Nobody has had a rise to stardom in All Elite Wrestling like Mariah May.
(I didn’t say that intentionally and I refuse to edit it.)
May made her pro wrestling debut in 2019, working PROGRESS in only her second match (according to Cagematch) and getting a RevPro Undisputed British Championship match in 2021. As the pandemic slowed down, Mariah would get her debut in World Wonder Ring Stardom in 2023.
After spending most of the year exclusively in Stardom, Mariah May would make her debut in AEW in a backstage segment with RJ City in November.
May would not have her first match until January 3, 2024 meaning her in-ring time in AEW is entirely captured in the year of 2024. Mariah May would defeat Queen Aminata, who she will face tonight on AEW Dynamite in an Eliminator match.
You can get most of the story of Mariah May and Toni Storm from my PPVPreview for their match at All In, so I won’t go over the entire thing. Just know that essentially, Mariah May played the role of super fan to Toni Storm and was constantly trying to impress her. She dressed like her. She adopted her moves. It was like she was trying to be just like Toni Storm.
Because she was. Not to celebrate her. But to replace her.
Mariah May wanted her spot and hatched a brilliant plot to gain her trust and love only to one day take it away violently and viciously in order to become AEW Women’s World Champion.
At All In in Wembley Stadium, a home crowd essentially for Mariah May, she did exactly that. She beat her supposed idol in what was up to that point my favourite feud of 2024.
Upon turning on Toni Storm in the final of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, we’ve since seen the true side of Mariah May. The Glamour. The Glamour isn’t some wide eyed superfan doing what she can to impress Toni Storm. Or anyone. She’s confident and uninterested in what people say about her. We actually saw this a bit of this Toni before. It was her Hey! EW with RJ City back in January.
Okay not really. I just wanted to repost it. Where RJ City turns the ON AIR light off to start the episode and then turns it back on to end the episode.
Back to The Glamour. I’ve heard criticism of her promos lately in which people say she isn’t doing much to give the crowd to react to. Some even calling the promos boring. It’s pretty clear to me that Mariah May understands that with the way she looks, her youth, and her meteoric rise, she’s smart enough to understand that if she plays the heel too charismatic in AEW she’s going to get cheered.
Right now she doesn’t want cheers. She doesn’t want anything other than success. She has success as AEW Women’s World Champion and she’s having more fun beating up the women in the division than she would trying to get the love of the audience. She already proved she could. When the year began, Timeless Toni Storm was a heel. With Mariah May, they became a babyface act.
At the All Out Zero Hour, Mariah May interrupted Skye Blue trying to do an interview with Tony Schiavone as Skye was talking about her injury. She stated it was for her Championship celebration but she decided to not do it in Chicago. Mariah worked a little classic cheap pop insults while ignoring every single time Skye Blue tried to call her promiscuous.
Mariah then did a version of one of my favourite heel angles of all time which was when Bobby Roode kicked Chris Sabin’s crutch in TNA Wrestling.
Queen Aminata would run out to save Skye, setting up the match on Dynamite.
Mariah May is absolutely right now trying different things to see how to make the heel character work without making it cool. A reoccurring problem in All Elite Wrestling is that the fans will absolutely cheer heels if they entertain them. It’s very hard to keep them booing. Christian Cage mocks dead fathers and fans have started cheering for it. Swerve Strickland invaded Hangman Adam Page’s home but they thought he was cool so they started cheering him. MJF was the biggest heel in the company for years and the crowd still turned him babyface by mid 2023 when he was threatening to leave the company with the championship and go to their competitor.
There are heels who can prove you can stay heel. Hangman Adam Page burning Swerve’s childhood home and brutally attacking Swerve Strickland in their cage match at All Out was able to illicit horrified shrieks from the crowd when he started thinking of re-entering the ring after the match. But even then, I bet Hangman will have to fight the crowd if they ever start liking him again.
The other heel tactic that can keep you heel is being annoying. On Twitter, people love to act like Chris Jericho is the worst thing ever and it’s making them turn off the show, but they do seem to be back every single week to watch. Jericho being annoying, MJF being irritating and offensive, it tends to be the only way to keep the crowd from being on your side.
Mariah May is now trying the cheap heel route, even doing some old Rick Rude routines, and I’ve heard some people say they are already disappointed with the title run. All In was two and a half weeks ago! But that’s what happens when you have such a meteoric rise to the top of AEW. People expect more from you. She went from an unknown in America coming from Stardom with a good reputation to AEW Women’s World Champion.
That said, I suggest patience for Mariah May. She’s absolutely proven she knows how to make sure a plan is executed properly. It just takes a little time. It’s sometimes forgotten how it took some time for Timeless Toni Storm to figure out her role, as there were times her matches and promos fell flat in finding a way to present the Timeless character properly. The Glamour needs similar time.
What is good is her working a lot of matches. The match against Nyla Rose last week and now Queen Aminata this week. May is one of the best wrestlers in the AEW Women’s Division and absolutely good enough for The New Standard. In a way, it’s okay for her to be a heel fighting champion. Have her giving these Eliminator matches but winning. She can get over a heel in-ring while she learns her voice in promos.
It’s tricky for anyone to figure out how to stay a heel when the crowd finds a lot to like about you. As I said, it’s caused a lot of AEW plans to change because the crowd decided they want to root for the antagonist. There will surely be a rematch for the AEW Women’s World Championship between Toni Storm and Mariah May, and they need to keep that crowd angry at Mariah and anticipating Timeless to make her return.
I know it’s a hard ask, and everyone makes fun of, “Let it play out”, but patience for May to figure out The Glamour is better than just tearing it down the moment it isn’t hitting for you. This is a 26-year-old World Champion. It’s only a matter of time you’ll be regretting doubting her.
