AEW Battle of the Belts II preview: Sex, violence, and the TNT Championship

AEW is coming down the final stretch of Championship Week with Saturday night’s Battle of the Belts II airing in TNT at 8 pm ET.

The AEW champions have made a clean sweep so far with Jurassic Express retaining the tag titles against reDRagon and Hangman Page keeping gold against Adam Cole in a Texas Deathmatch. With ROH now in the mix, Samoa Joe conquered Minoru Suzuki to win the ROH TV title in a Fight of the Year candidate.

Surely there will be an AEW belt changing hands during Championship Week, right?

Spoilers are out there for Battle of the Belts II, but many, myself included, choose not to sully any potential surprises. Please keep that in mind when chatting in the comments. If you’d like to discuss spoilers, do so in the comments of the spoiler post.

The lineup for Battle of the Belts II includes three title bouts:

• TNT Championship: Scorpio Sky (c) vs. Sammy Guevara
• AEW Women’s World Championship: Thunder Rosa (c) vs. Nyla Rose
• ROH World Championship: Jonathan Gresham (c) vs. Dalton Castle

If I have to guess which bout could end with a new champion, I’m picking Sammy Guevara to become a three-time TNT overlord. Scorpio Sky won the strap from Sammy with a little help from Paige VanZant. Ever since then, Sammy and girlfriend Tay Conti have made it their focus to trifle in the life of Dan Lambert, who is Sky’s manager. Guevara and Conti revealed that they oozed sex juices on the TNT title belt, which Lambert kissed without knowing that dirty piece of information.

The Spanish God’s goal was a mixed tag involving VanZant. When refused the match, the dating duo sledgehammered a car.

Sammy and Tay teased another violent surprise, but apparently Tony Khan relented to appease their destructive urges before they could take action. Khan granted a shot at the TNT Championship for Battle of the Belts II.

The mixed tag contest with VanZant should be a hot ticket, so I assume AEW still wants to deliver on that front. The reason I believe a title change could in the works is that Sammy loses leverage in defeat to Sky. Sammy’s vandalism is already questionable and would look even worse in the role of sore loser if he continues his hijinx.

On the other side of the coin, the juvenile behavior of Sammy and Tay has been receiving a spattering of boos from the live crowd. AEW might realize the current direction isn’t working and course correct to finish this feud for now with Sky retaining. That would give AEW leeway to rejigger the story to build overwhelming support in favor of Sammy and Tay. In my mind, that logic provides enough doubt to be uncertain about predicting a TNT winner.

You know who also loves violence... and cake? Nyla Rose.

The Native Beast is challenging Thunder Rosa for the AEW Women’s World Championship. The extent of this feud is basically Nyla interrupting Thunder when she tries to give promos as champ. Thunder has potential to bring the women’s division to new heights, so it would be odd if she lost the belt in her first defense. I’m pretty confident in predicting Thunder retains. Anything can happen though in this wacky world of professional wrestling.

Speaking of wacky, Dalton Castle has entered the scene to challenge Jonathan Gresham for the ROH World Championship. If that name is new to you, fear not. Castle is a flamboyant entertainer with a goal to bring panache to the screen. The man embodies the majestic peacock in his entrance. Castle is a former ROH world champ in his own right. He defeated AEW’s former golden child Cody Rhodes to win ROH’s top prize in 2017. Castle held the honor for 197 days.

Castle won’t be coming alone. He will have his boys by his side. The Tate twins are reuniting with Castle as former ROH six-man champs.

As exciting as it is to see Castle on the big stage of an AEW broadcast, let’s be real. The man stands little chance to dethrone Gresham. If there is one name that carried ROH through the COVID pandemic, it would be Gresham. The champ’s Pure wrestling style was the blueprint for that era of empty-arena wrestling. As it stands now, Gresham is in the conversation as best wrestler in the world. Make no mistake. The match should be competitive and enjoyable, but all my money would be bet on Gresham to retain. Do casinos still accept bets if spoilers are out?

Do you think any new champions will be crowned at Battle of the Belts II? Which match will steal the show?

Reminder to be mindful of spoilers in the comments. Thank you.