AEW Double or Nothing

Not quite the caliber of the shows that we would go on to see.

We were at the first Double or Nothing, but we saw Full Gear in a movie theater not long after that.

Yeah, that's when Hangman kicked out the One Morning Angel for the first time.

No, he didn't.

Jake was the mind behind him.

And at Double or Nothing in 2020, Archer faced Cody in the final of the tournament to crown the inaugural AEW TNT champion.

Jake accompanied Archer to the ring, and the match ended with Cody defeating Archer to become the first TNT champion.

This would give Jake another huge WrestleMania-style moment on a major wrestling event, not as a wrestler, but as the veteran manager helping to create a character.

And once it's all over, I'll give the show itself an Ultimo event rating rating.

taking everything into account to decide just how good fighter fest 2019 really was now before we get into the action a little history of fighter fest here so this event took place on the june 29th 2019 at the ocean centre in daytona beach florida as previously stated and was only the second event presented by aw following double or nothing so aw is still very much in its infancy here we saw the beginning at double or nothing now it's time for the next chapter Now, Fyter Fest begins with a video package looking back at Double or Nothing, AEW's first official event.

The message is all about the risks the wrestlers took.

They knew it was Double or Nothing.

They knew they had to risk it all.

The package talks about the athletes creating memories we'll never forget and presents Double or Nothing as the night that changed the world and a night that gave people inspiration.

I like this as an opening because A.W. is already trying to establish a sense of history.

We're only at the second event in the company's history, but they're presenting Double or Nothing as the beginning of something much bigger.

Welcome to Ultimo Goat, I'm your host and reviewer Tony T.

Today we're going back to AW Double or Nothing 2019 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This is a hugely important show in wrestling history because Double or Nothing is AW's first ever official event and pay-per-view.

The company had only officially launched a few months earlier in January 2019 following the success of All In 2018.

All In showed that this group could put on a major wrestling event outside of WWE.

Now under the All Elite Wrestling banner Double or Nothing is where we really start to see what AEW is going to be.

There was already a huge amount of interest surrounding the company.

Double or Nothing sold out the MGM Grand Garden Arena extremely quickly, and now it's finally time to see whether AW can deliver on all that hype.

The backstory is ample between these two women, and it dates back to May of 2023 in New Japan, where they first shared a ring one-on-one, where Willa Nightingale beat Mercedes for the New Japan Strong Championship.

They met again at Double or Nothing 2024, and this time Mercedes got the win and the TBS championship as a result.

They had five matches from that point forward, a mix of tag team, six women, and blood and guts matches, before they had their next one-on-one bout in 2025 on the 326th episode of Dynamite.

This time it was Willow getting the win, and the tbs championship as a result also giving her the edge two to one in the all-time head-to-head series and it was the best match of the bunch with an 8.86 cage match rating and four and a half stars from Dave Meltzer.

Went on with my day, and I'm still waiting for the crash.

Up there for double or nothing for me.

I think this is the first pay-per-view this year where I was just like...

It's been a nice run, Double or Nothing.

That's

how

And I mean, everyone, I didn't see not one reactor poster, whatever, say anything negative about this goddamn main event that pro wrestling high last night was universal.

And it was just, it was incredible to see.

The backstory is ample between these two women, and it dates back to May of 2023 in New Japan, where they first shared a ring one-on-one, where Willa Nightingale beat Mercedes for the New Japan Strong Championship.

They met again at Double or Nothing 2024, and this time Mercedes got the win and the TBS championship as a result.

They had five matches from that point forward, a mix of tag team, six women, and blood and guts matches, before they had their next one-on-one bout in 2025 on the 326th episode of Dynamite.

This time it was Willow getting the win, and the tbs championship as a result also giving her the edge two to one in the all-time head-to-head series and it was the best match of the bunch with an 8.86 cage match rating and 4.5 stars from Dave Meltzer.

We're going to kick off going all the way back to May 25th, 2019.

The MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada held the first ever AEW Double or Nothing 2019.

You may remember this show.

This is the show that has the classic brother versus brother match with Cody Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes.

Now this, like, kind of pays off Hikaru Shida coming to Yuka Sakazaki's aid at the end of the last show against Emi Sakura.

They're on opposite sides here, but there's a little bit of confusion because Mace Tsuruga was a part of that beatdown, and here she is teaming with Hikaru Shida, probably overanalyzing it way too much for what it is, but...

This is very similar to the first match that we spoke about, that double or nothing six-woman tag, but this one is like cranked up to 15 because all of these women are in their natural element in Japan.

Everybody here gets a bit of a showcase.