Tag: AEW Women’s Tag Team Cup

By Parker Klyn for F4WOnline.com

Tonight is the final week of the AEW Women’s Tag Team Cup tournament with two semifinal matches: Ivelisse & Diamanté facing Tay Conti & Anna Jay while The Nightmare Sisters (Brandi Rhodes & Allie) take on Big & Lil’ Swole. The two winning teams will face off in the finals on this week’s AEW Dynamite. 

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Per usual Tony Schiavone and Veda Scott are on commentary with Shaul Guerrero as ring announcer. Scott has been really solid in her role so far, having done the entire tournament. 

The Nightmare Sisters (Brandi Rhodes & Allie) (w/ Dustin Rhodes & QT Marshall) defeated Big and Lil’ Swole to advance to the finals

Before the match, Brandi asked Guerrero to reiterate that she is the only woman in AEW with an action figure, which was quite heelish. The story of the match was that the Nightmare Sisters haven’t gotten along as teammates. 

Lil’ Swole and Brandi started off exchanging cradles before Allie tagged in. Lil’ Swole regained control, and the Swoles made frequent tags and double team moves as Allie was isolated. 

Lil’ Swole attempted a suicide dive, but Allie pulled QT into her path. QT was holding Brandi’s action figure which upset Brandi as she was worried it had broken. As Lil’ Swole recovered, Allie took advantage and the Nightmare Sisters got the heat. 

At one point, Brandi attempted an awful looking superkick that didn’t even get to Lil’ Swole’s chest, but she still got a cover for two. She and Allie continued to work well as a team until Big Swole got the hot tag.

Big Swole kicked Brandi’s action figure off the apron and hit a pump kick followed by a blue thunder bomb for two. Lil’ Swole got another near fall with a fallaway slam followed by a suplex. 

It looked like the Swoles were about to get the win, but they were distracted by Britt Baker screaming through a megaphone on the outside of the ring. Allie then capitalized with a Final Cut for the win. Big Swole pursued Baker after the match as the Nightmare Sisters celebrated.

This was okay. Allie and the Swoles are good, but Brandi has yet to have a truly good match as a professional.

Ivelisse & Diamanté defeated Tay Conti & Anna Jay to advance to the finals

Mr. Brodie Lee, Stu Grayson, Evil Uno, and the two undercard Dark Order tag teams came out with Jay but immediately returned to the back. 

This match had a strange dynamic as both teams are heels (or at least behaved like heels), taking long counts and distracting the referee. I’d say Ivelisse and Diamanté worked better in that way, but Conti’s definitely not a babyface and Jay is associated with the Dark Order. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t very good either. 

Ivelisse and Conti started off, exchanging strikes as Conti transitioned into some BJJ submission attempts. Jay and Diamanté tagged in and the former kept up her team’s offense with some kicks. 

Diamanté cut Jay off and she and Ivelisse isolated her with power moves. The big heat segment came from a butterfly lock submission attempt by Ivelisse. Jay escaped and bought herself some time with a dropkick, followed by the hot tag to Conti.

Conti completely whiffed on a kneelift but followed it up by an impressive black hole slam for two. The teams had an awkward striking battle and then, Ivelisse and Diamanté hit stereo cazadora stunners. Diamanté then got the pin on Conti with an assisted Sliced Bread. 

And with that, the finals are set: The Nightmare Sisters will face Ivelisse & Diamanté.

Alex Marvez interviewed Brandi and Allie. Both tried to take credit for their victory, but Brandi was the bigger person and admitted they did it together. Brandi kept putting her foot in her mouth and then scrambled to make up for it to save face with Allie.

Ivelisse and Diamanté then joined Marvez. They talked about their huge experience advantage, and said that they had to win for “their people, by any means necessary.” 

Final Thoughts:

This tournament has not been impressive or even a worthwhile showcase of AEW’s women’s division. Neither match tonight was very good, and the most notable thing to come out of the tournament so far was Dasha Gonzalez’s performance last week.

If they can lay out a compelling story for Wednesday, the finals have a chance to be solid. I say that because based on what I’ve seen so far, just throwing these two teams out there to do a match is a recipe for disappointment. If AEW really wants to put over the more talented team (as well as the fresher faces in the division), Ivelisse and Diamanté should walk out as the victors. 

Two weeks after announcing the first Women’s Tag Team Cup, the tourney launched Monday night on YouTube with two matches, three debuts, and two teams advancing into the semifinals.

As expected, the presentation has a unique open and unique song, giving it a different feel from Dynamite or Dark.

Also unique: the announce team featuring the debuting Veda Scott playing color commentator to Tony Schiavone’s lead. Perhaps Scott will get her opportunity as one of the other women not yet announced.

Also unique, pt. 2: Shaul Guerrero, formerly Raquel Diaz in WWE developmental, is the ring announcer. She’s married to WWE’s Aiden English in another cross-promotional romance.

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Former WCW and WWF women’s champion Madusa came out to introduce the tournament in a relatively quick and somewhat unnecessary promo.

We got the first of several looks at the various combatants from “earlier today” drawing their colored chips. The first was with the Nightmare Sisters (Brandi Rhodes and Allie). After news broke over the weekend they were paired up, we found out how: Rhodes drew a red chip and Allie looked inside to pull the other red chip as Rhodes and interviewer Dasha were distracted. Perhaps Chris Harrington needs to be involved in these proceedings next time in order to maintain credibility.

We then got Penelope Ford (with Kip Sabian) pulling her chip and learning she would be teaming with Mel who just happened to be there.

First Round: Nightmare Sisters (w/Dustin Rhodes and QT Marshall) defeated Penelope Ford and Mel (w/Kip Sabian)

Guerrero accidentally said this was “a first round qualifier” but Schiavone later clarified.

This match was ok, but was the weaker of the two on the show. As we learned later, the Sisters deal is more of a storyline for what I think is a full Rhodes heel faction but we’ll get there in a bit.

Ford really stood out in this match as she continues to improve while Mel was also good and visually a much different personality, both in look and body type, than the other three involved in the match.

Not surprisingly, Allie took most of the match for the Sisters, getting beat up while getting her own offense as well. She got tangled up with Allie and distracted the referee as Mel hit a chokebomb on Rhodes for a visual pin, inadvertently helping her team.

The end came when Allie raked Mel’s eyes, leaving her to turn into a spear by Rhodes for the pin. I didn’t love the finish, especially given how the size disparity was played up during the match.

Afterward, Rhodes definitely was giving off those heel vibes which would play out more at the end of the show.

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We got the same Nyla Rose/Ariana Andrews team reveal from Wednesday’s Dynamite and then a clip from “earlier today” where Anna Jay pulled her chip and learned Tay Conti (again, just standing there) would be her partner. 

One production issue: Dasha had the same dress on for both Wednesday’s and “earlier today”.

First Round: Anna Jay and Tay Conti defeated Nyla Rose and Ariana Andrew (w/Vickie Guerrero)

Jay was flanked by the whole Dark Order for her entrance as she is now fully part of the group. 

Despite some rolling their eyes at her signing, Andrew accounted for herself pretty well in the match. Even though this was taped, I didn’t notice any blatant botches and she didn’t appear nervous. 

The story of the match was the monster Rose showing her dominance when she was in there and then being weakened by Jay and Conti working over her leg, eventually grounding her and evening the odds. Conti used a variety of kicks and looked pretty good in her AEW debut. There was more of a heel/heel vibe with both teams which somewhat hurt the dynamic.

Eventually, Andrew got the hot tag which soon led to a sudden finish. Andrew hit a suplex and then did a split cover on Conti. Jay then broke it up with a rolling neckbreaker and pinned her for the upset.

Afterward, Rose pretend to give Andrew props but flipped her off and clotheslined her instead. Conti checked on Andrew afterward so maybe there are plans for her to be a face.

I could see Andrew getting another look on Dark, especially if she is local and wants to keep going. 

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Former WrestlingObserver.com scribe Alex Marvez interviewed both winning teams separately backstage. Rhodes said this was the first night she realized she was a big star here and played up the fact she has an action figure and so on. She told Allie to keep rubbing shoulders with her and maybe she could experience some of the same success and wanted to talk about it over a drink. 

With this storyline and some of the Cody characteristics over the past couple months on Dynamite, it feels like this is a slow burn to a big heel turn for the group which could be a lot of fun when the fans are back.

Marvez asked Conti about her debut and she put over the team’s looks and skills. He asked Jay about the Dark Order but she only wanted to talk about the tourney…and then didn’t say anything about the tourney.

We finally got brackets to close the show with tonight’s matches on opposite ends. There was no announcement on next week, but we do know Ivelisse and Diamante are one of the teams, leaving three more to go.

And with that, the 38 minute show was a wrap.

Final Thoughts

I’m a regular Dynamite viewer and this felt pretty missable, but I’m glad AEW is using YouTube to experiment with ideas like this even though it feels like Dark might have been a better option. The matches were a bit long and with many of the wrestlers having not got a lot of action in lately and being unfamiliar with each other, there was a bit of clunkiness.

Regardless, we’ll see what interesting debuts and pairings we get next week. At worst, the company gets to deepen their female roster when several of their key talents aren’t available due to travel or injury.