Hayter to make first title defence on TSN
Published
AEW Women's World Champion Jamie Hayter makes the first defence of her title on Wednesday night when she takes on former champion Hikaru Shida. Plus, Death Triangle meets The Elite in a no-disqualification Match 5 of their best-of-seven series for the AEW World Trios Championships and FTR faces off with the Gunns. You can catch AEW Dynamite LIVE at 8pm et/5pm pt on TSN2, streaming on the TSN App and on TSN.ca.
AEW Women's World Championship match: Jamie Hayter (c) (w/ Dr. Britt Baker, DMD, and Rebel) vs. Regina di WAVE Champion Hikaru Shida - For the first time since taking the title from Toni Storm at Full Gear, Jamie Hayter puts her AEW Women's World Championship on the line against a former champion and the current holder of the Regina di WAVE Championship in Hikaru Shida. Shida, who held the title for over a year from May 2020 to May 2021, earned her shot at Hayter through defeating The Bunny two weeks ago on Rampage. Since losing her title to Dr. Britt Baker, DMD, in the spring of 2021, Shida has received to shots at regaining it, but fell in a four-way match to determine a new interim champion at All Out and then was defeated by then interim champion Storm on the Oct. 18 edition of Dynamite. Shida and Hayter are no strangers to one another, but have never met in a singles match before. Shida is 3-0 in tag matches against the champion, though, and teamed with Storm to defeat Hayter and Baker on the Oct. 12 episode of Dynamite from Toronto the last time they shared the ring. A former champion will be the stiffest of tests for Hayter in her first defence, but a win over Shida would go a long way to putting the rest of the women's division on notice that it's going to be hell to get the belt off of her. Can Shida become the first-ever two-time AEW Women's World Champion or will Hayter start her reign with a bang?
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Best-of-seven series for the AEW World Trios Championship no-disqualification Match 5: Death Triangle ("The Bastard" PAC, Penta El Zero Miedo and Rey Fenix) (c) (w/ Alex Abrahantes) vs. The Elite ("The Cleaner" Kenny Omega, Nick Jackson and Matt Jackson) (w/ Don Callis, Brandon Cutler and Michael Nakazawa) - Down 3-1 in their series, The Elite have had enough with Death Triangle's shortcuts to victory. After an injured Nick Jackson tapped out to Rey Fenix's inverted knee bar following a shot with the ring bell hammer to his ankle, Kenny Omega grabbed the mic and decided to change things up for the remainder of their series. Sick of Death Triangle's use of that hammer in every one of their victories, Omega sought to neutralize it. Wednesday night's Match 5 will be no-disqualification. Should Omega and the Jacksons extend the series past Wednesday, Match 6 on the Dec. 28 edition of Dynamite will be falls-count-anywhere. If The Elite can win the next two matches and force a seventh match, Match 7 on the Jan. 11 Dynamite will be a ladder match. Death Triangle is now free to use the hammer, but The Elite are now free to counter it as they see fit. It appears that Omega and the Jacksons have taken on a by-any-means-necessary attitude to regaining the titles they never actually lost. But this could only serve to embolden Death Triangle. If they had no issue resorting to such means when they were illegal, then they certainly will partake now that they're not. Can The Elite stay alive or will Death Triangle end this series on Wednesday night?
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AAA and IWGP World Tag Team Champions FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) vs. The Gunns (Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn) (w/ Stokely Hathaway) - After a pair of crushing back-to-back losses, Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler have the opportunity to take their frustrations out on Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn. Two weeks ago, FTR had the opportunity to add the AEW World Tag Team Championships to their collection that already included the ROH, AAA and IWGP World Tag Team Championships, but they came up short in a hard-fought match with The Acclaimed (Max Caster and Anthony Bowens) on Dynamite. Their disappointment was compounded only days later at Final Battle when they dropped the ROH titles to the Briscoes (Mark Briscoe and Jay Briscoe) in a dog-collar match in one of the best matches of 2022. A wounded FTR might be the most dangerous version of FTR and the Gunns, a team that has needled and prodded them for weeks, might be about to discover that. These two teams have met once before, on the Mar. 30 edition of Dynamite, with FTR coming out victorious. But that was before the Gunns enlisted the services of Stokely Hathaway and The Firm. Harwood and Wheeler will be forced to keep an eye on Hathaway outside the ring and should prepare for the potential presence of another member of the faction in the form of Lee Moriarty, Ethan Page or "Big Bill" Morrissey. The Gunns might not be able to take FTR in a fair fight, so why not make sure it isn't fair? Will the Gunns pick up the biggest win of their young careers or will FTR finally shut them up?
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PLUS:
- "Absolute" Ricky Starks will make an appearance following his unsuccessful challenge of AEW World Champion MJF on last week's Dynamite
- We will hear from "The American Dragon" Bryan Danielson as he has MJF in his sights
- Former AEW World Tag Team Champions will come face-to-face as Rick Ross moderates a meeting between "Limitless" Keith Lee and Shane "Swerve" Strickland