Paige Turner

[Liz]

All Elite Wrestling's -potato treatment of the TNT championship to complete the double-turn of Sammy Guevara and Scorpio Sky seemed to work with Sky getting a big pop as he won the ladder match on Dynamite to reclaim the gold. Attractive and talented guy (Guevara) with his attractive and talented girlfriend (Tay Conti) will always get heat in pro wrestling. I never like the idea of having a title changing hands six times in the past six months and three times in a little more than month, but give Sky a long reign now and I can live with it.

(Also, Guevara pretty much no-selling a fall off a ladder onto a barbed-wire ladder during the match felt so unrealistic. But maybe it makes the audience hate him more?)

https://twitter.com/AEW/status/1515484165365448713?s=20&t=MAKwzDhEQwaqxrn8gayDGw

What all of it has created for AEW is the hard road to any match involving former UFC fighter Paige VanZant, who signed with the company in March. VanZant being an outsider, her Instagram fame and lack of UFC success makes her feel like a more natural heel to a wrestling audience. She had been treated as such even prior to her official arrival during her interactions with Chris Jericho's Inner Circle faction.

If Tony Khan and AEW plan to have her make her in-ring debut at the "Double or Nothing" pay-per-view in Las Vegas on May 29, the company has a short time to try to endear her to the audience and make her and Conti feel like more than accessories to Guevara and Sky's feud. VanZant will quickly need to make a sincere connection with the audience.

Maybe the rub from the dynamic Guevara and Sky have created will be enough to get the desired crowd reaction for either a singles match with Conti or a mix-tag match (Conti and Guevara did just win the AAA mixed tag championships over the weekend in Mexico.) It's time for AEW to start taking advantage of the reach of VanZant's celebrity (3.1 million Instagram followers) to get the level of promotion and attention that could come with it. They possibly just made it a little harder on themselves by turning her babyface this soon.