Andrew Ravens
Toni Storm‘s unexpected departure from AEW this past March had a significant ripple effect on the promotion’s women’s division planning all the way through All In at Wembley Stadium in August. Dave Meltzer addressed the situation on Wrestling Observer Radio on Sunday, revealing what the original plan was and how a second injury further complicated things.
According to Meltzer, the original design for the women’s Owen Hart Foundation tournament had Storm winning it and going on to challenge AEW Women’s World Champion Thekla at Wembley. When Storm left AEW unexpectedly in March — for reasons that were confirmed to not be injury-related — that plan was scrapped, and Willow Nightingale became the new direction for the tournament.
That plan also fell apart. Nightingale suffered a shoulder injury in May that forced her to withdraw from the tournament and vacate the TBS Championship as a result. With two of the original pillars of the women’s division storyline now unavailable, AEW was left rebuilding its plans on the fly. Mercedes Mone returned to the tournament as a replacement for Nightingale, and Maya World advanced to fill the other finalist spot. Meltzer noted he was not certain what Mone’s original All In plans had been before she became involved in the tournament as a fill-in.
The Owen Hart Foundation tournament finals between Mone and World, along with Thekla’s AEW Women’s World Championship defense against Starlight Kid, are both scheduled for this Sunday at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door. The outcomes of both matches will shape the women’s division heading into All In at Wembley in a few months, which now looks considerably different from how it was originally conceived, with Storm still in the picture.
Storm has yet to comment on her AEW hiatus publicly, and there is no clear timetable for her return to the promotion.
