With word coming from the likes of Fightful that Jamie Hayter is legitimately injured, Jamie Hayter retaining her championship seemed extremely doubtful. Over the course of all the action, from Hayter’s pre-match beatdown at the hands of The Outcasts to everything that happened in the match, it wasn’t obvious to me that she was injured at all! Whether that’s a credit to Hayter’s toughness, everyone’s cleverness to work around the injury, or maybe some other explanation, it never felt obvious to me that this was a shoot injury.
The match itself was somehow only 3:03. It feels like they got a fair amount of action in but maybe all the pre-match stuff helped too. Ruby Soho blinds Hayter with green spraypaint leading to Storm hitting the Hip Attack but Jamie kicks out. Jamie manages to hit Hayterade but is unable to make a quick pin and Storm stays alive. The finish comes after Hayter is sent into an exposed turnbuckle that Ruby had left behind and she’d stumble back towards Toni who hits her with Storm Zero for the win. The first ever 2-time AEW World Champion. I really really enjoyed Toni Storm’s babyface run as, at the time, Interim AEW World Champion and I hope that she’s allowed to go on a dominant run of defences that aren’t just total screw jobs. I get that as a heel in The Outcasts, she sort of has to cheat but we get lots of good competitive matches out of this run.
As for Hayter, we’re completely in the dark about how serious this injury is. You’d think she’d need some significant time off to have to drop the belt but I also think we would’ve heard if she was going to miss All In at Wembley Stadium.
