Yesterday, All Elite Wrestling put out a post on their website explaining the updated rules for the annual AEW Continental Classic, as well as the list of competitors for both the Blue League and the Gold League fields.
As it is explained, this year's tournament will once again be a round-robin style with each person wrestling all other wrestlers within their own leagues. If they score a victory, they are awarded 3 points. A draw earns them 1 point, and a loss results in 0 points awarded, and each match will have a 20 minute time limit and strict enforcement of the rules that there cannot be any interference.
Whoever has the most points at the end of the series goes on to face the runner-up of the opposing league (as in, Gold League's top points person faces Blue League's #2, Blue League's #1 faces Gold League's runner-up) with any ties being broken by the head-to-head record between them.
Both the semifinals and the finals will be taking place at the AEW Worlds End pay-per-view, and there is an interesting situation going on this year in regards to the prize of the AEW Continental Championship.
Since Kazuchika Okada is going into this tournament with the belt, but also the International Championship as part of the AEW Unified Championship, if he does not win the tournament, he will lose one of those unifying belts and the Unified Championship will cease to exist. He will instead just hold the AEW International Championship, as he wouldn't have lost that, with the tournament winner being the new continental champion. Okada doesn't even need to make it to the finals to already by default be stripped of the title.
Here are the Blue League and Gold League competitors, in alphabetical order by surname:
Blue League:
- Orange Cassidy
- Claudio Castagnoli
- Máscara Dorada
- Jon Moxley
- Roderick Strong
- Konosuke Takeshita
Gold League:
- Darby Allin
- "Speedball" Mike Bailey
- Kyle Fletcher
- Kevin Knight
- Kazuchika Okada
- PAC
In some fashion, the tournament is set to begin on tonight's AEW Dynamite and/or AEW Collision taping, but at the time of this publication, no matches have been formally announced.
What do you think of this lineup? How about Kazuchika Okada's title situation? Who do you think should or will win the AEW Continental Championship in the long run? Drop a comment below with your thoughts and predictions and spark a discussion of what's to come!