No count outs, no disqualifications, no rope breaks, and pinfalls count anywhere; those are the rules by which AEW Women’s World Champion “Timeless” Toni Storm and “The Woman from Hell” Mariah May will attempt to give their epic tale its Hollywood Ending. These two women have been bound to one another from the moment Mariah May first arrived in All Elite Wrestling in November 2023, even if Toni Storm wasn’t aware of it the first time RJ City held a microphone for Mariah:
Eventually their paths became entwined quite intimately, Mariah May slowly accepted to Toni’s bosom almost as if they were flesh and blood, and May was quite instrumental in “The Timeless One” maintaining her hold on the AEW Women’s World Championship for the 235 days between Toni defeating Hikaru Shida at FULL GEAR 2023 and 2024 Owen Hart Foundation Women’s Tournament Finals when Mariah’s twisted plan was revealed:
Whether it was the plan from the moment Mariah arrived in November 2023 or if she formulated it along the way was irrelevant; the poignant fact was that Mariah betrayed the love and trust Toni eventually placed in her, and it sent Storm spiraling. Most likely, in Mariah May’s mind, the fight that took place at ALL IN: LONDON 2024 was her ideal Hollywood Ending because it culminated with the AEW Women’s World Championship around her waist and “Timeless” Toni Storm wandering off into the streets of Wembley, perhaps never to return to AEW.
Suffice to say that Toni shattered Mariah’s fantasy when she returned to the AEW stage at DYNAMITE: WINTER IS COMING 2024, albeit looking far more akin to Toni Storm circa 2022 rather than “The Timeless One” who trotted off into the wilds of Wembley before touring the globe, then claiming she was retiring from wrestling. To be fair, “Timeless” did retire. In fact “Timeless” retired so completely that the Toni Storm who came back on December 12, 2024 was a version who had no recollection of the previous several years of her life, of the relationships she’d developed or the enemies she’d made, or any memory of the accolades she’d already achieved in All Elite Wrestling.
Once Toni won the GRAND SLAM: AUSTRALIA Casino Gauntlet Match to earn a title bout with Mariah May, it was only a matter of time before the two women occupied the same space at the same time once more. With that confrontation at COLLISION: HOMECOMING 2025, the truth about whatever happened to “Timeless” Toni Storm was revealed, and suffice to say that Mariah May wasn’t the only one capable of machinations and manipulations:
At GRAND SLAM: AUSTRALIA, when the two stars finally met once again, Toni Storm made history when she defeated Mariah to become the only 4-Time AEW Women’s World Champion in history but “The Woman from Hell” did her best to see that Toni’s celebration was extremely short-lived and brutally assaulted the new champion just one week after their Brisbane battle.
That brings us to tonight for this third battle between two women who have simultaneously elevated and tore apart one another. They’ve made and shattered each other’s dreams, they’ve both cherished and broken each other’s hearts. They made beautiful friends, yet they’ve become bitter enemies, but at the core of it all is some semblance of love. Maybe it was pure at one point during all this, but it’s no doubt become a blackened, hardened thing barely recognizable from what it was a year ago at REVOLUTION 2024 when Mariah played a pivotal supporting role in Toni’s victory over Deonna Purrazzo.
Perhaps therein lies the truth of it all, the answer to the question “Why Mariah why?” that so many expressed last summer after Calgary; Mariah simply grew weary of being cast in the supporting role and craved a starring part all her own. The end of becoming AEW Women’s World Champion justified any and all means taken to get there, and Mariah May would’ve done the same to whomever held the title when she came to AEW. She was just fortunate enough to find a “Timeless” Toni Storm pliable enough to not see the writing on the wall even when it became as large as the Hollywoodland sign.
Yet as pliable as Toni may have been at that moment, she’s proven herself even more resilient with turning Mariah’s Happy ALL IN: LONDON Ending into fodder for a GRAND SLAM: AUSTRALIA sequel, and even that red carpet assault isn’t going to stop “Timeless” Toni Storm from giving this Trilogy the Hollywood Ending it deserves!
TBS Championship… “The CEO” Mercedes Moné vs. Momo Watanabe
At New Japan’s CAPITAL COLLISION 2024 event on August 30th, Mercedes Moné successfully defended her NJPW STRONG Women’s Championship against Momo Watanabe in a nearly 20-minute battle. It was The CEO’s first defense of the championship after winning it at FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024, and though Mercedes clearly moved on from Momo without a thought, the same can’t be said for the multi-time Stardom champion.
Fortunately for Momo the opportunity to come at Mercedes became possible at WRESTLE DYNASTY 2025 when, as the representative for Stardom, Watanabe defeated ROH Women’s World Champion Athena, AEW’s Willow Nightingale, and CMLL’s Persephone in the International Women’s Cup Finals. To the winner of that four-way went the right to challenge a champion from any of the represented companies, but it wasn’t until after GRAND SLAM: AUSTRALIA and GLOBAL WARS 2025 that we learned the H.A.T.E co-founder selected “The CEO” and her TBS Title.
In the weeks since Momo made that choice she’s been a thorn in the side of Mercedes, even enlisting a little help from former ROH Women’s World TV Champion Billie Starkz after Moné was tremendously rude to the young athlete. That interaction between Billie and Mercedes even resulted in some heated social media back-and-forth between the TBS Champion and the ROH Women’s World Champion that has fans salivating at the idea of a fight between the two champions. If that ever does come to pass, will Mercedes still be sporting four belts, or will we see Momo Watanabe take the TBS Championship back to Stardom with her? The woman is highly decorated in the Stardom ranks as a 3-Time Artist of Stardom (Trios) Champion, a 3-Time Goddesses of Stardom (Tag Team) Champion, and a former Wonder of Stardom (“The White Belt”) Champion. She was the victor in Stardom’s 2018 Cinderella Tournament, the 2018 and 2020 Goddesses of Stardom Tag League , and of course the aforementioned International Women’s Cup. Momo has also fought many competitors who’ve graced the AEW rings such as Toni Storm, Deonna Purrazzo, Mina Shirakawa, Alex Windsor, Megan Bayne, and Mariah May. Momo’s an aggressive competitor and that baseball bat she carries isn’t just for show; go ask Athena about that given how the International Women’s Cup Finals went back in January.
Mercedes Moné has faced high-level threats from the moment she won the TBS Championship from Willow Nightingale at DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2024, including three former AEW Women’s World Champions and a former TBS Champion, but she’s managed to retain in all 14 defenses to date. Can Momo Watanabe succeed where the other 12 women have failed, or will she be another failed challenger ran over by the Moné Train?