AEW Personnel "Appalled" By Toni Storm Rampage Return
Locker room unhappiness dominates the conversation around Toni Storm's AEW return
AEW roster members are "appalled" by the handling of Toni Storm's All Elite Wrestling's in-ring return.
This is per Bryan Alvarez, who noted during Wrestling Observer Live that;
“Do you know how many people I talked to in AEW yesterday, and every last single one of them...‘aghast’ may not even be the right word...‘appalled’ that Toni Storm’s return is on Rampage.”
Alvarez is referring to the fact that Storm's first AEW match since losing her Women's Title (and evidently, the 'Timeless' Toni Storm gimmick) at All In: London in August was taped for this week's Winter Is Coming edition of Rampage. Storm will take on Harley Cameron on the C-show shortly before it looks set to depart screens for good in the new year.
Speaking again on the matter, Alvarez added;
“You could have had 200 people lined up outside Tony Khan’s door last night, one by one, all 200 of them could have gone in there and said, ‘This idea is stupid’, and do you wanna know what’d happen at the end of the night? He’d have still done it, because that’s what happens. People argue things with him every single week, and at the end of the day, he does whatever he wants.”
The Rampage match speaks to something of a step down for arguably the company's most important women's wrestler ever, and mirrors Jamie Hayter's bizarrely underwhelming comeback run that kicked off on the All In London pre-show.
Storm made a shocking return in her old persona following Mariah May's Dynamite main event victory over Mina Shirakawa, with all three having previously been allies in 2024 before May cut ties with both. It's expected that Storm/May II could take place at February 2025's AEW Grand Slam Australia in Brisbane, allowing Storm to reclaim the gold in her home country.