Tonight All Elite Wrestling comes our way from Jacksonville, Florida. Last week, The Young Bucks went dark sided when they stole Rey Fenix’s mask to win their match, Hangman Page was caught chilling with The Dark Order, Red Velvet put up a hell of a fight but was ultimately defeated by Jade Cargill, Britt Baker revealed her master plan to climb the very important rankings, Anthony Ogogo won his debut match with a single punch, Chris Jericho defeated Dax Harwood while Cash Wheeler got punched in the face by Mike Tyson, Thunder Rosa made it known that she’s coming for the AEW championship and the NWA championship, Kris Statlander defeated Amber Nova in her first match back from injury, Christian Cage turned down Team Taz’s offer of membership, and Darby Allin retained his TNT Championship against Matt Hardy with a death-defying coffin drop.
This Week’s Headliner:
Tay Conti has been relentlessly working her way up the ladder in the AEW women’s division. With The Dark Order in her corner and her tag team partner, Anna Jay injured, she has said yes to every match opportunity and has earned herself the number 1 ranked slot in the division. She has also caught the eye and earned the respect of the AEW Women’s Champion Hikaru Shida after teaming with and fighting alongside the champ. Tonight all that hard work pays off as she goes one-on-one with the champion for the title.
While Conti is great and has clearly been putting in the work, Shida has been victorious in bigger championship bouts than this. Considering this, my gut instinct is to say Shida successfully defends here as well. Still, it would be shocking and exciting to have Shida lose her championship this week to a competitor that is quickly becoming a crowd favorite. It would open up the division to some new matches and could build a friendly feud between Shida and Conti as Shida tries to regain her title. Bonus, The Dark Order would once again have gold, and we would be delightfully deluged by all the silly nonsense that that would entail.
Of course, it is much more likely that Shida will retain and then lose the belt down the line to someone like Britt Baker, but a girl can dream.
The Title Scene:
TNT Champion Darby Allin resents being compared to Jungle Boy. Sure, they both do crazy spots, but everyone loves Jungle Boy, and Darby Allin couldn’t care less about what people think about him. Why else would he put out all of those art films? Tonight he continues his promise to be a fighting champion when he puts his belt on the line to prove that Jungle Boy doesn’t have what it takes to be champion.
At the time of this publication, The AEW World Champion and the AEW Tag Team Champions don’t have matches scheduled tonight. This tells me that tonight it’s shenanigans time. Let’s cut some promos backstage, throw some unsuspecting wrestlers into walls, read stories to children and throw money into the wind! Of course, Death Triangle might have a few things to say to the Young Bucks, considering they tried to unmask Fenix on live tv...but what’s a party without a few party crashers?
Other Things to Keep an Eye On:
-Christian Cage said no to Team Taz’s offer, and now he has to deal with Powerhouse Hobbs.
-Ricky Starks is trying to move up the singles rankings and bring Team Taz some much-needed Ws tonight when he faces number 1 ranked wrestling cowboy, Hangman Page.
-Last week, The Pinnacle suffered a loss at the hands of Chris Jericho. Tonight, Jim Ross sits down for a chat with the new faction, and we learn whether or not Wheeler is alive after getting punched in the face by Mike Tyson.
-Over on Dark The Nightmare Family’s Billy Gunn called out their former member and friend QT Marshall demanding payback for the sucker punch he received on Elevation. Tonight they battle.
Tune into AEW on TNT at 8 p.m. EST to see how this all plays out!