Tony Khan makes blockbuster AEW announcement amidst Ricky Starks chaos
AEW is currently in the headlines after the promotion was revealed to have suddenly pulled Ricky Starks out of his upcoming GCW appearances. As the discourse surrounding the topic continued, Tony Khan made a huge announcement about his company's women's division.
Sometime earlier, it was revealed that the upcoming major cross-promotional pay-per-view Wrestle Dynasty, set for January next year, would feature a four-way match to crown the 2025 International Women's Cup winner. Each competitor is set to represent their respective companies - AEW, ROH, CMLL, and Stardom - which, in turn, host qualifiers for their stars to advance to the event.
While wrestling fans continued to speculate on the status of Ricky Starks on the heels of recent updates, All Elite CEO Tony Khan took to X/Twitter to announce AEW's qualifying matches for the Women's Cup four-way at Wrestle Dynasty 2025. Per the post, Jamie Hayter and Queen Aminata will square off on Dynamite, and Serena Deeb will collide with Willow Nightingale on Collision this week.
The winners of the aforementioned two matches will face off at Collision: Winter is Coming on December 12. Whoever emerges victorious in that bout will move on to wrestle at the Tokyo Dome for a title shot of their choosing.
Check out Tony Khan's tweet below:
Companies besides AEW have arranged qualifiers for the Wrestle Dynasty match
Two other promotions, in addition to All Elite Wrestling, recently announced their own qualifiers for the International Women's Cup 2025 match at Wrestle Dynasty.
During the Zero Hour pre-show ahead of Full Gear 2024, it was revealed that Leyla Hirsch, Billie Starkz, ROH Women's World TV Champion Red Velvet, and ROH Women's World Champion Athena would wrestle in a four-way to try and advance to the January 5 pay-per-view and represent AEW's sister promotion.
CMLL has also announced its Wrestle Dynasty qualifier, set for December 13, featuring Reyna Isis, Persephone, Sanely, and CMLL World Women's Champion Zeuxis. It remains to be seen who the final competitors for the 2025 International Women's Cup match will be.