Wardlow Big Rig’s Scorpio Sky for the AEW TNT Championship
Heading into the post-Blood and Guts edition of AEW Dynamite, Tony Khan had a decision to make in regards to his promotion’s TNT Championship belt.
On one hand, he could keep the belt on Scorpio Sky, the talented former tag team performer who signed with AEW well before they had a television contract, and give him the proper title run he’d largely been robbed of after suffering an injury during his match with Dante Martin in Ontario, California mere miles away from his hometown of Los Angeles that kept him out of the ring for a month.
And then, there was Wardlow, the heel-turned-uber babyface finally freed from the grasps of MJF to chart his own path with a new song, a new finisher, and a new collection of fans whose cheers drowned out Sky’s music. While many assumed that Wardlow’s rise to the TNT Championship would take a little longer than a month, as he’d just come off of a two-year build-up with AEW’s missing man, that wasn’t the case: Wardlow earned a bout against Sky for the Rochester, New York edition of AEW Dynamite, the home of AEW’s second and arguably best TNT Champion of all time, the late, great Brodie Lee.
So, after having Sammy Guevara take the belt off of Miro at the first Rochester edition of Dynamite post-Lee’s passing, it felt only right to make another big-time bout out of a highly anticipated TNT Championship matchup and give the fans in attendance 11 minutes of pro wrestling bliss to start off the show.
Wardlow got a signature AEW win in Brodie Lee’s hometown.
If Scorpio isn’t quite cleared to do his signature style of high-flying, big move-heavy wrestling in an AEW ring, the best way to get an entertaining match out of his limited athletic abilities was via a good old-fashioned street fight. Tony Khan could rely on outside-the-ring gimmicks, get Sky’s American Top Team compadres in on the action, and perfectly manufacture a huge pop from the assembled fans with a Wardlow spot on everyone’s favorite heel, Dan Lambert. While Scorpio is still enough of a pro to make a regular match work, even if he couldn’t do many of his typical spots, protecting Sky for the future when he’s fully healthy makes more sense than making him look like a geek who can’t go.
Fortunately, Khan opted to take the former, more merciful route and gave Scorpio an out – and the L – in a match that kept the Wardlow train rolling and provided the promotion with yet another unstoppable force with the belt in his hands.
Taking to the ring with an American Top Team posse a half a dozen deep, “Wardog” took the advantage early on but was countered not only by Sky’s kicks but by interference from ATT. After Dan Lambert’s baiting of Wardlow outside of the ring, Sky launched his foe into the steps in a brutal hit that looked genuinely painful. Still, this wasn’t enough to keep the big dude down, as after taking back the momentum, Wardlow hit a massive senton on Sky to fully retake the momentum, which he kept even when Lambert sent his goons on him, flinging an ATT member over the top rope into his awaiting teammates. Though Sky tried to close things out with a belt shot to the face, it wasn’t enough to keep Wardlow down for three seconds, and the pride of Ohio overcame both a TKO attempt and an attempted interference by Lambert to lay out his foe and play through three movements of a powerbomb symphony on is way to both his 54th win in the promotion and his first title win since 2019.
Now freed of the expectations of being a fighting champion, Sky can take some time to recoup and return to the ring in the not too distant future when he’s once again able to wrestle up to his typical standards. And as for Wardlow? Well, after establishing himself as one of the best draws in the promotion due to a fantastic program with MJF, the former Pinnacle member can continue to shine – now a member of the champion section of the AEW roster page alongside his former buddies in FTR.
Sidebar: Goodness FTR and Wardlow are the top dogs in AEW while MJF is sitting at home? How’s that business decision working out?
What’s next for Wardlow now that he has the strap? Will he continue his win streak into the future, and bring back the indie challenger pedigree of the belt that was once a staple of the championship? Or will he forgo wrestling the likes of Warhorse to instead squash locals before his next big challenger – probably Lance Archer or Miro – comes around? Either way, it’ll be fun to see.
Comments
Post a Comment