It was announced that there would be a tournament to determine Kenny Omega's challenger for his newly-acquired AEW International Championship (which he won from Konosuke Takeshita this past Sunday at AEW Revolution), and we now know the first two men who have advanced toward that goal.
On tonight's episode of AEW Dynamite, a "wild card" mystery competitor had been advertised to face The Beast Mortos. This turned out to be "Speedball" Mike Bailey, best known for his time as part of the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling roster. In TNA, he was a three-time X Division champion, only leaving the company this past November.
Bailey had yet to wrestle for AEW in an official capacity, but had twice wrestled on Chris Jericho's Rock 'N' Wrestling Rager at Sea cruise in January 2024, which is tangentially associated with AEW.
Now, he is officially part of the All Elite Wrestling roster, as had been suspected for a while, with Tony Khan tweeting out the announcement with the customary "Speedball Mike Bailey is #AllElite" graphic, which has been oddly missing from a good number of signings over the past few years. This may be as good a note as can be that Khan has big plans for Bailey, who kicked off his AEW career with a bang by defeating The Beast Mortos and moving on to the finals of the tournament.
In the main event of the show, Orange Cassidy was the next wrestler to advance, defeating Hechicero and continuing to keep his name in the discussion for this title, as he still is the only two-time winner of that belt and currently holds the longest and third-longest title reigns, with Konosuke Takeshita sandwiched between his runs. Cassidy was also the wrestler to be holding the title when it switched over to the International Championship after originally being called the AEW All-Atlantic Championship.
This Saturday on AEW Collision, Mark Davis will face Mark Briscoe and Ricochet will face Katsuyori Shibata of The Opps to determine the final two members of the four-way, which will take place next week on AEW Dynamite. The winner of that match will be the No. 1 contender and the next in line to challenge Omega at AEW Dynasty.
For the full results breakdown of tonight's episode of AEW Dynamite, click here.