that give fans a chance to thank him one final time before he leaves the promotion. He was the soul of Impact for awhile and the crowd will surely want to show their appreciation.

2) Where do the rest of the briefcases land?

If EC3 is fired, then the World title shot, tag title shot, and the X division title shot goes to Moose, Eli Drake, and Petey Williams.

The X Division title shot makes most sense going to Petey Williams, but at the same time, that’d be almost too convenient. It’s more likely that Moose or Drake get it just by odds alone. However, both really don’t fit in that X Division.

Eli Drake or Moose are both guys that fit into the world title picture. Hell, Eli Drake held the main title for the better part of last year.

The tag case is the mystery because none of these guys are in a team currently. This means we should get a new tag team out of this in the future as well. Scott Steiner and Petey Williams reunion maybe? I’m just spitballing here.

3) What’s the path for Abyss?

After months of Jimmy Jacobs prodding Joseph Park to release the monster Abyss, he finally got his wish. Abyss’ past handler, and father, Father James Mitchell showed up to Impact week night to break the news to him. Jacobs was ecstatic.

This week, Jimmy’s monster Kongo Kong faces Abyss in the Monster’s Ball match.

Is this the end point of Abyss’ journey? They made sure to take their time telling the story of the return of the Abyss and it really added to this build. Now he’s back to the Abyss from long ago. Is that the end? Or will there be a further evolution of Abyss?

4) What is Sienna’s role in the Knockouts division?

Former Knockouts champion Sienna has been absent from Impact for awhile. The reason behind that was blood clots in both lungs preventing her from competing.

Apparently, that’s been worked out because she’s in action tonight.

What is her role now in the newer KOs division? Her rival Allie holds the title, which she’ll be challenging for tonight. Her friend Laurel Van Ness is gone. Once she was part of a stable, now she’s solo. Plus now there’s Taya Valkyrie looking to leave her stamp has the top dog in the division.

It’s going to be harder for SIenna to make her way back to the top.

(Note: After publishing this, I realized my timing was off and Sienna’s blood clots occurred during this set of tapings and not before. Hopefully she recovers quickly.)

5) Is Josh Mathews still announcing?

Last week, lead announcer Josh Mathews revealed himself as Matt Sydal’s spiritual adviser. He was even gifted the Grand Championship.

Does this mean he’ll be moving away from the announce desk to be a full time on-air talent? They do have Don Callis running the show and he does color for New Japan. That being said, Josh Mathews was the play by play guy. If they replace him with Callis, that’d leave Don and Sonjay Dutt. That’s two color commentators.

Matt Sydal has a match tonight so we’ll see what happens during that, whether Mathews stays on the desk on puts over Sydal, leaves Dutt to call it solo, or if he’s replaced entirely.

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