This Friday night RAMPAGE is coming to the AEW faithful at a special start time of 6:30PM ET/3:30PM PT, and of course it's back home on TNT! This past Wednesday on DYNAMITE we all watched as TBS Champion Mercedes Moné defended her newly won title for the first time against Skye Blue, witnessed newly-crowned AEW International Champion Will Ospreay earn a AEW World Championship match at FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 by winning his second Casino Gauntlet Match, and sadly learned that, due to injury sustained inside that Barbed Wire Steel Cage, Adam Copeland would be stripped of the TNT Championship.
The path to crowning a new TNT Champion begins this Friday evening on RAMPAGE, and we will also see AEW Women's World Champion Toni Storm take on Viva Van, as well as Rey Fenix clash with Isiah Kassidy, plus both Kyle O'Reilly and Satnam Singh in singles competition! We are on the road to UBS Arena for FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 but you can still catch the replay of DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2024, and you can get up to speed with Wednesday night's highlights with a visit to AEW's official YouTube channel before the show begins, then join us Saturday night for COLLISION featuring AEW International Champion Will Ospreay defending against Kyle O'Reilly!
TNT Championship Ladder Match Qualifier...
“The Alpha” Konosuke Takesh*ta vs. Penta El Zero Miedo
Despite the best efforts of Matthew and Nicholas Jackson to just give Jack Perry the TNT Championship in the wake of Adam Copeland's injury, newly-appointed interim EVP Christopher Daniels announced that a new champion would be crowned at FORBIDDN DOOR 2024 in a Ladder Match with the competitors participating determined over the next several weeks.
The path to that Ladder Match involves wrestlers participating in Qualifying Matches, and the first of those goes down this evening on RAMPAGE when The Don Callis Family's “Alpha” Konosuke Takesh*ta goes head-to-head with Death Triangle's Penta El Zero Miedo! This contest will be the first-ever singles match between the two individuals, and just the second meeting of their careers with the first happening at the HOUSE ALWAYS WINS event way back in April 2021. Both are looking to rebound from tough losses at DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2024, and taking one step closer towards becoming the next TNT Champion is a tremendous way to get over those!
Eliminator Match...
AEW Women’s World Champion “Timeless” Toni Storm vs. Viva Van
One person who doesn't need to get over a pay-per-view loss is “Timeless” Toni Storm as she was able to retain the AEW Women's World Championship against Serena Deeb on Sunday night. Though it looked a bit hairy at points, Mariah May very nearly threw in the towel on Toni's behalf, the defending champion managed to survive Deeb's onslaught to remain AEW Women's World Champion.
No rest for the wicked though, regardless of whatever debauchery Toni Storm got up to after DoN '24 ended, it's time to get back to work and that means lacing up the boots tonight for an Eliminator Match against LA's own Viva Van! Now Viva is coming into this bout having just stepped onto the ROH Proving Ground with ROH Women's World Champion“The Fallen Goddess” Athena to try and earn a title opportunity, now she'll do the same here on RAMPAGE!
Can Viva Van pull off the shocking upset, or will she become just another notch in Toni Storm's championship belt?
ONE-ON-ONE...
Isiah Kassidy vs. Rey Fenix
Rey Fenix and Isiah Kassidy are rather familiar with one another from tag team, trios, and multi-man matches since the inception of All Elite Wrestling. As members of The Lucha Bros and Private Party respectively, they battled on AEW DARK, DYNAMITE, RAMPAGE, they've even fought over the AEW World Tag Team Championship in a Three Way Tag with SCU at FULL GEAR 2019, and had their battles carry over into House of Glory in December 2019. Yet in all that time, none of those four men have every battled in singles competition in any combination, but that changes tonight in RAMPAGE!
For the first time, a member of The Lucha Bros will go one-on-one with a member of Private Party when Isiah Kassidy and Rey Fenix step into the ring with one another! Fenix has only been back in action since April 27thwhen he defeated The Beast Mortos on COLLISION, and two of his three bouts since returning were in tag and trios bouts, marking this as just Fenix's second singles bout since October 10thof last year.
For Isiah Kassidy, this seemed like the year Private Party would step up to that next level in tag team competition and live up to the potential they showed when The Young Bucks first came to them with an AEW contract. Instead Marq Quen has been absent since their March 27thloss to Matthew and Nicholas in the World Tag Title Tournament, leaving Zay to fly solo these last two months in both ROH and AEW competition. Well Kassidy may enjoy a good time, one fight with Samoa Joe was all it took to began to shift his perceptions. Just three minutes and twenty-nine seconds with a former AEW World Champion, and one of the most dangerous professional wrestlers on the planet, proved to be exactly what Isiah Kassidy needed to get his head right. While his shifting attitude hasn't produced victory quite yet, it pushed Zay to the second longest singles match of his AEW career when he took on Orange Cassidy, the longest being a thirteen and a half minute bout with Hangman Page over three years ago, and it gave him the guts to throw hands with RUSH, one of pro wrestling's most vicious competitors, much to the shock of “El Toro Blanco”.
This evening on RAMPAGE, Isiah Kassidy will be put to the test yet again by facing Rey Fenix on his own. Fenix is fast, strong, innovative, and thought often thought as a tag team competitor, he is in fact quite the decorated singles wrestler, spending 420 days as AAA Mega Champion (4thlongest reign), 394 days as the AAA Latin American Champion, 394 days as the AAA Cruiserweight Champion (5thlongest reign), and 518 days as the only AAA Fusion Champion before that title was unified with the Cruiserweight. Suffice to say, Rey Fenix has his bonafides as a singles competitor, and that's not including his brief AEW International Championship reign last year.
Isiah Kassidy once again has his work cut out for him, but that's really been the whole point of the last two months of his career, taking on these tests and challenges he never had before and trying to become the best version of himself as a professional wrestler, and a man...
ALSO IN ACTION:
-Kyle O'Reilly!
-Satnam Singh (w/ Sonjay Dutt)!!
-And more!!!
The road to the TNT Championship Ladder match at FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 starts this Friday evening on RAMPAGE when Penta El Zero Miedo meet Konosuke Takesh*ta in a Qualifying match, plus AEW Women's World Champion Toni Storm will be in Eliminator action facing Viva Van, Rey Fenix goes one-on-one with Isiah Kassidy, and we will see Kyle O'Reilly, as well as Satnam Singh, in singles action! This Friday night RAMPAGE gets underway with a special start time of 6:30PM ET/3:30PM PT on TNT, and fans can get ready for all the excitement by visiting AEW's official YouTube channel before showtime! Then join us back on TNT for Saturday night's COLLISION episode highlighted by AEW International Champion Will Ospreay defending his newly won title against Kyle O'Reilly, and next Wednesday night in Loveland, CO for an all-new DYNAMITE featuring Mariah May versus Saraya!
