AEW Booms/Duds: Jericho calls out “Iron” Mike Tyson

Boom: Baker staying true to character

Dud: questionable booking in for Shida

The new Women’s Champion showed her mettle against Christy Jaynes last night, probably taking a little more offense than I would have liked to see, but also explained due to the size difference between the two. Still, the match didn’t need to be over five minutes, and shaving off two minutes to put over Shida stronger would have been nice.

It didn’t help that Jaynes kicked out of Shida’s finisher, her 3 Count running knee, to the back of the head (the move she finished Rose with on Saturday). Instead, Shida hit Jaynes with a Falcon Arrow for the victory, immediately conjuring Excalibur’s voice in my head saying, “Nobody kicks out of the Falcon Arrow!” in jest since everybody kicks out of the move…well, except Jaynes last night.

It just seems weird to have a veritable jobber kick out of the very finisher used to win the AEW Women’s Championship just four nights before at Double or Nothing. Sure, Rose took more damage leading up to the move considering it was a no disqualification match, but Rose was also the defending champion; it should take a lot more to defeat her than Jaynes!

In any case, as a known fan of Shida’s, I foresee a reign filled with tough matches from bonafide challengers. While there was no mention of her next title challenger yet, the AEW rankings indicate her most likely challenger will either be a Rose in a rematch, Kris Statlander in a face-face match, or Penelope Ford if she can string together a few wins. #4 ranked Yuka Sakazaki is in Japan and unable to travel due to pandemic restrictions, and #3 ranked Baker is injured.

Speaking of Baker, she appeared for a promo alongside her assistant, Rebel (or “Reba”), who wheeled Baker out in a wheelchair (the best part being after her promo as she wheeled away in her chair that said “Roll Model”). The good news? She’ll return at All Out. The bad news? This means a delay (if not complete scrapping) of what was going to be a Shida-Baker feud that had been building through the pandemic shows.

However, Baker was once again fantastic on the mic last night as she laid out a convincing argument that there has been a conspiracy to injure her by Shida, Rose, and Statlander since AEW began. How dastardly!

She began with rule number three for being a “roll” model (do you remember the first two?): don’t hurt the role model. This led her into delving out her conspiracy theory as to how she was deliberately injured the other three competitors in the match last week.

Basically, all three happened to be in the same area when Baker was injured, thus making them guilty by association. Sure, Shida and Statlander were double hip tossing Rose into Baker, but a self-obsessed heel like Baker can’t see it that way; everything is a means to prevent her from achieving the greatness she feels she deserves.

Her conspiracy board immediately drew connections to Charlie Day’s from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and rightly so. I tweeted out a “Who did it better?” comparison (Day had more connections, so probably him). It made me chuckle.

Baker doesn’t need to appear every week, and she doesn’t have to appear live. Her vignettes from her “office” were entertaining and simultaneously creepy, but in that creepy way that works in wrestling.

It’s also a question of what this means for ref Aubrey Edwards. I’m generally a fan of refs being kept out of stories, so let’s see what this holds for the future.

I’m glad Baker’s injury isn’t as serious as a torn ACL, which would have kept her out for at least a year, but still disappointed for her that this injury happened right when her character was peaking towards a title shot. Here’s to a smooth recovery and return for the Doctor.