News regarding how Toni Storm’s hiatus from AEW has impacted the women’s world title storyline

As seen during the March 18th 2026 edition of AEW Dynamite, Mina Shirakawa defeated Marina Shafir in a no-holds-barred match. Toni Storm was originally advertised as Marina’s opponent, but it was revealed that Toni had been “attacked” just before Dynamite went on the air.

Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com noted that Toni, who is reportedly going to be out of action until 2027, did an autograph signing over the weekend and was not selling an injury at all. Meltzer stated the following…

“It is not an injury situation and it came up on 3/18 the day of the show as all plans until the afternoon were for Storm to beat Marina Shafir to lead to the start of a Thekla vs. Toni Storm program for the title. When they found out she could not wrestle, they laid out the injury angle and will be doing a tease akin to Who Shot JR? with clues and such and multiple potential assailants.”

“I was told outright before even asking about the subject that the two subjects Tony Khan will not talk about are Toni Storm and the story about his company putting in a bid to purchase WWE in 2023.”