Tonight’s the night, AEW Double or Nothing 2020 is soon upon us! We’ll be crowning an inaugural champion this evening as Cody takes on Lance Archer in the finals of the TNT Championship Tournament! You can expect the same live coverage of the event as always, plus a preview of every match on the card! There’s plenty to talk about so let’s get underway!
TNT Championship Tournament Final: Cody vs. Lance Archer
This one’s nearly three months in the making, with the build to this starting days after Cody’s rough loss to MJF at AEW Revolution. Lance Archer and his manager Jake Roberts have been menacing Cody for months. We’ve seen Archer decimate his brother Dustin as Cody was left holding the towel, conflicted about whether or not he should toss it. We’ve seen Jake Roberts lay one of his famous snakes upon the fallen body of Cody’s wife Brandi Rhodes. The time has come now for this showdown, which is also the finals of what has been quite the tournament.
Cody defeated two storied opponents of his to get here. He felled his former friend Shawn Spears and the up-and-coming Darby Allin in the first two rounds. As for Archer, he went through a couple of seasoned veterans in Colt Cabana and the aforementioned Dustin Rhodes. Pretty much every match in the tournament has been a good one so the pressure is on to cap it off strong.
More than that, it’s the start of a new championship, one they seem keen on promoting as nearly on-par with the AEW World Championship as it will be held above the Top 5 Rankings in much the same way. And that’s a key thing because after all, Cody can’t challenge for the AEW World Championship after his loss to Chris Jericho at Full Gear. Going through with that always seemed like a strange move considering his incredible popularity. Sure, it establishes that AEW takes their stipulations seriously but to do so at the cost of keeping your most obvious, ready-made figurehead babyface from ever holding your top title? It’s an odd choice but here they have the opportunity to rectify this.
It’s hard to say exactly how big the TNT title will be but I do find it notable that Cody is going in #1 in the rankings, ahead of even Brodie Lee, the No. 1 Contender to the World Championship. I have to think that’s a deliberate way of subtly elevating this new title’s perception. I almost wonder if they’re going to have this match positioned over Brodie/Moxley too… though I imagine the Stadium Stampede will actually close the show regardless.
Is this all to say that Cody’s going to win tonight? Well I’m not so sure. Certainly I think he’ll be holding this title at some point but that doesn’t mean he’ll be the first. Lance Archer is undefeated and has been an extremely well-built monster, in just over two months he’s become a major part of AEW. It wouldn’t be strange at all to see him hoisting the gold, or whatever this new title is made out of. One could argue that perhaps it’s too early to beat him…
Other factors: Mike Tyson will be presenting the TNT Championship and will also be at ringside. They’ve teased some kind of involvement in the match itself. My guess is at one point he’ll be punching out Jake Roberts. Of course Arn Anderson has also promised to deliver a Spinebuster to Jake so it might be a real bad night for the Snake! DDP Yoga has been shown to work some miracles but the jury is still out on if either of these things are actually possible. I wouldn’t be too quick to have him take bumps personally.
This is one of the tougher matches to call on the night. But ultimately, I do have to make a prediction, so I think I’ll go ahead and say that it’s about time for Cody to win a title.
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