The 2026 Owen Hart tournament is a fever dream
AEW just dropped the participant list for this year’s Women’s Owen Hart Foundation Tournament and my brain is still trying to process the sheer audacity. We have established main eventers, absolute rookies, and a few names that make me wonder if Tony Khan just closed his eyes and pointed at the roster spreadsheet while throwing a dart. It is messy, it is confusing, and frankly, it is the most AEW thing I have seen in months.
First off, the inclusion of veterans like Serena Deeb is a masterstroke in pure wrestling quality. Watching her lace up the boots for a tournament format usually yields some of the highest technical floor matches on television. But then you look at the lower half of the bracket and see names who haven’t had a featured singles win since long before Piper Niven revealed her own status during the recent layoff scare. It creates a booking bottleneck that feels less like a prestigious tournament and more like a high-stakes game of musical chairs.
The booking dilemma is staring us in the face
The problem with putting a eclectic mix of seasoned pros and developmental talent into a single-elimination bracket is the inevitability of a flat finish. If you feed the younger talent to the veterans, you stall their momentum. If you have the veterans lose to the greener workers, you diminish the value of their previous accolades for a tournament that is supposed to honor the legacy of the Hart family. We saw this internal conflict play out when Adam Cole’s contract situation became a dark cloud over the promotion earlier this year. When the booking feels disconnected from the stakes, the audience picks up on it immediately.
We are just 10 days out from Double or Nothing. That is a massive stage to feature a final, yet the narrative thread connecting these women feels incredibly frayed. I want to see a tournament that builds stars, but right now, it looks like a collection of matches thrown together because the calendar says it’s May. Compare this to the NJPW G1 Climax where every participant has a distinct purpose and an path to points. Here, it feels like a grab bag.
The glaring holes in the bracket
There is also the issue of the missing pieces. Why are several of the women’s division workhorses noticeably absent from the graphic? If this is meant to be the premier tournament of the summer, you have to feature your absolute best. Leaving out consistent performers is a slap in the face to the viewer who watches every Wednesday and Saturday expecting a cohesive product. It feels like the company is playing favorites with the push list instead of focusing on who actually carries the division in the middle of the undercard.
Maybe I am just being the grumpy guy at the bar, but I have seen this company produce tournament excellence before. I know what they are capable of when they lock in. This isn’t that. This feels like a roster scramble that needed another three weeks of creative polish before being slapped onto a network announcement. You have talented individuals who deserve better than a half-baked tournament structure that seems to lack a clear identity or a long-term goal.
I will still tune in, because I am a glutton for punishment and I love the sport. But until I see the first round match-ups actually deliver, I am going to keep my expectations glued to the floor. The winners look predictable, the underdogs look out of place, and the whole thing sits at a 0.500 probability of actually producing a memorable trophy push. Tony Khan needs to stop booking for tomorrow and start booking towards a coherent 2026 vision. If he doesn’t, this tournament will just be another footnote in a year that feels increasingly directionless.
