Who should be the interim AEW World Champion after CM Punk's injury announcement? In this episode of All Elite Daily, I discuss Punk's injury, the confusion surrounding the AEW World title situation, a potential Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi match at Forbidden Door, and much more. You can listen above or via your favorite podcast app or read the show notes below. The main highlights are also available via the transcript below. Show Notes The situation surrounding the AEW World titleCM Punk's injuryWho should be crowned Interim AEW World Champion?Candidates to win the Battle Royal to face Jon Moxley on DynamiteNJPW setting up Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Hirooki Goto for Dominion For more AEW discussion, you can follow me on Twitter @wrestleblake. Transcript We have a lot to discuss here on this episode, and it is the fallout from the surprise announcement on AEW Rampage. CM Punk announced that he is currently dealing with an injury and will have to undergo surgery, which will lead to an Interim AEW World Champion. Thus begins the AEW interim World Championship Eliminator series featuring several different steps. It will first start off with the battle royal, which will open up this Wednesday's AEW Dynamite Independence, Missouri. The winner of the battle royal goes on to face Jon Moxley later that night. The winner of that match will go on to compete for the Interim AEW World title at Forbidden Door on June 26 in Chicago. And another wrinkle that was added is New Japan announcing that at Dominion, it's going to be Hiroshi Tanahashi going on one on one with Hirooki Goto in what is being described as another Eliminator Match. The winners meet at Forbidden Door. There are a lot of moving parts with a sudden announcement like that because none of us expected it. But here's where things stand. We can get the New Japan part of this out of the way first. It's going to be Hiroshi Tanahashi going up against someone from AEW, whether that's Jon Moxley or the winner of the Battle Royal. Love Goto, but it's not going to be him headlining Forbidden Door. It's going to be Tanahashi. On the AEW side, there are really only a couple of different directions. And let's start with the one that I don't think is likely. But I think it's worth mentioning Tanahashi was the one who had the scheduled match against CM Punk at Forbidden Door. Tanahashi was not going to win that match, but could AEW go the route of putting the belt on Tanahashi if Punk's injury is a short-term thing? I don't see it as likely. But again, if you're looking for something outside the box, it's something worth thinking about just because it was going to be Tanahashi as next in line for an AEW World Championship match. But Tanahashi actually becoming champion, I don't think that's realistic. That leads us to some of the other possible scenarios. I think the most likely one is Jon Moxley being the interim AEW World Champion. Moxley has been wanting this match with Tanahashi, and I think Moxley is going to be the choice coming out of Dynamite no matter who he faces in the main event. So, Moxley advances to Forbidden Door to headline that pay-per-view with Tanahashi and it gives you a match that has been building for a while. This is the perfect time to do it. And I think it'll be Moxley being the first two-time champion. That's the most likely route just because Moxley is someone that Tony Khan has turned to time and time again, in terms of putting him in all these big spots. He's someone AEW has leaned on a lot since the company started. This is probably that scenario where you're comfortable with Moxley. He can kind of carry you moving forward until Punk returns. It gives you a big name and there are a lot of different ways you can go with that. How could that tie in with Bryan Danielson? Could Danielson try to get that title from Moxley their relationship? Eddie Kingston? Throw him in the mix. There are a lot of possibilities by putting Moxley in this particular role. Beyond that, who are the options? There have been reports out there that Bryan Danielson is dealing with an injury and is reportedly going to be off for a couple of weeks perhaps. So that would likely not put him in this battle royal on Wednesday for that opportunity. I think you can count him out of the mix. Adam Cole? I think it was Brian Alvarez who reported that Cole is expected to not wrestle until Forbidden Door. So that takes him perhaps out of the battle royal. He just won the Owen Hart Cup. He's ranked number four in the rankings. So those are all possibilities. Meanwhile, who else is ranked in the in the top five in the rankings? You've Wardlow, who was the previous number one before Moxley moved to one, and he's at two now. Hangman Page, the former AEW World Champion is at three, and Jay Lethal at five. I don't think Jay Lethal is going to be the guy to win it and face Moxley in the main event. But this is where I think you have a lot of different options. And I think now, the ...
