Mercedes Mone Narrowly Escapes Dynamite With AEW TBS Title, As New Challenger Emerges

Mercedes Mone narrowly escaped defeat at the hands of Alex Windsor and retained her TBS Championship in the opening bout of "AEW Dynamite" on Wednesday, but she didn't escape the night without finding out who her challenger for the title at All Out will be. After Mone got the pin on Windsor and started to beat down her challenger after refusing a handshake, former AEW Women's World Champion Riho ran down to make the save.

Windsor kept looking for the opportunity to make Mone tap to her sharpshooter, legally, throughout the match to get the win, and kept Mone off her feet for a majority of the first half of the bout. The 10 minute warning in the match was called when both women were down, after Windsor hit a pop-up powerbomb to Mone, countering a backstabber.

The challenger manipulated Mone's legs slowly while they were on the mat and got her into the sharpshooter. They rolled to the outside, and Mone tapped, but the submission didn't count. The women went back-and-forth in the ring until Mone locked in a Statement Maker tight on Windsor. The challenger kept crawling to the ropes, but Mone kicked off them.

Windsor countered the hold into a pin, forcing Mone to break it, but Mone countered into a pin of her own for the win. After refusing a handshake from Windsor, Mone clocked her with the TBS Championship and locked in the Statement Maker once again. Riho's music hit and she ran down to take out Mone and grabbed the title left in the ring. Later on in the night, the match was made official and it will be Riho challenging Mone at All Out on September 20.