Mercedes Mone challenging Willow Nightingale at All In was set long before either woman had a route to the match. It nearly picked up a third participant anyway.
Fightful Select reports that Mone vs. Nightingale for the AEW Women’s World Championship has been the plan for months, going back to around the time Toni Storm was written off television in March. As Thekla’s run as champion caught fire, some in AEW pushed for her to be added to the All In match. Who made that push has not been reported, and it clearly did not land.
Getting to the planned match took some improvising. Nightingale suffered an injury that forced her to vacate the TBS Championship and pull out of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, and Mone took the vacated spot and won the whole thing. Nightingale returned in July, won a Casino Gauntlet on the July 8 Dynamite to earn a title shot, then beat Thekla at Redemption on July 26 at the Bell Centre in Montreal, countering a spear into a backslide while Skye Blue was still picking herself up at ringside.
The win made Nightingale the first AEW Women’s Grand Slam Champion and ended Thekla’s reign at 165 days. Thekla had taken the belt from Kris Statlander in February and turned back Thunder Rosa, Mina Shirakawa, Jamie Hayter, Alex Windsor and Starlight Kid.
The tidier version of the same destination would have had Nightingale win the Owen Hart Cup and Mone take the title off Thekla, which is what most people expected before the injury rewrote it.
Mone and Nightingale meet on August 30 at Wembley Stadium. Mone beat her for the TBS Championship in her first AEW match in 2024, though Nightingale leads their overall series across AEW and New Japan.
