AEW's Casino Royale Match Explained

With a little over two week to go until Double or Nothing, AEW have unveiled an original match type that will be one of the centre-pieces of the event.

Despite an inaugural AEW Champion yet to be crowned, the organisation have revealed plans for a 21-man Over The Top Rope Elimination Match to find their first challenger. Whoever that ends up being.

The match itself, 'The Casino Royale', looks like becoming a staple part of the fledgling promotion's calendar with numerous similarities to WWE's Royal Rumble already obvious. 21 man enter, they attempt to eliminate each other over the top rope and the last man in the ring receives a championship match at a later date. Where the matches differ though, are in their execution. Speaking in this week's Wrestling Observer, Dave Meltzer explained it thusly.

The rules are that everyone draws cards from a deck. The first five wrestlers who draw clubs, spades, diamonds or hearts, are put together in a group. One of those groups of five will start the match. At the three minute mark, another suit group of five will enter. At the six minute mark, a third group of five will enter. The remaining group of five will enter at the nine minute mark. But this is a 21 man Battle Royal, and the final entrant, the person who draws the joker card, will enter by himself at the 12:00 mark. Eliminations are for throwing someone over the top rope.

Names already confirmed for this match are Jimmy Havoc, Billy Gunn, MJF, Michael Nakazawa, Jungle Boy. Glacier, Sonny Kiss, Joey Janela, Ace Romero, Brandon Cutler, Sunny Daze, Brian Pillman Jr and Dustin Thomas, who you may remember grabbed a number of headlines over WrestleMania weekend when he competed at Joey Janela's show despite being a double leg amputee. Trent Baretta and Chuckie T have also been announced, but this might be as part of an angle leading to a single's match.

The Casino Royale match isn't expected to headline the event, that honour instead going to Chris Jericho vs. Kenny Omega. Elsewhere on the card Young Bucks defend the AAA tag team titles against Pentagon Jr. & Fenix, Hangman Page takes Pac, Cody faces his brother Dustin Rhodes, and there's a triple threat match between Dr. Britt Baker, Nyla Rose and Kylie Rae. The event takes place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on May 25, 2019.

This of course isn't the promotion's only major news this week, with confirmation coming from British broadcaster ITV that they would be showing Double or Nothing on their PPV service.

Speaking about the news, owner Tony Khan said;

"We’ve stated since our launch that we want to make this the greatest time ever to be a professional wrestling fan, and part of this plan is to make our product as accessible as possible to a global audience. Since our launch in January, we’ve signed the best talent, sold out our debut show in record time, and we’ve built relationships and formed bonds with the best media partners like ITV. This collaboration with ITV is so important to AEW, ITV is the best in the UK, they were always my first choice to be our international PPV partner for DOUBLE OR NOTHING, and we’re looking forward to a great show.”

Interestingly, ITV are handling the show under their Sports Department, rather than the Entertainment Department they ran their own wrestling promotion World of Sport through. In much the same way as FOX intend to treat their relationship with WWE, this suggests that AEW will look to push the event as more of a legitimate sport than merely a light entertainment product.