The Women’s Owen Hart Tournament apparently went through a whole lot more chaos behind the scenes than fans knew.
According to Fightful Select, Toni Storm was originally planned to win the Women’s Owen Hart Tournament. Then, when Storm was pulled from action, AEW pivoted to Willow Nightingale. Problem is, Willow ended up sidelined too, and that forced AEW to make major changes to its women’s singles plans.
“Toni Storm was the original plan for the Owen Hart Tournament winner. Then it was pivoted to Willow. Both women being sidelined caused massive changes to all the women’s singles plans.”
That explains why things have felt so scrambled. Storm was suddenly removed from AEW television back in March after she was supposed to face Marina Shafir in a no holds barred match on Dynamite. Instead, AEW ran an emergency backstage attack angle, with Storm found laid out in blood and Mina Shirakawa stepping in to beat Shafir. Dave Meltzer later said AEW found out that day Storm would be out for a long time, and he made it clear the situation was not believed to be injury-related.
“So on the Toni Storm thing, the — you know, it appears that she’s not going to be wrestling for a long, long time. And this was something that they found out on Wednesday. It was not an injury or anything like that.”
Then AEW’s backup plan took a hit, too. Willow Nightingale revealed on the May 20 episode of AEW Dynamite / Collision that she suffered a shoulder injury, had to relinquish the TBS Championship, and was forced out of the Women’s Owen Hart Tournament before her scheduled match with Alex Windsor.
So now Mercedes Moné and Maya World are the ones heading into the Women’s Owen Hart Cup finals today at Forbidden Door, but this report makes it sound like AEW had to rebuild the road there more than once. First Toni Storm was gone, then Willow was gone, and the whole division had to shift around them.
That is the messy part. Losing one planned tournament winner is bad enough. Losing the replacement too? That is how an entire women’s singles direction gets flipped in a hurry.
What do you think about AEW reportedly changing the Women’s Owen Hart plans after Toni Storm and Willow Nightingale were sidelined? Did AEW recover well, or does the tournament feel thrown together now? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
