On Wednesday night’s DYNAMITE, Willow Nightingale scored a huge victory when she pinned Penelope Ford to give her Trios unit the win. It marked the a huge moment for Nightingale’s AEW journey as she scored her first televised victory after picking up wins on DARK and DARK:ELEVATION during the last year. Willow’s excitement was infectious, as evident in her interview above with Tony Schiavone, and that exuberance led her to issue a challenge to TBS Champion Jade Cargill for this fight at BATTLE OF THE BELTS IV.
Now Cargill, still undefeated at 38-0, beat Willow in a previous TBS Championship match on the June 17th edition of RAMPAGE, in tag team action at DYNAMITE on July 20th, and even in trios competition back on April 29th’s RAMPAGE. But while this fact makes Cargill supremely confident that she’ll just rinse and repeat on Friday night, it does not deter Nightingale from taking another crack at claiming the TBS Championship for herself. As Willow said to Jade, no one can win forever and what if it is Willow who’s the one to put the first one in Cargill’s loss column? That’s a career defining moment, a headline making moment, and well worth the risk of ending up as Jade’s 13th successful championship defense.
Nightingale is not afraid to take the risk, and the look on Jade’s face at the end of that interview showed that the defending champion was not expecting Willow to step to her like that. Did it shake the champ enough to finally make her slip up on Friday night? With 275 days as champion under her belt already, will Jade see another or will Willow be the one to launch a new era for the TBS Championship?
Chris Jericho’s mission of pitting “sports entertainers” versus professional wrestlers has made it’s way to the women’s division as Anna Jay A.S. And Tay Melo have taken up issue with Madison Rayne and Skye Blue simply for existing in the same world as them. The team of Anna and Tay, would would now be TayJayA.S., have proven quite a successful duo in the past with their 9-1 record in AEW, and eight consecutive victories at that, but it has been nine months since their last outing as a duo.
On the other side of the ring though, Madison Rayne and Skye Blue are teaming up for the very first time, so they may not have that continuity like Anna and Melo, but what they do have is a hunger to shut the mouths of the braggadocious ladies representing The Jericho Appreciation Society. Can the nascent duo overcome their tag team experience disadvantage, perhaps using the wrestling experience Madison has over all of them combined, and score a victory for the pro wrestlers of the world?