Original Plans For AEW Women’s Owen Hart Cup Tournament Revealed

Mercedes Mone & Maya World are scheduled to face off at this Sunday’s AEW Forbidden Door 2026 event. The winner will win the Owen Hart Cup and receive a shot at the AEW Women’s World Championship at All In. Thekla currently holds that championship, she’ll be defending against Starlight Kid this Sunday.

Apparently, Mone vs. World was not the original direction for the tournament final, and neither was in line for a shot at the Women’s World Championship at Wembley Stadium. Dave Meltzer talked about the topic during the most recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, where he said that Timeless Toni Storm was the original pick to go for the championship in Wembley. That obviously would have made sense, but then Toni was forced out of action.

Willow Nightingale was the next pick, and events on television seemed to be pointing her in that direction, but then she was injured and had to be removed from the tournament. Mercedes Mone was chosen to be Willow’s replacement, unfortunately Meltzer doesn’t know what the original plans for Mone were. We can probably guess the current plans, but I don’t want to disrespect Maya World’s chances of winning in any way.

AEW Forbidden Door 2026 will take place this Sunday night in San Jose, CA at the SAP Center. It’ll air live on PPV at 8 PM and 411 will have live coverage of the event.