This is the second “Dynamite” in a row where AEW Women’s World Champion Thekla has not been on my screen after she won the belt from Kris Statlander in a brutal strap match on the February 11 edition of the show. She cut an excellent promo from the crowd on “AEW Collision” on Saturday, directed toward her next challenger, the newly-returned Thunder Rosa, but you wouldn’t have known that had you not been watching over the weekend, or at least caught it on social media, as I did.

While I didn’t love not seeing her with the title on “Dynamite” last week, after her excellent promo on Saturday, her absence really stuck out to me this week. It would have made a big difference if AEW bothered to play even a portion of her promo on tonight’s show, but we didn’t get that. Which was slightly odd, as Rosa referenced it pretty heavily. We also didn’t see Thekla in any type of backstage or pre-taped segment, which is a real bummer.

Instead, we got a backstage segment with Rosa and Statlander, which didn’t do much for me, especially without a pre-taped response segment or something with the Triangle of Madness. The only thing interesting about that is how Statlander keeps telling Rosa to “be careful,” and honestly, it seems like she’s warning her to watch out more so for her than Thekla with the way she’s acting. I like Rosa and all, but she’s so obviously not winning the championship from Thekla that it all seems pretty pointless.

I really like Thekla, and I’m excited to see what she can do as champion, but I don’t often watch “Collision” and really only see what happens on the show through AEW’s social media clips. That’s fine with me, personally, but it kind of sucks for Thekla and the AEW Women’s title if big things, like her first appearances after winning the gold, aren’t on AEW’s main show. While I’m glad she’ll be on next week’s show for sure with her title defense, I just think that match could have been set up a lot better on tonight’s show in front of more eyes. AEW often gets a lot of flak for how it handles its women’s division, and not having the women’s champion on “Dynamite” for multiple weeks following her victory, especially after a brutal strap match, isn’t exactly a good look.

Written by Daisy Ruth