Did you know that Toni Storm was scheduled to compete tonight?
The former AEW Women’s World Champion made her shocking return this past Wednesday following the main event between Mariah May and Mina Shirakawa. One would think that Tony Khan would be smart enough to build to Toni’s first match back on Dynamite, but apparently, Toni’s first match will happen on this Friday’s Rampage.
There was quite the uproar about Tony Khan simply giving away Storm’s first match in months to a pre-taped show that does low ratings each week. In fact, Rampage has already been cancelled. Bryan Alvarez stated that many backstage were “appalled” over the baffling decision:
“Do you know how many people I talked to in AEW yesterday? Every last single one of them… ‘aghast’ may not even be the right word… ‘appalled’ that Toni Storm’s return is on Rampage,” Alvarez revealed.
Bryan himself was pretty heated over the decision to randomly dump Toni Storm on Rampage,“I swear to god this is true – you could have had 200 people lined up outside Tony Khan’s door last night, one by one, all 200 of them could have gone in there and said, ‘This idea is stupid,’ and do you wanna know what’d happen at the end of the night? He’d have still done it because that’s what happens.”
It appears situations like this happen all the time in AEW, as Alvarez added, ““People argue things with him every single week, and at the end of the day, he does whatever he wants.”
Storm disappeared from AEW television after she dropped her belt to May at All In. The 29-year-old was wrestling in several different promotions before she dropped a bombshell: Timeless Toni Storm was retiring from professional wrestling.
Now, no one believed that Toni Storm actually retired. But it was a nice mystery that had plenty of fans questioning when she would return to AEW. Fans were clearly excited to see the former women’s champion back on Wednesday night, so it’s quite jawing that Tony Khan would give her in-ring return away on a worthless show.
Worse yet, Toni Storm’s return has been barely advertised. She's set to face Harley Cameron. It’s a strange decision, especially since AEW has been struggling in the ratings lately. Then again, Kenny Omega is making his big return for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, which many see as a mistake as well. There’s no word on why Tony would simply dump Storm’s return on the C-show.