AEW All In Fallout: What Does Mercedes Mone Winning Women’s World Championship Mean?

AEW All In is in the books, and one result stands out from the rest in terms of its divisional implications.

In Sunday’s penultimate match, Mercedes Mone finally attained the “Ultimo” on her third try, choking out an injured Willow Nighthingale to win the Women’s World Championship. It marks the peak of a stint that began in 2024 and has also seen her win the Owen twice and become the longest-reigning TBS Champion ever.

That being said, here are three takeaways that can be gleaned from the match…

3) Mercedes Mone Will Finally Have That Career-Defining Main-Event Reign In Front Of Fans

When one looks at the WWE resume of the former Sasha Banks, they will think, “She won plenty of titles; how can her tenure be considered a failure?” The answer to that is this:

Just because a person was a champion many times, however, it does not mean their booking was good.

To prove that, one need only look at Banks’ five reigns as Raw Women’s Champion. All of them lasted less than a month and featured no single defense, being hampered by some circumstance:

• The first three title reigns, which all occurred in 2016, were used to prop up Charlotte Flair. WWE apparently invented a “PPV win streak” to justify restricting Banks’ title wins to Raw, which did not do good for their tile’s prestige.
• The fourth championship stint, which occurred in 2017, was ended by Alexa Bliss only eight days after it began. This was a major mistake – Banks could have held it all the way to WrestleMania, even fighting Bayley at that event.
• The last title reign, which occurred in 2020 during the pandemic, played second fiddle to Bayley’s SmackDown dominance and was ultimately ended by Asuka.

Speaking of SmackDown and the pandemic, Banks would not get an extended reign until that period. Even then, the first time finally she got to wrestle before a live audience as champion, Bianca Belair dethroned her afterward.

That, however, would not be the end of the misery. Come 2022, Flair was somehow champion again, and most signs, if not all, pointed towards a most poetic of WrestleMania runs. Banks was going to win the Rumble, then finally defeat Flair on a PPV/PLE and end her drought at the same place where she first failed six years ago.

It all made too much sense to be scrapped just to accommodate someone coming back from a long hiatus… which was exactly what happened. Ronda Rousey decided to return, Banks was demoted to tag duty, and the rest is history.

In AEW, however, such booking malpractice will not happen anymore. With Nightingale joining Storm on the shelf for the foreseeable future, Mone will finally get her wish. She will hold a world title for a significant amount of time, with fans watching. “The CEO” is, at last, here to rule.

2) WWE’s Four Horsewomen May Be Destined To Never Have A Main-Roster Match Together

Speaking of Bayley, rumors have long abounded regarding her wrestling future, and Mone may have a hand in where she goes.

Last month, it was revealed that “The Role Model”‘s WWE contract was set to expire at the end of this year. Since then, Baley has also been making cryptic social media posts that seem to reflect on what she has achieved in her wrestling career.

AEW has occasionally been floated as a potential destination for Bayley, given Mone is her best friend offscreen. Should she switch promotions, that is one-half of the Horsewomen gone, and with her now 37, it seems likely that they will never share a ring again.

That is a shame, because at least The Shield got to fight each other once – at Battleground 2016. This one, however, is a true missed opportunity, and WWE may have only itself to blame.

1) AEW’s Women’s Division Has Entered An Intriguing New Phase

Mone’s title win was just one in a handful of major shifts within AEW’s women’s division, however.

During the Buy-In, Thekla appeared for the first time since losing the title to Nightingale. Later in that portion, Britt Baker helped Persephone win the TBS Championship from Maya World.

There is not much surprise surrounding the former return – after all, Mone vs. Thekla could still be the program for All Out. The latter, however, is very surprising.

Rebel, Baker’s friend and former onscreen ally, had revealed at the beginning of May that she had terminal ALS. Nearly three months after that, AEW announced a special episode of Dynamite in her honor, and Baker was theorized to return there in a show of support.

Instead, “The Doctor” is back early, and it has created intrigue: what is she exactly planning next? It is but a question that has emerged after Sunday, and Mone is but a piece in the board.

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End Of My AEW All In Rant

Naturally, it leads to this question: who will be Mone’s first challenger?

Thekla has the strongest case. She was the champion before Nightingale showed up. She has a faction that could help her, and has helped her, win matches. It remains a tantalizing clash of massive egos that promises verbal vitriol and a clash of aesthetics: gilded glamor vs. black-clad edge.

Meanwhile, Megan Bayne and Lena Kross seem destined for a split after losing the tag titles to Jamie Hayter and Alex Windsor. One of them would make for a fantastic speed-vs.-size clash. Maya World also looks posed to finally graduate to the main event scene after losing the TBS title.

Whatever the direction is, the women of AEW are in for an exciting age…