Tonight All Elite Wrestling comes our way from Jacksonville, Florida. Last week, Matt Sydal narrowly lost his championship opportunity, Hangman Page continued to rack up the single wins, Lance Archer stole Sting’s bat, Britt Baker once again proved why she is the face of the women’s division while insulting Mick Foley, Christian Cage challenged Frankie Kazarian to a match, The Pinnacle won their in-ring debut, Brian Cage “apologized” to Team Taz for his Sting love fest, QT Marshall threw a temper tantrum inspiring Cody Rhodes to accept his challenge, The Lucha Bros & Laredo Kid weren’t able to celebrate their win against The Young Bucks & Brandon Cutler because Kenny Omega and The Good Brothers attacked them, The Young Bucks choose D&D over Kenny, Moxley & Kingston continued to deliver A+ backstage segments, Tay Conti scored an impressive win against Nyla Rose, and John Silver continued to steal our hearts as he bravely fought (and :( lost) Darby Allin for the TNT championship.
This Week’s Headliner:
Christian Cage has been hanging around backstage at AEW for a few weeks now but has yet to make his in-ring debut. And that’s not sitting right with veteran Frankie Kazarian. After a “friendly” backstage conversation last week, Christian agreed to step into an AEW ring against Kazarian tonight.
These two have a history both on Impact and other promotions, so this is an excellent choice for Cage’s first match in AEW. They know how to work each other, and the chemistry they have has already been established. Additionally, it also helps to cement Kazarian as a solo competitor in AEW and not just a tag team specialist.
The big hook here is Christian Cage has not been an active wrestler since 2014, while Frankie Kazarian has been going virtually non-stop his entire career. Sure, Cage’s body has been allowed to heal, but will ring rust weigh down his lauded in-ring acumen? Tonight we find out!
The Title Scene:
The AEW World Champion Kenny Omega teams up with his best friends The Good Brothers to battle The Lucha Bros & Laredo Kid. Kenny Omega & pals beat up their opponents last week after they won their bout against The Young Bucks, and boy did that blow up in their face! Now The Champ is down two friends AND has to fight the people he blindsided. And he was just attacked in a Casino! It’s been a rough week for the champ.
Nyla Rose has been terrorizing the women’s division with her manager Vickie Guerrero and a series of ne’er-do-well partners. Tonight she teams up with one of those partners, The Bunny, to take on the AEW Women’s Champion Hikaru Shida and the woman who pinned Nyla last week, Tay Conti. Honestly, who knows what will happen here. It seems like it’s another opportunity to make good on the threat of Nyla Rose and maybe reignite her feud with Shida, but this could also easily turn into Shida & Conti winning and Conti earning herself a title match. Regardless of what happens, I’m just THRILLED that The Bunny will actually get to wrestle!
Darby Allin retained his TNT Championship against John Silver last week in a banger of a match. Seriously, John Silver deserves a championship sooner rather than later. Tonight, Allin will presumably continue with his open challenge. That is unless Scorpio Sky has something to say about it...
The AEW Tag Team Champions left their Bullet Club bros in the dust last week. I’m sure that will have absolutely zero consequences and that they will get to be the tag team champions without any recourse from their former friends. Right?
Other Things to Keep an Eye On:
-Miro has reluctantly agreed to partner with his “friend” Kip Sabian to battle Orange Cassidy & Chuck Taylor in an Arcade Anarchy match, aka a Miro & Kip break-up match.
-Cody Rhodes has magnanimously agreed to an exhibition match with his “friend” and Nightmare Family member QT Marshall. QT is out to prove that he worth more than being Cody’s bitch. It’s good to have goals.
-MJF has a gift for The Pinnacle. It’s either tickets to Las Vegas or Sammy Guevara’s head on a spike.
-Jon Moxley locks up with Cezro Bononi, To remain relevant, I suppose.
Tune into AEW on TNT at 8 p.m. EST to see how this all plays out!