Looking Back At the AEW Women's World Championship Eliminator Tournament
On February 10 2021 I wrote up my picks for the AEW women's tournament. I even got a few right! Although the actual title match has yet to take place (it's set for Revolution 2021 on March 7) the tournament itself has concluded so I thought I should take a look back.
I picked the correct winner of the Japanese bracket but not the American side or the overall winner. One out of three ain't bad! Or something like that. All the results of the tournament can be found here. Also of note is the fact that the Japanese side of the bracket was put together by current AEW Women's champion, Hikaru Shida.
The first match to take place in the tournament was on the American side of the bracket where Leyla Hirsch faced Thunder Rosa with Rosa picking up the victory . It was a good match that took place on Dynamite, but the highlights of the tournament were still to come!
The next four matches in the tournament taking place on Youtube were the first round contests in the Japanese side of the bracket. First up Mei Suruga had an awesome outing versus Yuka Sakazaki that Yuka won with the Magical Girl 450 Splash. Following that match was Emi Sakura versus Veny. Emi came out with a look that was much improved from her previous stint in AEW and ended up getting the pinfall victory.
Then it happened. The AEW debut of the Queen of the Simps herself, the cutest wrestler in the world, Maki Itoh! Coming out performing her hit theme song Brooklyn the Hole, Maki got over big. Unfortunately (but correctly) it was not her night to pick up the victory. Luckily Ryo Mizunami, the winner of the match, is just as awesome as Maki! In the final match of the evening legendary wrestler Aja Kong defeated Rin Kadokura who comes from the joshi promotion Marvelous.
The only problem with these matches was the lack of a crowd to cheer and boo but with the pandemic going on it was probably for the best. Other than that they were all super fun!
To finish out the opening round on the American side, former AEW women's champion Riho defeated Serena Deeb, Tay Conti was pinned by another former champion in Nyla Rose, and Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. beat Madi Wrenkowski who was a late replacement for Anna Jay.
The quarterfinals of the tournament consisted of Thunder Rosa pinning Riho, Nyla Rose winning against Britt Baker, Yuka Sakazaki defeating Emi Sakura, and Ryo Mizunami getting a count out victory over Aja Kong. The semifinals were Nyla versus Thunder Rosa with Nyla making it to the top of the American bracket. For the Japanese bracket Ryo Mizunami won over Yuka Sakazaki.
All of these were good to great matches with the only issues being technical ones. On February 28 some of the matches aired on the Bleacher Report platform. When that didn't work for most people outside the USA Tony Khan promptly put the matches on YouTube so it wasn't the end of the world but was annoying.
With the finals set we got the Ryo Mizunami vs Nyla Rose match on the March 3 episode of Dynamite. Ryo ended up the overall winner of the tournament which was a result I am very happy with. After her match, Ryo had a face off with women's champion Hikaru Shida and they will clash at Revolution 2021 for the title!
As excited as I am about the booking and creative behind the tournament I will be over the moon if Ryo Mizunami becomes the champ on March 7. It seem like time for a shake up in the AEW women's division!
This is my day 68 post for #100daystooffload
This work by Thomas Lloyd is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
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