Owen Hart tournament qualifiers are all done and the tournament begins this Wednesday night! There will be two matches from the men’s bracket and one from the women’s. We also have the FTW title on the line, a contract signing, a victory speech from the JAS, and CM Punk will be in action.
Jamie Hayter vs Toni Storm – Owen Hart Tournament
Out of all the opening round match ups on the women’s side, this is my favourite one. When the qualifiers started, I thought Tony Khan would save this for the semis maybe even the finals, but no, we’re getting it right away.
I personally think that Jamie Hayter is the most underrated person (man or woman) on the AEW roster. I think she has loads of potential, and in her short AEW career has already put on some great matches.
Toni Storm is another phenomenal talent. She hasn’t gotten the TV time a lot of people think she deserves up until now, but tonight she will have a chance to prove just how good she is.
Storm and Hayter are 26 and 27 years old, and if I had to cut the entire women’s roster except for 4 people, these two would make the cut. You could build the next 10 years around these two if you play your cards right, and that starts with tonight. I think TK will have Toni go over here but something that needs to happen is the match being minimum 10 mins after entrances!
Jeff Hardy vs Darby Allin – Owen Hart Tournament
This is an absolute dream match up. When I started fantasy booking what dream matchups we’d get if WWE and AEW ever did a cross over show, Darby Allin vs Jeff Hardy was right near the top of the list. Thankfully AEW scooped up Jeff after his premature release from WWE and now we have the match tonight.
Both Jeff and Darby have that “it” factor that draws people to them, and this will be a special match. I hope that Darby advances here as it doesn’t make sense to have Jeff go on a solo run when this is probably the last run we’re going to have for the Hardy’s as a team. Maybe the Young Bucks cost Jeff the match and that leads to a match at Double or Nothing.
Adam Cole vs Dax Harwood – Owen Hart Tournament
I have no idea how this match is going to go. If you look at it as a one off singles match, I give this to Adam Cole 10 out of 10 times. But the fact that Bret Hart is Dax Harwood’s favourite wrestler and Cole idolizes Shawn Michaels, that would be a brutal pill for Dax to swallow.
If AEW want to play on the emotion that Dax won’t accept losing and kicks out of everything that Cole throws at him, this could be match of the night. If TK has Cole winning here, I really hope it’s by interference or something because I don’t think wrestlers need to be “protected” in a losing effort all the time, but this is one of those instances, where I hope it takes the entire Undisputed Elite to keep Dax down.
We also have the JAS leading a victory speech tonight, MJF and Wardlow have a contract signing, Jungle Boy takes on Ricky Starks for the FTW championship, and CM Punk will most likely open the show against Hangman Page’s (former?) friend Jon Silver.
All this and so much more can be seen on TBS (TSN in Canada) every Wednesday night at 8PM EST.
As Always, make sure to check out all the latest posts at Hot Sauce Sports and stop by our Youtube channel for all the podcast and interviews
And here is the latest episode of the Chtib and Zhang show where the boys talk NHL playoff predictions for each series.