We’re a month out from AEW All In in Wembley Stadium and 5 weeks from All Out in Chicago. With no firm storyline direction pointed at either the TBS or World Champions Kris Statlander and Toni Storm respectively, let’s take a quick look at where things could be heading, along with another couple of factors that could come into play around All In and All Out.
World Championship
Ideally, Jamie Hayter will be ready to return by All In and win back her World Title in front of 80,000 of her fellow Brits. Given that her last match was 60 days ago in which she seemed to be able to work it somewhat and wrestling at All In would give her a full 90+ days off, I feel like that’s a good possibility. But we can’t know for sure.
If Hayter is recovering from surgery or something and it will be months yet, I’ll say there’s no bad time to pull the trigger on Willow Nightingale. Fans can feel Willow inching toward being white hot, although thanks to her awesome feud with Athena, we can drip feed fans by having her beat Athena down the line. But after having watched their match at Death Before Dishonor, there’s no doubt in my mind that Willow could get every fan in attendance to heart-on-their-sleeve desperately pull for her to win, whether that’s in the United Center or Wembley Stadium. She’s a wizard of a babyface.
TBS Championship
Like the World Championship, I don’t think Kris Statlander’s title will ever seem in peril until she has to answer to its former champion in Jade Cargill. Jade has a serious claim to a rematch as she was beaten only after a match against Taya Valkyrie, so while her undefeated streak was snapped, arguably she’s never lost a ‘fair’ fight. And I have to think Jade will be back for All In. To be honest, if she’s not I’ll start to get a bit nervous. Male wrestling fans online can be tiring, pro wrestling is a brutal job, and financially, Jade doesn’t have to do this while having plenty of other avenues outside of wrestling she can pursue.
Other than Jade, I think you can re-stoke the feud with Leyla Hirsch, although she isn’t want I would consider a credible threat. If Thunder Rosa had been going this whole time since Collision has been on the air I might consider her a great challenger for Stat but we don’t know her status. I like the idea of The Outcasts turning their ire towards Stat in a quest to get all the gold and Ruby Soho had a great match with Statlander in last year’s semifinal of the Owen Hart tournament. Although I think her teammate Saraya would be a tantalizing threat that would give many fans a worry of a title switch. I suppose Serena Deeb could be waiting in the weeds, no word on what her condition is. But no, I think Kris Statlander and Jade Cargill’s fates are tied together and when that day comes, I’m not sure what Tony Khan does!
Mercedes Monè
Again, being that we’re in the shadow of the largest attending wrestling event in some time, if there ever was a time to pull the trigger on Mercedes Monè showing up in AEW, doesn’t All In feel like it? You could argue that All In doesn’t need her but looking at it from the other side of the table from Mercedes’ perspective, if I’m going to show up in AEW I want it to be in front of 80,000. Maybe she’d show up at All In and make a challenge for All Out? If that’s the case though, since we’re looking at championship prospects, Mercedes doesn’t need to fight for a championship. It could just be Mercedes Monè vs Britt Baker. Or she could be coming to get her win back over Willow Nightingale. For my own personal enjoyment, I’m not going to let myself build it up though.
STARDOM
Lastly, I’ll just touch on STARDOM. We’re seeing that AEW x STARDOM Forbidden Door increasingly creak open more and more all the time. I think at this point Toni Storm, Kris Statlander, and even ROH World Champion Athena have mentioned Giulia or at least STARDOM. And then we saw Utami Hayashishita herself wrestle in an ROH ring against Trish Adora. The thing about STARDOM though is, as much as I love this promotion, I don’t think it has the hardcore fanbase that NJPW has within AEW’s fanbase for it to justify the type of top billing cross-promotional involvement that I want it to see. I’d love to be surprised!
So those are some of my meandering thoughts AEW gold within the women’s division. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks for reading and, as always, make sure the women in your life know how much you appreciate them. 🙂
