These two women are quite familiar with one another since the inception of All Elite Wrestling. They have been partners, they have been foes, but one thing they certainly have never been is friends. Any alliance was more of shared foes, strictly convenience, and that one unified night was actually the same evening the Good Doctor suffered her career changing knee injury in May 2020. Three days later Nyla Rose’s AEW Women’s World Championship reign would end at the hands of Hikaru Shida, and Rose would prove unable to recapture the championship in their rematch six months later.
Both Rose and Baker would find themselves in a position to challenge Shida once more, this time at REVOLUTION 2021, but in order to do so, a victory in the Women’s World Title Eliminator Tournament would have to be achieved. In their lone one-on-one meeting prior to this Wednesday night, “The Native Beast” made sure that Baker’s championship dreams fell short when the former champ beat Britt in a Semi-Final match. Rose would also have her hopes squashed in the finals of the tournament by Ryo Mizunami, delaying Nyla’s hope of becoming the first two-time champion in the Women’s division.
It would be Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D who would bring an end to the historic title reign of Hikaru Shida at DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2021 after 372 days, finally achieving the destiny she felt had been hers since day one, and establishing herself as the face of the Women’s Division (well, face of AEW if you ask Britt). While Baker was building her way up into title contention and earning a shot at Shida, so too was Nyla Rose rebuilding her stock with Vickie Guerrero at her side in a managerial capacity. The former World Champion’s hard work also paid off when she officially became the number one ranked woman on June 16th and was earmarked for the very first opportunity against the new champion.
Although Nyla, ever the pot-stirrer, didn’t wait until then to start poking the bear. As soon as Baker won the title, when she was attempting to hold a championship celebration on DYNAMITE, “The Native Beast” quickly went from side-eyes and eye-rolls at the new champ, to trashing the festivities and ruining Britt’s moment. It’s only escalated from there, first in verbal form, and then in a violent physical outburst when Rose dropped Britt through a table at ringside with a powerbomb. That moment certainly conveyed Nyla’s malicious intentions towards Baker in this championship bout, and showed the arrogant champion that she cannot hope to match power with her challenger.
It no doubt gives the former Women’s World Champion a psychological edge going into this championship battle, as does the fact that Rose was also the last woman to defeat the Good Doctor in singles competition five months ago. This title match is one of the highest magnitude, and as the first defense for Dr. Baker, is just as important as the title win itself. Can the champion survive the onslaught of the beast and back up the bravado it takes to refer to herself as the face of the division? Can Baker take her landmark victory over Hikaru Shida and parlay it into a title reign that rivals, even dwarves, that of the former champion?
To even start down that road, to really show that everyone else just lives in the World of D.M.D, Baker has to topple a former Women’s World Champion who owns a victory over Britt already, just dropped her through a table, and has an indisputable power/size advantage over her. Britt cannot be the woman who loses the championship on her first defense if she wants to truly be The Face of AEW, much less the division, but with a vicious monster like Nyla Rose as her first challenger, Britt Baker may have to dig down into a whole new part of herself to survive and retain.