AEW announces new Women’s title match for January 1st Dynamite

AEW announced a change to their Women’s title match for the New Year’s Day edition of Dynamite.

Instead of Riho defending her title against top contender Kris Statlander on January 1st, she will now defend in a four-way against Nyla Rose, Britt Baker, and Hikaru Shida. The reason given was that Statlander had “prior commitments”. 

AEW also announced that Statlander will face the winner of the four-way in a title match the following Wednesday on the anniversary edition of Dynamite in Southaven, MS. Statlander earned the title shot with a win over Baker on the December 18th edition of Dynamite.

Dave Meltzer is reporting the commitment is for Joey Ryan’s Bar Wrestling and that they weren’t aware of the booking. Rather than pull her from that date, they made the change. 

Riho hasn’t wrestled for AEW since November 13th when she teamed with Baker to defeat Big Swole and Statlander for an AEW Dark match, and hasn’t defended the title since a win over Emi Sakura at the Full Gear pay-per-view.

The New Year’s Day Dynamite from Jacksonville, FL, will feature Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks vs. the Lucha Bros and PAC, Cody Rhodes vs. Darby Allin, MJF announcing stipulations for a match with Cody, and Jon Moxley giving his answer to Chris Jericho about joining the Inner Circle.