When AEW comes to TNT on October 2nd, it will be an historic night. We already knew that much would be true before we had any idea what would be taking place there. But over the past few days, leading up to the tickets for the event going on sale tomorrow morning, we have been bombarded with announcements about this show. Every day it’s something!
First, a match between EVP Cody Rhodes and up-and-comer Sammy Guevara was officially signed. Some are reporting that this will be the first match to take place when the show goes to air. Another match that was made official the next day is a big-time trios bout. Young Bucks & Kenny Omega will square off against Chris Jericho & two mystery partners of his choosing. Plus, it was confirmed that the wildcard Jon Moxley will be making an appearance. God only knows what he’s gonna do on live television with the chains off for the first time.
So every day we’ve been hearing about what’s gonna go down October 2nd. And today was no exception. For in a story first broken by Sports Illustrated in a conversation with Brandi Rhodes, AEW will be crowning their first-ever Women’s World Champion on this show as well!
So the immediate question is; how will the champion be crowned and who will be vying for it?
That much we still don’t know yet. But with them going ahead and announcing it now, you can bet that we’ll be seeing some sort of qualifiers for this at All Out. In fact this was hinted at by Brandi in that same article. She stated that we’ll find out more details on this situation on the next episode of Road To All Out!
As for who could be a part of this, it’s an interesting question. Britt Baker won the fatal four way at Double or Nothing and has been positioned as somewhat of a poster child for AEW, but I do feel like there are more popular choices out there. Nyla Rose is a unique one and someone they’ve been happy to put forth in advertisements as well. But she’s still seen as a tad green by most, and she’s winless so far in AEW. Considering their mantra of wins and losses mattering, the odds of her becoming the first champion seem slim.
Kylie Rae has impressed many and could actually be the sentimental favorite. But she’s only been involved in one match so far and she happened to take the fall in it. It’s not impossible that she gets into contention but she seems setup as something of an underdog right now. That wouldn’t exactly fit with someone getting an accolade like this so quickly. The legendary Kongs, Awesome and Aja are fun nostalgia acts that can still put forth a believable beating, but one would think you’d go with a younger option for something like this.
Awesome Kong of course backs up Brandi Rhodes herself.
Brandi is a charismatic face of the company in her own way, and she’s decent in the ring for someone with so little experience. But it’d scream nepotism to put the title on her so quickly, and there’s just no real way to justify it when every other woman on the roster has so much more to offer in the ring than she does.
Then you have the joshi, in particular Riho who has already won a high profile triple threat match. Everyone has certainly been impressed by the talents of the Japanese imports. But one might think some more TV time is in order before they really start blossoming as stars, as they could use a little extra emphasis on their personalities to help people differentiate them. I do think there’s star potential in all of them though, once that’s addressed.
Allie defeated Leva Bates to make her 0-1, but then lost to Brandi to go 1-1. Bea Priestley and Shoko Nakajima debuted with a solid tag win over Britt and Riho, two winners of past multi-ways, which is nice but only compounded the fact that nobody has really emerged as dominant. There isn’t really an obvious choice to take the gold here.
Going forward that might be a problem, but for now it’s a perk.
The fact that I truly have no idea who will be the first Women’s champion is nice, atleast from my perspective. It only adds to the intrigue. Should qualifiers indeed go down at All Out, they’ll be tough ones to call, I’d wager. And that’s not a bad thing at all.
