It’s time, it’s time, it’s Toni Time in All Elite Wrestling. Three months after requesting her release from World Wrestling Entertainment, Toni Storm has touched down inAEW, making herAEW Dynamitedebut as The Bunny’s mystery opponent in a qualifying match forThe Owen Hart FoundationWomen’s Tournament.
The tourney itself has some shock value in its origins, having come about as a result of an agreement betweenAEWand the eponymous foundation founded by Hart’s widow, Dr. Martha Hart, who up until September 2021 had been adamant about her husband’s likeness not being profited off of by WWE in the decades following Owen’s unfortunate fatal fall at theOver the EdgePPV in 1999. The men’s and women’s tournaments aren’t just a way to celebrate his contributions to the sport of professional wrestling, but they also provide a platform for wrestlers to show what they can really do, as was the case with Storm in her AEW debut.
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She wasted no time in making an impact as The Bunny’s secret opponent in the Women’s Tourney qualifier. After a brief back-and-forth with the Andrade Family Office’s sole female member, Storm dispatched her foe with her vaunted “Storm Zero” piledriver and cinched not only her first victory in AEW, but a spot in the upcoming tournament. It was a vindicating victory for Storm as well, coming off three months after requestingher release from WWE, having cited “burnout” and “misuse” as chief reasons for wanting to get away from the company.
A former NXT UK Women’s Champion, Storm was brought up from NXT to WWE’s SmackDown brand in July 2021, but quickly got left off of WWE television for several months for reasons unknown. That was until she was re-introduced in November and teased for a championship feud with the blue brand’s Women’s Champion, Charlotte Flair. What apparently put Storm over that proverbial edge towards requesting her release was her “feud” with Flair, against whom she was badly booked, as well as being vastly underutilized in the months leading up to it.
Considering the inordinate amount ofreleases made by WWE in the later half of 2021, it’s no real surprise that individuals like Storm would request their release given the sharp drop in backstage morale among the remaining WWE superstars. Given Storm’s phenomenal run in the NXT UK brand, as well as her amazing victory over the vaunted Io Shirai in the finals of the 2nd AnnualMae Young Classicin 2018, it is honestly a shame to see WWE do so little with her on the main roster, aside from having Flair repeatedly pie her in the face.
There is the concern that Storm will simply be lost in the shuffle on the AEW Women’s roster a few months after her debut, and it’s a legitimate one given the already-crowded field in both the AEW Women’s and TBS Championship picture. That said, Storm’s decisive victory over The Bunny to qualify for the upcoming women’s tournament has already put her in a more positive, affirming light in one night than WWE did for her in six months.
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