Kris Statlander has been the fastest rising figure in the All Elite Wrestling women’s division over the past few weeks, going from an AEW Dark tag match debut to number one contender for the Women’s World Championship. She was scheduled to challenge Riho for the title on the January 1, 2020, episode of AEW Dynamite, but the company announced today that that plan has been changed.
AEW’s official Twitter account posted today that “Due to prior commitments, Kris Statlander will not be in Jacksonville to face Riho for the #AEW Women’s World Championship on Wed, Jan 1st. Riho will still defend her championship in a 4 way match w/ Nyla Rose, Britt Baker & Hikaru Shida.” Statlander will face the winner of this match on the following episode, AEW’s one-year anniversary show on January 8.
According to AEW’s women’s division rankings, Rose, Baker, and Shida are the three top competitors behind Statlander, but there’s still some weirdness to the booking of this four-way since Rose will be coming off a suspension that ran through the end of 2019, Baker just lost a number one contender’s match, and Shida was bumped out of title picture by Statlander. However, AEW’s win-loss records are going to reset on January 1, so in a way, they’ll all be on equal footing at the time of the title match.
That prior commitment keeping Statlander off Dynamite on January 1 is California indie Bar Wrestling’s Rosé Parade event, at which Statlander is scheduled to face Gisele Shaw. She was announced for this event before she became the number one contender to the AEW World Women’s Championship.
