Another day, another match preview and another prediction from me! (You can see my preview of the last match here.) AEW All Out is fast approaching, y’all. You can almost taste it at this point. Huge as the major matches are, it’s pretty stunning how much show-stealing potential the undercard has. This match is no exception. And while it’s not official yet as of this writing, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wound up having some pretty big stakes of it’s own…
Riho vs. Hikaru Shida
The joshi reps have gotten rave reviews thus far in AEW, with their trios match at Double Or Nothing being something of a sleeper hit and Riho and Yuka’s triple threat alongside Nyla Rose being a fun match as well. So it’s gonna be pretty interesting to see these two talented standouts square off one-on-one. It should have some great action, but I’m betting it’s gonna be more than that as well. Keep in mind, we know the Casino Royale winner from earlier in the night will go on to compete for the AEW Women’s World title on AEW’s TNT debut. But we don’t yet know who they will be squaring off against.
Going by the precedent set by the last such encounter, they would presumably be up against the winner of a major main card singles match. And well, this is the only other women’s match announced for the show as of now. And it is on the main card!
By my estimation, odds are good that the winner here goes on to get that title shot!
Given that my pick to win the Casino Royale is Britt Baker, you need a bit of a villain to put against her in theory. And Riho’s unnecessary post-match shove to Yuka at Fyter would seem to strongly suggest that she’s going to be a bit of a jerk. Plus, Riho and Britt were on the losing side of a Fight For The Fallen Buy-In tag match, and while that didn’t quite go according to plan thanks to Britt’s concussion, it’s easy to play on that for a story isn’t it?
So I’m going to say Riho takes this one. There’s not really bonus points at play here, but a long game of gunning for Britt/Riho for the title in DC makes sense to me.
Not only do they have the aforementioned history, but Britt has won a fatal four way and Riho has won a triple threat match. Those bouts are probably the highest profile women’s matches to date. So in a sense, it seems like it might’ve been the plan all along. Never know, I could be totally off-base, wouldn’t be the first time. But I think the train of thought here is sound. And personally speaking, that sounds like quite the match to me, one I would be thrilled to see live!
AEW All Out takes place on Saturday, August 31st. It hails from the Sears Centre Arena in Chicago, Illinois. It will be airing live on Pay-Per-View and streamed on Fite.tv and B/R Live.
