Sammy Guevara closed out last week’s AEW Dynamite by beating Miro for the TNT Championship. He was then immediately challenged to a title defense on this week’s episode from former WWE star Bobby Fish. The two-time former NXT Champion was let go by the company last month and has since appeared in Major League Wrestling, but he’ll now be stepping through the proverbial “Forbidden Door” to challenge “The Spanish God.” Fans then started speculating over whether or not Fish had signed with the promotion when they noticed his official render for the match had him wearing a shirt with an AEW logo in the corner.
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Sean Ross Sapp then reported via Fightful Select that, at least as of this past weekend, Fish has told fellow wrestlers that he hasn’t signed with AEW or MLW. He competed twice at MLW’s Fightland event on Oct. 2, beating Lee Moriarty in the opening round of the Opera Cup tournament before falling to Davey Richards in the semifinals.
It’s entirely possible that Fish’s match with Guevara could serve as a “tryout” for the former Undisputed Era member. Back when Cody Rhodes had his open challenge across his two TNT title reigns, unsigned wrestlers like Eddie Kingston and Ricky Starks arrived to challenge him and were promptly signed after impressing Tony Khan.
Khan sat down with PWInsider ahead of Wednesday’s episode and spoke highly of Fish’s accomplishments in the business.
“… And Sammy Guevara defending the TNT title for the first time ever in a true open challenge against Bobby Fish, who’s one of the top wrestlers, even a top independent wrestler, a top wrestler for New Japan, a top wrestler for NXT, a top wrestler in all these companies, never been to AEW until this week, Wednesday Night Dynamite on the two year anniversary show. So, there’s a lot of great wrestling and I’m going to have some fun announcements, and it’s going to be a really special show. And I can tell you right now, I have one huge announcement on the show. It is going to be a lot of fun, and it should be just a really, really good night of wrestling for Wednesday Night Dynamite, two-year anniversary show.”
Elsewhere on the card Bryan Danielson, Christian Cage and Jurassic Express will take on The Elite and a seven-man Casino Ladder Match will be held to crown a new AEW World Champion contender.
