AEW Women’s World Title Match: Hikaru Shida (c) vs. (#5) The Dark Order’s “Queen Slayer” Anna Jay
April Fool’s Day, what a day to make your AEW debut, and on an international platform like DYNAMITE nonetheless. That is how Anna Jay made her first impression on the AEW faithful, debuting under the moniker of “The Star Of The Show”, and having to compete against the future AEW Women’s World Champion Hikaru Shida.
Jay put up a fight but succumbed to Shida in just under five minutes, not a bad showing for a women in the first year of her career, but certainly not the kind of memory Anna wanted to leave fans with coming out of her first AEW bout. It would take a bit for Jay to get her feet under her, she’d drop her next two matches to Penelope Ford and Abadon respectively, and that came largely due to the influence of Mr. Brodie Lee and The Dark Order. After Jay was defeated by Abadon on June 17th, Lee and his ilk would extend the offer to “The Star of The Show” to swell their ranks, leading her to walk off with The Dark Order.
But it was not until the July 29th DYNAMITE that Jay would reemerge onto television, fully immersed as a member of The Dark Order, and even christened “99” to go along with the system of Mr. Brodie renaming his followers. Jay would taste her first successes within AEW as part of the Women’s Tag Team Cup Tournament where, alongside best friend Tay Conti, she would defeat former Women’s Champion Nyla Rose and Ariane Andrew in the Quarter-Finals before falling to eventual winners, Diamante and Ivelisse.
Back in the singles ranks following the tournament, the focus of Jay’s career would zoom in on Brandi Rhodes in the aftermath of Mr. Brodie Lee dethroning Cody as TNT Champion on August 22nd. Anna would choke the CBO of AEW out, leaving her body laying alongside all the other members of The Nightmare Family, and that “Star Of The Show” moniker would be replaced with “The Queen Slayer”.
Jay would rattle off a pair of victories over Red Velvet and Skyler Moore, her first ones in singles ranks, before going head-to-head with Brandi on the September 22nd edition of LATE NIGHT DYNAMITE. With a little distraction from her Dark Order cohorts, Jay topped Rhodes on that night, but it has not been the end of the rivalry. Jay actually assaulted Brandi at the conclusion of John Silver’s episode of the SHOT OF BRANDI YouTube Show. Anna would then added a fourth consecutive win to her resume on October 27th when she beat Katalina Perez on the October 27th AEW DARK episode.
Hikaru Shida, heading into this fight, is a few weeks removed from a very physical fight with Nyla Rose where the AEW Women’s World Title was at stake. Shida successfully defended the championship for the fourth time that night at FULL GEAR 2020, and has been eagerly awaiting AEW officials to name her next challenger since that night.
While that tweet embedded directly above encapsulates the defending champions’ initial thoughts on her challenger, this week on DYNAMITE, Shida will get to find out firsthand what Anna Jay has learned since their first meeting almost eight months ago. “The Queen Slayer” has gained ring time, has added training alongside Tay Conti to her routine, and the power of the group as a while must never be forgotten when stepping into the ring with any Dark Order member.
Anna Jay has won four straight while Shida, with ten straight wins, has not taken a fall since a tag team loss in June to Nyla and Penelope Ford. The momentum, the experience, the resume, it all tilts the favor of this title fight into the camp of the challenger, but Anna Jay has a handful of game changing factors on her side, factors with names like Stu Grayson, Evil Uno, Alex Reynolds, and John Silver.