Tony Khan is celebrating after a massive weekend that saw ROH put on its 18th Supercard of Honor event, while AEW presented its third annual All In show. The week was hectic from beginning to end, but now there are positive updates on a certain matter, and new details on internal reactions to recent crossover storylines.
Khan revealed during All In Week media that the All Elite Wrestling and Ring of Honor rosters took recent hits due to injuries, and this caused significant changes to various storylines. ROH Women’s World Television Champion Red Velvet was pulled from Supercard of Honor after suffering what were described as “injuries” at the recent AEW-ROH x CMLL shows in Mexico.
ROH crowned an Interim Women’s World Television Champion on Friday night instead, with Mina Shirakawa winning a Fatal 4 Way over Persephone, Miyu Yamashita, and Yuka Sakazaki. She will face Red Velvet at a future date to decide the Undisputed Women’s World Television Champion at Ring of Honor. Khan noted earlier in the week that Velvet would likely miss several weeks, but a worst case situation would keep her out a few months.
Khan discussed the Red Velvet situation during the post-All In media scrum. After really praising the end-result of linking AEW and ROH storylines in with each other, the 42-year-old sports executive addressed Velvet and how she impressed at the recent shows in Mexico with CMLL.
“She’s done a great job representing the company as a World TV Champion. She’s gone to [CMLL at] Arena Mexico and made a great impression, and really, for a relatively new championship in the world of wrestling, the Women’s TV Title has had a great profile, she’s really helped raise the profile, being a great Ambassador. That’s something I really value, somebody that goes down to Arena Mexico [for CMLL], which has been a great partner for AEW, and to go down there and put in a great shift, that’s going to score huge points with me, and really raise the prestige of the title, I thought Red Velvet has,” Tony Khan said.
Khan continued and mentioned how Velvet’s injury looks to be manageable. This comes after the heel champion issued a statement earlier in the week, and he indicated that she suffered multiple injuries in Mexico. Khan also looked ahead to the expected Red Velvet vs. Mina Shirakawa match to crown the Unified ROH Women’s World Television Champion.
“So, I’m excited… I was disappointed that Red Velvet couldn’t wrestle, but also it’s the right thing to do because it seems like it hopefully, could be, a manageable injury… it’s not going to be years and years that she’s going to be out or anything. We’re eventually, hopefully going to have a match, and if Mina Shirakawa can keep retaining the Interim Ring of Honor World Women’s Television Championship…,” Tony Khan said.
Tony Khan Touts AEW-ROH Women’s Division Crossover
Mina Shirakawa became the Interim ROH Women’s World Television Champion at Supercard of Honor on Friday night. She then entered All In: Texas on Saturday as champion to compete in the Women’s Casino Gauntlet, won by ROH Women’s World Champion Athena.
Ring of Honor’s history-making champion has earned a future title shot at the AEW Women’s World Championship, currently held by Toni Storm. To add another AEW-ROH twist, Athena won the 27-minute Casino Gauntlet by pinning Shirakawa. The order of entrants went like this: Kris Statlander, Megan Bayne, Willow Nightingale, Tay Melo, Thekla, Julia Hart, Queen Aminata, Mina Shirakawa, Athena, Thunder Rosa, Syuri, Alex Windsor.
Speaking on the post-All In media scrum, Tony Khan continued and discussed the finish to the Women’s Casino Gauntlet. He reiterated praise for the AEW-ROH crossover storylines.
“I thought that was a fascinating thing, to have Mina Shirakawa, who was then involved with the Ring of Honor World Champion Athena, in the [Women’s Casino Gauntlet] pinning sequence, as Mina tried to put the Figure Four on and got caught with The O-Face, which was an incredibly exciting way to have the match culminate and interestingly enough, with the brand new Interim Ring of Honor World Women’s Television Champion getting pinned by the Ring of Honor World Women’s Champion, who’s held the belt for years, and was actually teaming with Red Velvet in the match she got hurt in against Persephone, who’s another great wrestler, who was in that match, and Thunder Rosa, who wrestled Athena in ROH, but was also in these tag team matches in AEW, against Athena for weeks… I think that helped having the rivalries across AEW and ROH, being able to call them together when it makes sense,” Tony Khan said.