Mariah May's title run will hopefully get a spark at AEW Full Gear 2024

Mariah May’s character arc in All Elite Wrestling has been a thing of beauty. She was brought in and slotted in as Toni Storm’s second, all the while plotting to overthrow the AEW Women’s World Champion. That’s exactly what she did, taking that title from Storm at AEW All In. Yet, the trajectory of her title run since then hasn’t been the best. In fact, it has felt like it is in a holding pattern, a pattern that looks to be shattered at the upcoming AEW Full Gear.

May isn’t scheduled for a match at Full Gear. Instead, she and Mina Shirakawa will finally host a “Champagne Celebration” to recognize May’s victory from months ago. While this will certainly be a fun moment, the door is clearly wide open for Toni Storm to finally make her return to AEW.

Storm hasn’t been seen in AEW since that night on August 25. Since then, she’s appeared in STARDOM and CMLL. While in Japan, she and Shirakawa have become close. And Shirakawa has questioned May’s behavior. The stage is set for Storm to return to attack and Shirakawa to leave May all alone to deal with the consequences of her actions.

This will be a fun moment and the fans are certainly excited to see it. However, the three months between winning the title and this point in the story seem a bit stretched out too far. She’s defended the title five times since winning it, which is a decent clip. But none of the matches have felt important. In fact, only one of them has been on a PPV; that was her match against Willow Nightingale at AEW WrestleDream 2024.

This isn’t May’s fault at all. It was easy to predict that Toni Storm’s return and attempt at revenge would be a major point in this angle. As someone who AEW has counted on for so long, Storm shouldn’t just go away after dropping the title. Seeing her attack May with the fury of a thousand storms is the next angle that makes sense in this angle.

AEW continues to struggle when it comes to the booking of the women’s division. The division was riding a way of momentum months ago, but in the eyes of many the group is right back to the booking challenges it faced earlier in the promotion’s growth. For example, both WrestleDream and All Out only had one women’s match on the main card. If the entire division was getting a stronger booking, Mariah May’s title run would be included in that, unfortunately, that’s not the case at this time.

Mariah May is one of the best-developed characters in All Elite Wrestling. Fans watched closely as she made her moves to overthrow Toni Storm. It looks like that story is coming back around heading into AEW Full Gear. Hopefully, that brings back the momentum to not only spark her title run but the entire division as well.