Timeless Toni Storm recaptured the AEW Women’s World Championship in a thrilling match against Mariah May in the main event of AEW Grand Slam: Australia in front of over 10,000 fans.
With her fourth championship victory, Storm now sits along with current AEW Men’s World Champion Jon Moxley as the most decorated champion for a championship. Wardlow, Sammy Guevara, and Cody Rhodes have held the TNT Championship three times while the Young Bucks have held the AEW World Tag Team Championship three times. Hikaru Shida is a three time AEW Women’s World Champion.
Toni Storm has been smart to always re-invent herself after a championship loss. She turned heel and formed The Outcasts after her first loss in 2022. She became Timeless Toni after her second loss in 2023. She seemed to lose herself completely after the third loss in 2024 against Mariah May due to the betrayal, eventually returning as rookie Toni Storm. Not just new to AEW, but a complete rookie.
I talked about it in Timeless Again, but it’s important to recognize that this new re-invention isn’t just about Timeless Toni again. It’s about her playing roles, performances, and using pieces of those performances to be the current Toni Storm. She’s the actor, and she’s pulling from the parts she is playing.
Long May She Reigned
The whole point of Rookie Toni Storm was for her to play herself, but with the same deception Mariah May used to deceive Toni in the first place. We all knew it was All About Eve, but it was more than that. Mariah May came in pretending to be lost and new, just a hard working one year Stardom wrestler looking up to Toni. The lie wasn’t just, “I’m your biggest fan” it was also, “I’m new to this” and Toni fell for this beautiful young wrestler wanting to dress like her and be like her.
Mariah fulfilled the All About Eve story by defeating Toni Storm at All In London 2024, following her betrayal once winning the 2024 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament. One of Toni’s catchphrases was to watch for the shoe, but she never did watch for the heel. That betrayal left Storm a crying, defenceless mess as Mariah did absolutely everything she wanted to destroy Toni Storm and her butler Luther.
May spent 174 days as AEW Women’s World Champion and it suffered from the fact that while Mariah May was built brilliantly to be a rival to Toni Storm? She didn’t really build any other rivals. I stressed patience for her title reign, for people to give her time, but AEW didn’t help things by not preparing babyface challengers for her. May would have seven successful title defences over that time, and the only two that felt like a threat were Willow at WrestleDream and Mina Shirakawa at Winter is Coming 2024.
I don’t know why May never faced a returning Jamie Hayter or the babyface turned Kris Statlander (that was is probably more because she was locked with Mercedes Moné for a few months) or Julia Hart when she returned.
Willow could have been that wrestler who beat her for the championship she got from Toni Storm and then Mariah proves it’s more than just Toni she can beat. Mina was at least built in the storyline as her friend from Stardom who also became friends with Toni Storm and didn’t approve of Mariah’s betrayal. It felt like that should have been at World’s End but it was instead on Winter is Coming. They ended up rushing a match with Thunder Rosa in the meantime.
When you have a new champion, you want to ensure fans don’t see them as a placeholder, or keeping a belt warm for someone else. Unfortunately, Mariah May ended up feeling like that. Once Toni Storm returned, we knew that match would be happening. But you need to feel like there’s other threats on the roster, and All Elite Wrestling unfortunately didn’t do that well enough. I don’t blame May, who had to learn on the fly being a heel champion in North America for her first time. She will certainly get another chance down the road.
Box Office Smash
Even if it felt like an inevitability? Toni Storm’s return was done exceptionally well. It’s one of the most satisfying storylines AEW has ever done, and the only one I might like better is Hangman and Swerve. Had Hangman and Omega properly finished at All Out I’d feel higher about it than this, but Toni went heel to babyface, babyface destroyed, and babyface reborn. The twists and turns felt earned, and it built you up to looking forward to an awesome match.
The match itself started with Toni Storm absolutely humiliating Mariah May with multiple suplexes, channelling her inner Scott Steiner and just rag dolling Mariah around the ring. It was a great way to bring the energy up in Brisbane. Mariah would eventually get on the advantage, and what followed was essentially two wrestlers who knew each other extremely well hitting each other with the best they had.
May and Storm are not as quick as say Jay White or Kazuchika Okada to make it about reversals, so instead it was about enduring punishment. Mariah May wanted to prove she could take whatever Toni Storm hit her with and survive it. Toni Storm wanted to prove no matter how many tricks Mariah might have up her sleeve, she was able to withstand it all. It was bombs versus bombs, reflective to the All Out cage match between Hangman Adam Page and Swerve Strickland.
Adam Page had to win that by going beyond his move set and hitting Swerve Strickland with something he’d never expect, a level of evil, a new low we had never seen. That was the steel chair to the head with a syringe in Swerve’s mouth. Toni could have tried that, but she’d have been disqualified. She had to go a different route. She had to play… a different role.
Roll (up) of a Lifetime
Toni made her return in December as the rookie who won matches with a small package. She even got her title shot at Maximum Carnage with a small package on Julia Hart. It was after this when Mariah May decided to repeat her actions at the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, sans shoe. That’s when Toni Storm asked Mariah, “What makes you think that I’ve forgotten?”
That moment revealed none of this was an amnesia story, like I mistakenly thought and others did as well. This wasn’t amnesia. This was Toni Storm playing the role of Toni Storm, but in the way Mariah May originally deceived her as a young rookie. Toni would later play the role of Mariah May in a match with Queen Aminata, showing her performances stretch beyond just herself, and she could play the mindgames just as well, if not better, than Mariah May.
The importance of explaining the roles she played is because as I said earlier, Timeless Toni Storm is no longer just Toni Storm playing an old Hollywood starlet. Timeless Toni Storm is the actress playing the role of the crazy Hollywood starlet, the naive rookie, and as The Glamour. With all of her moves exhausted, unable to defeat Mariah May, and Mariah May unable to defeat Timeless Toni Storm, it took something not from Timeless Toni to defeat Mariah.
It took the small package she used as a rookie to get the title shot.
If you recall from Maximum Carnage at the Casino Gauntlet, Mariah May was on commentary and she talked about how she liked the rookie Toni. She didn’t fear her. She thought she killed Timeless Toni Storm and all that’s left is this embarrassing rookie, a shell of Toni’s former self. She broke her so mentally and spiritually she was never to return to her past glory.
Toni proved it’s all roles she plays, and the role that Mariah least trained for, least prepared for, and least feared? That was the rookie Toni. That was Toni Time. That was the role that defeated her in Brisbane, Australia so Toni Storm could capture the AEW Women’s World Championship for a fourth time.
The fact she beat her with that small package reminds me of when Jon Moxley beat Hangman Adam Page with a roll up and Page felt like it wasn’t a deserved victory. I thought that was nonsense, but I could see Mariah May saying that here. Timless Toni Storm didn’t beat Mariah May, it was her stupid rookie character. With Revolution only a few weeks away, I could see that rubber match coming for it. One final grudge match between Storm and May to finally put this program to bed.
Toni Time
While it could mean a short reign for Toni? I doubt it. Toni Storm is now locked in. She’s the biggest babyface in the company. No wrestler is beloved like Toni Storm is currently beloved. She’s the flame we’re currently huddled by to keep warm during the exhausting heel heat of the Death Riders. So long as AEW doesn’t lose their minds and try to make Marina Shafir a threat for the title? I expect Toni to reign for quite a while in 2025.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Julia Hart is one of her first opponents since that’s who Toni beat for the shot. Megan Bayne has been built up as the new monster heel on the block and I could see her as a good challenge for Storm eventually. You gotta wonder when Athena finally comes up to AEW and goes after All Elite Wrestling gold instead of the ROH gold she’s held for 800 days starting tomorrow. And of course, the day Mercedes Moné loses the TBS Champion? You just know we’re getting Storm versus Moné. That could headline any pay per view this year.
With May no longer AEW Women’s World Champion, the best way to keep her in the mix is likely doing the feud they held off between her and Jamie Hayter. I could also see May eventually finding an ally and going up against Statlander and Willow once Willow is 100% from injury. It would be best to keep May and Storm apart after Revolution so they can both create without each other.
For now, let’s celebrate the Timeless fourth time champion, and look forward to what roles she plays next.
