Takeshita meets Penta on Rampage on TSN+
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Konosuke Takeshita battles Penta El Zero Miedo in a TNT Championship Tournament match. Plus, AEW Women's World Champion "Timeless" Toni Storm is in action. You can catch AEW Rampage on Friday at the special time of 6pm et/3pm pt streaming on TSN+.
TNT Championship Tournament match: Konosuke Takeshita (w/ Don Callis) vs. Penta El Zero Miedo (w/ Alex Abrahantes) - AEW needs a new TNT Champion. "The Rated-R Superstar" Adam Copeland successfully defended his title at last Sunday at the Double or Nothing pay-per-view in a brutal barbed wire cage match against Malakai Black, but his victory was a pyrrhic one. Copeland fractured his fibia during a dive through the announce table and, as such, will be out of action for several months. That led to his relinquishing of his title. This past Wednesday night on Dynamite, AEW executive vice-presidents Nicholas Jackson and Matthew Jackson attempted to simply hand the TNT title over to their Elite stablemate "The Scapegoat" Jack Perry, but Christopher Daniels intervened. Fired as AEW's head of talent relations earlier this month, Daniels revealed he had been made an interim EVP by AEW president Tony Khan. He put an end to the Young Bucks' sham title ceremony for Perry and announced a mini-tournament to crown a new champion with the final coming at June 30's Forbidden Door PPV. The first match goes down on Friday evening when the Don Callis Family's Konosuke Takeshita battles Penta El Zero Miedo of Death Triangle. Neither man has ever held a singles championship in AEW. Takeshita is coming off of a frustrating loss at the PPV, defeated by IWGP World Champion Jon Moxley in a World Title Eliminator Match. Penta was also a loser at Double or Nothing, as he, brother Rey Fenix and "The Bastard" PAC failed to wrest away the AEW Unified World Trios Championships away from Bullet Club Gold ("Switchblade" Jay White, Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn). Both men will have the opportunity to shake off that loss and advance for a chance to win gold. Friday evening's match will mark the first ever meeting between the two men. Should Penta win the title, he would join a very elite group of wrestlers who have held singles, tag and trios gold in AEW. To this day, only Kenny Omega and Penta's brother, Fenix, have achieved that feat. Can Penta take a step closer to joining that group or will Takeshita earn himself a title shot?
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AEW Women's World Champion "Timeless" Toni Storm (w/ "The Glamour" Mariah May and Luther) vs. Viva Van - You have to go all the way back to Sept. 20, 2023 for Toni Storm's last defeat in a singles match. It was at the Grand Slam edition of Dynamite at Queens, NY's Arthur Ashe Stadium where then-AEW Women's World Champion Saraya defeated her former Outcasts stablemate. Since then, Storm has been unstoppable. Winning the title from Saraya at Full Gear last November, Storm heads into Friday night as a winner of 15 straight singles matches, including a successful title defence over "The Professor" Serena Deeb at this past Sunday night's Double or Nothing. On Rampage, Storm takes on a first-time opponent in West Coast indie star Viva Van. Van has made appearances in AEW in the past, but this marks her biggest challenge in the promotion. She won't be intimidated, though. The Los Angeles native has previously taken on the likes of ROH Women's World Champion "The Fallen Goddess" Athena, New Japan Strong and CMLL Women's World Champion Stephanie Vaquer, Thunder Rosa, Steph De Lander and Xia Brookside. As tall a task as Storm will be, Van will be ready. Will Van manage to pick up the biggest victory of her career or will the women's champion continue her run of dominance?
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Rey Fenix (w/ Alex Abrahantes) vs. "Brother Zay" Isiah Kassidy - Like his older brother, Penta El Zero Miedo, Rey Fenix is coming off of a tough loss at Sunday night's Double or Nothing as Death Triangle failed to recapture the AEW Unified World Trios Championships from the Bang Bang Gang. On Friday night, the former AEW World Trios, World Tag Team and International Champion returns to singles action for just the second time since last fall when he takes on another tag-team specialist in the form of Private Party's Isiah Kassidy. Fenix last wrestled on his own in a victory over the Beast Mortos on the Apr. 27 edition of Collision. With partner Marq Quen out of action, Kassidy has entered the singles ranks in recent weeks, but his success has been limited. Despite good showings and valiant efforts, Kassidy has fallen to the likes of "El Toro Blanco" Rush, "Freshly Squeezed" Orange Cassidy and the former AEW World Champion Samoa Joe. A win over Fenix would be just the tonic for Kassidy's skid and a springboard to announce his arrival in the singles division. The two men have met before on a number of occasions in tag-team and multi-man matches, but this will be their first ever singles encounter. Fenix is 8-1 in their prior matches. Will Kassidy end his struggles or will Fenix compound his misery?
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PLUS:
- Satnam Singh (w/ Sonjay Dutt) will be in action
- Kyle O'Reilly is in singles competition
- For the World Champion "The Learning Tree" Chris Jericho (w/ Big Bill and "The Bounty Hunter" Bryan Keith) makes an appearance