AEW: 5 ideal choices to become the first-ever TNT Champion

Sammy Guevara

Lance Archer made his professional wrestling debut at 23 years old. Sammy Guevara, today, is 26 years old, but he’s still got over 7 years of in-ring experience under his belt at this young age.

Guevara is a polar opposite to Archer but is just as deserving and primed a pick to be the inaugural TNT Champion for his own reasons. Guevara made an early mark on AEW in the above match against Kip Sabian, showcasing his in-ring skill and representing the youth and talent AEW looked to present.

Since then, he’s become the right-hand man to former AEW World Champion Chris Jericho in the group The Inner Circle. Guevara has continued to rise, and he will look to leverage that position, and some outside interference from his buddies, to push his way through this tournament and become the youthful present of AEW, not just their future.

Brodie Lee

Similar to Lance Archer, “The Exalted One” Brodie Lee is a veteran who is relatively new to AEW. However, much like Sammy Guevara, he’s in a situation where he’ll almost certainly have backup with him at ringside.

As The Dark Order continued to make their presence felt in AEW, rumors continued to swirl about who might be The Exalted One. The bit too obvious choice seemed to be “Broken” Matt Hardy, but we ultimately saw him debut in AEW as his own independent entity.

Instead, The Exalted One was revealed to be Brodie Lee, a 16-year veteran who previously competed in WWE as Luke Harper. The former NXT Tag Team Champion, SmackDown Tag Team Champion, and WWE Intercontinental Champion is a terrifyingly agile big man, and capturing the TNT Championship would make a huge statement for both him individually and The Dark Order as a whole.