Like many of us, AEW Wrestling is making some changes for the new year.
With AEW Dynamite having moved from TNT to TBS on Wednesday, Jan. 5, there’s some housekeeping required. Just days after Jade Cargill won the inaugural AEW TBS Championship, the Battle of the Belts will help sort out a couple more. The all-new hour-long event airs live on Saturday, Jan. 8 on TNT—the first in a series of quarterly TNT events that will be held throughout 2022—and features two title matches with some of the biggest names in AEW.
Check out full details about Battle of the Belts below; to try Sling Blue with TNT and TBS for FREE, use the link at the bottom of this page.
Rhodes to Redemption?
The battle for the AEW TNT Championship will be fought by Cody Rhodes and Sammy Guevara. As longtime AEW fans remember, these two wrestlers faced off against each other in the very first bout on AEW Dynamite, so their history dates back to the promotion’s beginning.
“Cody is the TNT Champion now, and so much has happened in two years because just a bit over two years ago we debuted and, of course, the first match, Cody vs Sammy,” AEW President Tony Khan told Barstool Rasslin’ this week (h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription). “Cody won that match but it didn’t stop there and, really, Sammy went from there, rose to be a star, Cody had a great run with his two reigns as TNT Champion, and then Sammy with one of the huge upsets.”
In fact, the two faced off just two weeks ago on Christmas Day, with Rhodes reclaiming the title with his record third AEW TNT Championship. It might seem unlikely that he surrenders his belt so soon after winning it back, but this is AEW Wrestling and anything can happen.
UPDATE: On AEW Rampage on Friday night, AEW announced that Cody Rhodes has not been "medically cleared" for Battle of the Belts. Instead, his brother "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes is set to take on Guevara in the first-ever interim TNT Title match. Additionally, Ricky Starks will take on Matt Sydal for the FTW Title belt.
The Dr. Is In
The other match is between AEW Women’s World Champion Dr. Britt Baker and Riho, the first woman to hold that title. Riho earned her chance to reclaim the belt when she defeated Baker back in November in a “Black Friday Deal” to get a shot at a title match. However, in spite of that loss, Baker has held onto her title belt since she beat Hikaru Shinda at Double or Nothing in May. Baker—who really is a licensed doctor of dentistry—is by far the longest-tenured title-holder in AEW, but Riho is the one wrestler she hasn’t defeated, so it should be fun to see how this one turns out.
How to Stream
Battle of the Belt goes down Saturday, Jan. 8 at 8pm ET on TNT. To watch AEW Wrestling on Sling (AEW Dynamite Wednesdays on TBS and AEW Rampage Fridays on TNT, as well as Pay-Per-Views and special events), you can subscribe to either Sling Orange or Blue. Try it free using the link below!
