Impact Wrestling Slammiversary 2018: 3 Reasons Why Su Yung Should Retain

2. Madison Rayne Doesn’t Need To Win It…Yet

In all honestly, Madison Rayne’s return to Impact Wrestling has been even better than expected. She’s set the Knockouts Division ablaze with her performances in the ring, quickly reminding everyone in the audience that she is indeed a living legend. Rayne has a fight with Women of Honor champion Sumie Sakai coming up (July 21 in Atlanta), meaning she’ll have two title opportunities in the same weekend.

A five-time Knockouts Champion, Rayne is third place on the list behind Gail Kim (7) and Angelina Love (6), so a title win at Slammiversary would put her on path for a “chasing Gail Kim” kind of story. Rayne is still just 32, so it seems very likely for her to eventually become the all-time leader in Knockouts Championship victories.

But it isn’t her time to win the title yet. She just got back, and I think there’s so much more potential for her to have a slow limb to a title victory. The crowd is as behind her as anyone in Impact right now, which means the company can afford to milk things here. It would also seem off for her to beat Yung in her first title defense, because, again, she just got here and should probably be taken by surprise by Yung.

Furthermore, Rayne has already beaten Tessa Blanchard twice and Taya Valkyrie once. She’s already proven that she’s better than most of the big stars here, whereas Yung is an entirely different beast. That’s a story worth telling, because there’s room to work with there.