As AEW Revolution approaches, “Timeless” Toni Storm and Mariah May have the opportunity to make history, cinema, and art all rolled into one. To do so, these two pioneering women will need to take the bittersweet, bloodstained, and soured love for each other to its finale. To match their feud’s intensity and the high expectations, they will need to go to a place that’s both viscerally and psychologically violent.
It wasn’t that long ago that I wrote about AEW’s spotlighting issue with Toni Storm and Mariah May. The imbalance of characterization favoured the growth and development of the Timeless One over her protégée.
Yet, history, like a makeup artist, has a way of covering the blemishes. Hiding the sore red spots so that all we remember is perfection.
We saw this with the violent splendour of “Hangman” Adam Page vs. Swerve Strickland. Those moments of inconsistency, with hindsight and excellent follow-up, become legendary.
In that spotlighting article, I discussed how (up to this point) Storm and May have fallen short of the Swerve and Hangman feud. However, all it takes is one performance of a lifetime to change everything.
Paced Perfection Towards AEW Revolution
Trilogies in Hollywood struggle to maintain pace, drama, and intrigue after the previous two installments. They often fall short by running out of story.
Part three fails sometimes because the characters’ arcs have already been completed. Plus, possible creative fatigue. Yet, AEW deserves immense credit for perfecting the pacing of this feud.
AEW has a problem with pacing. Feuds sometimes persist long past their sell-by date. See The Devil storyline in both 2023 and 2024.
Other times, the connective tissue is missing. As fans, it’s easy to criticize when you can’t see the entire road map. My biggest complaint heading into Grand Slam with Mariah May’s character was that compared to her sapphic-driven feud with mentor Mina Shirakawa, similar pangs of love were missing from May and Storm’s confrontations.
Yet, looking back at Storm and May’s previous two encounters, it was both brave and strategically clever how both women were booked to win in their home cities and countries. How the spilled blood and smeared lipstick were rationed to create peaks and dips to aid the victories and defeats of both women. In each case, their loss left a profound mark, as did the victory.
Mariah May, as champion, donned the mask of the Woman from Hell as her identity. Storm broke and went on a journey of self-discovery to Japan and Mexico and through her own past to regain some sanity.
After her defeat in Australia, May was also broken. As with Shirakawa, May is ready to sacrifice love to reclaim the championship she believes will make her whole again.
Physical vs. Mental Games
We’ve seen so much violence between these two women. The point of a stiletto drilled into a skull. The championship belt used like a whip. A sick-sounding thud of a piledriver on a stage.
In hindsight, it’s quite incredible how one-sided the violence has been. May was always the instigator. May was always the one with something to prove.
The student always tries to prove they’ve surpassed their teacher through the process of destruction. There’s no peaceful transition. To usurp your predecessor, you must destroy them.
May’s relationship with Storm helps ground the timeless character in the reality of wrestling. The hints were always there. Storm never saw them.
Instead, at times, she saw May like a doll or a mirror reflection of herself. She never really seemed to love May, but more what May reflected about herself. Especially in her rock-chick cosplay.
Storm used mind games against May. Yes, she has hit and beat May, but never with the intention of trying to damage her or her career in the way May has tried to end Storm. Storm’s victory in Australia came at the expense of a small package, a nod to her return to AEW after All In and the character’s sexual innuendo.
May won through violence and viciousness. Storm equalled their series using determination and intelligence. But things have reached the point of ultimate escalation.
Previously, Toni Storm took the beating when playing “the role of a lifetime” as her rookie self. That version of Toni Storm, the one who liked shiny things, took pies to the face, and gave no receipts, is dead.
The Ending Must Be More Than Bloody
“Look what you made me do. You never did know how to write an ending, did you? So, I guess I’m going to write one for you and I am going to write it in your own blood. This is our spotlight. This is our moment. Let’s be stars together. At Revolution, let’s have a Hollywood ending.” Mariah May, AEW Collision, 2/22/25.
Dressed in white and sporting thick black eyeliner that reminded me of the haunting and unhinged glare of Glenn Close’s Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction, Mariah May is obsessed. This is all-consuming.
It’s never been all about May. Everything continued to revolve back to the Timeless one. After everything that’s happened, the blow-off cannot be anything but bloody.
AEW has seen its fair share of bloody and violent women’s matches. All Out’s Chicago Street Fight is the most recent.
AEW’s booking of women deserves scrutiny, but it’s hard to deny that in such stipulation matches, the female wrestlers involved are allowed to push the boundaries. Unlike that match or previous matches, the weight of this story demands more than blood.
It demands cinema. It demands artistic struggle, catharsis, pathos, and release. Neither character will be the same afterward.
There’s likely to be call-backs and surprises. Watch out for the shoe. There will likely be Hollywood movie references, perhaps from All About Eve to Mullholland Drive.
Watch out for the slightest facial expressions that show the underlying sapphic and LGBT themes that have never been treated as exploitative. Never intended or designed for the male gaze.
This is their moment.
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Header photo – AEW – Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on AEW Revolution, Toni Storm, Mariah May, and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world. As well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can catch AEW Dynamite on Wednesday nights at 8 PM ET on TBS. AEW Collision airs Saturday at 8pm Eastern on TNT. More AEW content available on their YouTube
