This week All Elite Wrestling comes our way live from Jacksonville, Florida. Last week, FTR earned a tag team title shot at All Out, Hangman Page betrayed The Elite, The Battle Royale competitors got all riled up, Thunder Rosa & Hikaru Shida signed their championship contract, Jon Moxley turned out to be an excellent lawyer, and The Dark Order brought their BTE antics to Dynamite.
Advertised for tonight:
- Jon Moxley versus Mark Sterling, MJF’s Lawyer
- The Young Bucks & Jurassic Express versus SoCal Uncensored & Private Party (winners face each other at All Out)
- Chris Jericho versus Joey Janela
- Best Friends versus Santana & Ortiz
Here are five questions about AEW tonight:
1) How long will Mark Sterling last before he eats a paradigm shift?
Once again, Jon Moxley proved that while he may be a man-shaped raccoon always ready for a fight, he’s also a smart man-shaped raccoon always prepared with a plan.
Now, we all know that the only way this match ends is with Mark Sterling, MJF’s lawyer, taking at least one (although more likely multiple) paradigm shifts from the champion. But what we don’t know is what level of squash match this will be. Sure, at AEW, Mark Sterling is MJF’s bumbling, terrible tie-wearing lawyer, but he also has a notable indie career in the ring.
Will Sterling put up a good fight? Or will this be yet another embarrassment for MJF and the Burberry gang?
2) Will Hangman Page explain why he interfered with The Young Bucks match?
The break-up between Hangman Page & The Elite has been building forever, but it came to a head last week when Hangman interfered with The Young Bucks match, causing them to lose their tag team title opportunity. Later in the show, Matt Jackson had a Hallmark level meltdown as he kicked a dejected-looking Hangman Page out of the group. (Seriously, someone cast Matt in a romcom immediately.)
Tonight - or possibly at All Out - I expect two things to happen: Kenny Omega to weigh in as he was not present during the interference or the break-up, and Hangman Page to explain his actions. I am especially curious about Page’s explanation because he seems so conflicted last week. Why, Hangman? WHY?
3) Will we get a second women’s match added to All Out?
Last week Big Swole defeated Britt Baker & co. in a 3-on-1 handicap match. That in and of itself would have been a sweet victory, but Britt, overconfident in her team, changed the stipulation pre-bell and told Swole that if she won the match that she could face Britt any time, any place. Ladies and Gentlefolx, we call that “hubris.” Now, the obvious choice would be for Swole to challenge Britt to a match at All Out, but we’ll see if that actually happens. They may want to wait on booking this match considering Britt’s knee may not be ready, or to stretch out this story a little longer seeing how it is one of their only competent women’s feuds.
We could also get a confrontation between The Nightmare Family’s Brandi and Dark Order’s Anna Jay. Two weeks ago, Anna Jay choked out Brandi while she was trying to save her husband from further embarrassment at “Daddy” Brodie’s hands. Last night on AEW Dark, Brandi cut a vicious promo on Anna, challenging her to a “face-to-face” match. Neither Jay nor Brando are particularly great wrestlers, but this could be a great kick-off match and, hopefully, another opportunity for someone to take The Nightmare Queen’s ego down a notch.
Multiple women’s matches on an AEW PPV? Do we dare to dream?
4) Should we expect last minute shenanigans from Jericho & Orange Cassidy?
Technically, Jericho has a match tonight with Joey Janela, but we all know that Jericho isn’t taking that match seriously. Joey Janela is just a tune-up for Jericho on his way to the much anticipated Mimosa Mayhem match. Additionally, The Best Friends are facing off with Santana & Ortiz, and while Jericho and Cassidy are not directly involved in their feud, they are always ready to help out (re: interfere) with their stablemates matches. It’s also conspicuous that Orange Cassidy doesn’t have a match, interview, or segment on the All Out go-home show. As such, it’s safe to say that there will be some kind of interaction from the citrus combatant and le champion especially, considering that Dynamite last week ended with Cassidy literally throwing himself at Jericho!
Of course, Jericho & Cassidy are two of the most creative wrestlers out there, so I couldn’t possibly fathom what kind of pre-mayhem mayhem they are going to get up to. I just hope it doesn’t involve waterboarding this time!
5) So...did Ortiz sleep with Sue?
Santana & Ortiz once again messed with Sue (perhaps literally this time...) and it’s up to Trent to defend his mom’s honor. Sue deserves better. Ooo, can Sue beat up Ortiz instead? Trent! Teach your mom how to fight!
Tune into AEW on TNT at 8 p.m. EST to see if we get any answers to these questions!