3 potential challengers for Women’s World Champion Jamie Hayter

The “Holiday Bash” edition of All Elite Wrestling (AEW): Dynamite featured a lot of table-setting for future episodes via extended promo segments, but the episode still provided a good helping of quality in-ring action, with the main attraction being the AEW Women’s World Championship match between titleholder Jamie Hayter and challenger Hikaru Shida.

When AEW announced the match last week, fans anticipated an intense, physical encounter between two of the best workers in the women’s division, and it more than lived up to those expectations. Even the groan-worthy interference from Britt Baker and Rebel couldn’t dilute the exceptional outing Hayter and Shida had.

In the end, Hayter scored the pin after hitting her Hayter-ade ripcord lariat, so she’s still the champ, and now she gets to move on to new opponents.

After Jamie Hayter retained the AEW Women’s World Championship against Hikaru Shida, these are three potential challengers for her title.

Willow Nightengale

Despite her status as a heel, Hayter garners plenty of cheers from an AEW fanbase that appreciates her workrate, and this makes booking her against opposing babyfaces a tricky proposition. Fortunately, most fan favorites that have faced her have avoided getting rejected by the audience while they continue to support Hayter.

This trend would likely continue with one of the best pure protagonists in wrestling: Willow Nightengale.

We’ve already seen these two wrestle each other on the Sept. 28 episode of AEW: Rampage — Hayter got the win on that occasion. As fans may recall, Hayter and Nightengale walloped each other in a manner not too dissimilar from how Hayter and Shida did this past Wednesday, so that would be fun to see again. It also wouldn’t take much effort to heat Nightengale up for a few weeks with a couple of wins and a couple of promos where she expresses how much winning the title would mean to her.

You could make a reasonable case that Nightengale will likely pursue Athena’s Ring of Honor Women’s World Championship, and fans would enjoy watching that. They’d enjoy a title match against Hayter just as much.

Nyla Rose

Since losing the AEW Women’s World Championship in May of 2020, Nyla Rose has become something of an upper-midcard gatekeeper for the division; someone who possesses enough in-ring credibility as a monster heel to boost any wrestler that’s establishing themself at the top of the card.

We’ve seen this play out with the likes of Riho and Thunder Rosa, so it stands to reason that a title match against Hayter is coming soon. It’s easy to imagine Rose and Hayter putting together a hard-hitting affair and despite both sitting on the heel side of the ledger, Rose’s on-screen antics (as we saw during her feud with Jade Cargill) would make for an entertaining build.

Plus, as mentioned, Rose can lose to Hayter without it chipping away at her aura as a dominant hoss of a heel.

Saraya

Listen, Saraya getting an AEW Women’s World Title match is a matter of “when”, so prepare yourself for the day it finally comes. The former Paige has already stated her intention to pursue the gold following her win over Britt Baker at Full Gear and depending on how that impending tag match against Baker and Hayter goes, she could be on the fast track to a title shot.

Given how AEW has pushed Saraya so far, we could see that showdown with Hayter take place at Revolution. Of course, most would fear AEW moving the title off of Hayter too soon (or booking a ton of heel shenanigans to “protect” Saraya in defeat) but hopefully, Hayter will have built up enough momentum as champion to avert that conundrum.