AEW announces Women's Tag Team Cup Tournament

Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/07/22/aew-announces-womens-tag-team-cup-tournament/

On a night that kicked off with Eddie Kingston challenging Cody for the TNT Championship, AEW’s 7/22 edition of Dynamite also included the announcement that this Summer, there will be a Women’s Tag Team Cup tournament in the company with 16 women broken down into eight teams. The tournament is being billed as “The Deadly Draw”.

Coming this Summer | 16 Women | 8 Teams
It's the AEW Women's Tag Team Cup Tournament: The Deadly Draw

Who will step up? Let us know your team predictions using the hashtag #AEWDynamite! pic.twitter.com/FtmtAPtOQc

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEWrestling) July 23, 2020

The prize of the tournament and when the tournament will start have yet to be announced but POST Wrestling will keep you updated as that information becomes available.

Following tonight’s Dynamite, a new episode of Rewind-A-Dynamite will be uploaded to the site along with a notes article to give a recap of the key information coming out of the show.

I look forward to this. I think this will go a long way in boosting the Women’s division and giving them a spotlight as well as building additional story lines.

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I think a tournament is a good hook to have. It’ll be interesting who they bring in. I don’t think they even have 16 women available (please don’t make Brandi/Allie a team that goes deep). Kind of like the open challenge, I think it’ll provide some intrigue every week. I do hope it’s not an intro to tag titles - unless they plan on signing a lot of these teams and taking it seriously. Maybe the winners face each other for a contenders match for the singles belt?

Of course they are going to go deep. Possibly even win. They’re building them as an actual team right now.

Cmon MJ. The last thing AEW and most of AEW’s female roster need is exposing how green they are on their national television programme. Surely you can acknowledge that only a few of the women’s division are anywhere near good enough. Even their so called stars like the alien women are incredibly sloppy. They need Tessa Blanchard sooooo badly.

Brandi and Allie are very exceptional talkers. I do not get why they’re still in-ring. Brandi, especially. She’s absolutely terrible. I know she’s had a lifetime in athletics and probably really wants to be good, but sometimes people just don’t have the talent for certain things. There’s no shame in being a great manager/mouthpiece in the industry. She’s constantly enabled to indulge in horrible characters (Nightmare Collective), poor in-ring performances, and straying from what she does well. She can do whatever she wants, but I hope AEW does the right thing in this tournament and has them out Round 1 if they face serious seasoned competitors

There is where I disagree, they need to stay 1000 miles away from Tessa. Too many back stage issues and she is too big for their division. It would become the Tessa division. She needs to be somewhere that she won’t be the top star right away. Unfortunately at this point the only possibility (domestically) for that is WWE (she has burned bridges with impact at this point).

I’d much rather have a yearly tournament like this than have tag titles. New women can be brought in and it gives purpose to a lot of the division.

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For a tournament to actually work they’re going to need enough names in there to keep people interested. They don’t have that. Also don’t know why it’s a tag team tournament when they’re still far from establishing their singles’ division.

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Wait a second - was Shida vs. Ford any worse than Bayley vs Nikki Cross? or Was Shida vs Nia any worse than Io vs Nox?
I’m confused by the assertion that AEW division is so green. There is plenty of available women’s talent out there to fill the tournament with quality wrestling. There are plenty of women on the talent who are probably capable of a decent match comparable to Lacey Evans challenging for the Women’s title OR the clusterf*ck that was Impacts royal rumble. Is it the top division in wrestling, no way. But are they going to expose themselves on TV in an embarrassing way, I doubt it. I think more people will walk away from it pleasantly surprised than feeling it was not a good use of TV time.

Let’s revisit this after the reviews are in.

Agree. The Dusty Challenge lost its luster for me when they started inserting the tag team belts. Tournaments without titles at stake are always more interesting because it adds more viable options to win. A talent can be pushed with a win without being set into the title spot.

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This right here. Totally in agreement.

Just because they haven’t been working at the PC or in NXT for years, doesn’t make them green. Neither does the fact that you haven’t seen them work make them less experienced.

Most of the women on the AEW roster have been working for years on the indies. The Japanese talent come systems that have proven to create solid workers.

Everybody has complained that AEW needs to book the women’s division better or give them more of a spotlight. Here they are listening to people by creating a unique tournament to focus on over the next month or so of TV - and people are complaining about that for some reason…

Except many of them are actually green. Most of the Japanese talent isn’t on the show right now and when they have been there has been a lot of miss communication and sloppiness with non-Japanese talent.
But to put it simply many of their women aren’t experienced workers
Baker has around 4 years of experience
Ford 6 years
Statlander 4 years.

And these aren’t years with a company like WWE where they were wrestling multiple times a week etc. I do think that they need more focus as well, but I also feel like for the ability of the performers at times they book matches way too long and it exposes their inexperience.

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If they can “steal” Alysin Kay or Melina from NWA, it will do them good. I will definitely watch the tournament no matter what.

  1. I didn’t say everyone and didn’t mention any names.
  2. Why are you comparing them to other promotions? That is a rhetorical question as I know the answer.
  3. Just because another match may also be the shits doesn’t mean both matches are okay. It means they are both the shits.
  1. I didn’t say it did.
  2. Why are you comparing them to other promotions? That is a rhetorical question as I know the answer.
  3. I was commenting on what I have seen. They may have been working for years in the indies but it doesn’t mean they are any good. The majority of women’s matches on AEW are sloppy (never mind far too long).

Well, I guess Nia is better than Penelope Ford and Kris Statlander because she has more experience? Nope. That is a flawed argument

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I take it that is in response to Breng77 rather than myself given I stated the exact opposite?

No but Sasha, Io, Bayley, Charlotte, Mercedes Martinez. All are much better workers among others in WWE and Impact. Sorry finding the person WWE rushed to the main roster doesn’t prove that AEW is full of well trained workers. Is your argument that experience plays no factor in ability? Nia only has 6 years of experience. It isn’t the only factor but it does matter when it is consistent across your roster.

Exactly, its about having a core group of performers that are at a certain level and then integrating new/young talent into that core group slowly and seamlessly while they learn from that core group.

It’s alot easier to hide a green performer when they are wrestling experienced performers, but even then it still can be an issue. Nia is a perfect case of that.

Now, when you have a promotion that is filled with green performers wrestling each other, it shows. Doesnt mean every woman on their roster is green, but it means the division as a whole has a certain feel to it.

I also thing that some (not talking about anyone in particular) are equating age/experience with being green like mathematics, which is does to a degree, but it really is more about getting to a certain skill level and everyone gets there (if they do) at their own pace. You will have 1 Kurt Angle for every 20 Nia Jax’s.

You could go the time tested route of partnering a younger, green performer with a veteran. Maybe you could have a tournament to showcase this process…
Unfortunately, the only way to get experience is by going our and doing it

That’s what my mum said.

I didn’t see Ivelisse’s 10 years of experience the other night on Dynamite. But hey it’s only one match.