The WINC staff is pretty well sold on Toni Storm’s work in AEW since she time-warped into the 1920s, turning her portion of our screens black and white and capturing our hearts in the process. Not only is Toni “Timeless,” but she’s also just about irreplaceable on the AEW roster, as it could be easily argued that she’s their most valuable champion at the moment. Even AEW detractors will tell you that Storm’s segments have been must-watch since August 2023, after she lost the AEW Women’s World Championship to Hikaru Shida at “Dynamite 200.”

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In the time since, Storm has added Mariah May as her right-hand woman and Luther as her butler, while recapturing her title at Full Gear and turning the dial up on the character work for all of 2024. (Wendi Richter, just when are you going to answer the bell anyway?) In that same span, and actually for an entirety of 14 months, Serena Deeb has been away, unfortunately having to deal with the real-life emergency of a series of seizures that she had to overcome. She returned, finally, in January, and then earned her shot at Storm’s title when the champion threw in the towel on behalf of May earlier this month on “Dynamite.”

Though we did have 6% of our staff cast their votes for Deeb (props for the conviction!) this certainly seems like one of those “put-the-champ-in-with-a-good-hand-for-a-great-match” title showcases as opposed to a legitimate threat for Storm. Deeb is as good as they come, technically, but the chances of her walking away with Storm’s title at the height of the champion’s popularity seems miniscule, especially when you consider that, outside of the match against May to earn the shot, her victories since making her way back are against the likes of Robyn Renegade, Queen Aminata, Lady Frost, Trish Adora, and Anna Jay — all due respect, of course, but not exactly a murderer’s row of contenders. In the vein of AJ Styles vs. Cody Rhodes at WWE’s Backlash earlier this month, we expect a great match between two excellent competitors, but we don’t expect a title swap in this one.

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Written by Jon Jordan