The Acclaimed’s Upcoming AEW Tag Title Challengers Seemingly Revealed

It would seem that The Acclaimed could have a new set of challengers for their AEW Tag Team Championships coming up, even though Hurricane Ian scuppered the original plans.

The tag team division in AEW has always been particularly strong, however the rise of The Acclaimed to title status has been particularly popular with the crowd. On the pre-recorded 30th September 2022 edition of Rampage, Max Caster and Anthony Bowens make their first defence of the straps against The Butcher and The Blade.

However, with Hurricane Ian causing many competitors to struggle to travel to and from Florida this week, it would seem that there may have been a very different team in contention who may well come back in to the fold. According to Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, TNT Champion Wardlow and ROH Television Champion Samoa Joe were originally planned as the challengers.

The 9/28 Dynamite show and Rampage tapings had to be rewritten due to talent not being there although every advertised segment took place. Less was advertised ahead of time than usual because [Tony] Khan was aware of the potential problems for several days ahead of time. The only names that appeared obviously missing were Jake Hager and Swerve Strickland, both of whom were confirmed as two of the people not there due to the hurricane hitting where they live badly and them needing to stay home.

Strickland wasn’t with Keith Lee in a confrontation with The Acclaimed to build a tag team title rematch, and Hager wasn’t with the Jericho Appreciation Society. In a trivia note, it was Hager who came up with the idea of the JAS coming out in all purple suits in the celebration. There were several others not there including Samoa Joe, and the plans to start a Joe & Wardlow vs. Lee & Strickland program had to be put on hold.

A formidable combination, Wardlow and Samoa Joe have come together over the last few weeks of AEW programming and defeated Tony Nese and Josh Woods at Grand Slam.

The Acclaimed are currently set to host ‘National Scissoring Day‘ on the 5th October 2022 edition of AEW Dynamite.