On January 11, EVE presents Wrestle Queendom 3 from 229 The Venue at Great Portland Street, London. You can watch live at Fite.tv or on replay at EVEonDemand. By the way, I’m back, and better than ever. No, I’m not Eric Bischoff. It’s been a while since I came here with anything, largely due to end of the semester stuff. But you don’t care about that. What you care about is the biggest women’s wrestling event of the year in Europe, and it’s coming to us early.
This year’s Queendom promises a very interesting card. There have been updates in the past 24 hours (at the time of writing) from the initial layout of the card due to events at EVE’s Battle Cry event on January 4, so some of the following photos may not be up to date.
The EVE Rumble
EVE Wrestle Queendom 3 is putting together a 15-woman Rumble match. Only five names have been announced for the match so far. Jetta, one of the inaugural tag team champions, will enter the match. She completed the SHE-1 2019 SHE-1 tournament with 2 points by defeating EVE champion Rhia O’Reilly. She was granted a championship match at Let’s Get Shitfaced & Scream into the Void: A Christmas Spectacular but came up short. Jetta comes into this match with something to prove.
Also entering the match is Livvii Grace, one of Rhia O’Reilly’s heavies. O’Reilly left Jetta bloody at the Christmas show, and Grace will certainly want to keep up the brutality. Skye Smitson enters as well. She’s never won a match in EVE and she’s probably not winning this one either, just because of the numbers. Rebel Kinney will be in the match as well. She served as a replacement for Nicole Savoy on the third show of the SHE-1. Kinney finished with no points, but did get to wrestle in the same match as Jazz during the fatal four way on the fourth SHE-1 show. And making her EVE debut at Queendom will be Dominitia. Dominitia’s biggest claim to fame is that she won the 2019 Bellatrix Queen of the Ring tournament.
Prediction: Ten women have yet to be announced, so there’s not really any way to make an informed prediction. Of the women currently announced, I favor Kinney as the most likely to win, but I suspect one of the ten unannounced names will actually win.
Lana Austin vs. Yuka Sakazaki
This is Sakazaki’s debut match in EVE, and the original plan for Battle Cry was to have a match decide who her opponent would be. Nightshade and Lana Austin were meant to fight for that right, but that match never happened (Austin wrestled Jetta and Laura Di Matteo in a three way instead) due to Nightshade being ill. Sakazaki is the current Princess of Princess champion in Tokyo Joshi Pro.
Prediction: Sakazaki is a reigning world champion for another promotion. She’s not losing this. Should be a fun match, though.
Killer Kelly vs. Roxxy
It’s been a minute since we’ve seen Killer Kelly in EVE. She last appeared in October at Absolute Scenes in a losing effort against Laura Di Matteo. Roxxy’s last win in EVE was against Skye Smitson back in September. She is, however, the only one of the two to have wrestled at Queendom before. Last year Roxxy lost against Arisa Hoshiki in a match for the Wonder of Stardom Championship.
Prediction: I think Kelly wins the match. Neither seems to be in any kind of storyline at present, so it’s really a gut feeling here that the wrestler who works intermittently in NXT UK will win.
In another cross-promotional match, we have Martina bringing the party back to Wrestle Queendom 3. Her opponent, Maki Itoh, just recently lost her International Princess title to Thunder Rosa at Tokyo Joshi Pro’s New Year Dash event. Between Martina’s drunken antics and Itoh being a six-time DDT IronMan Heavymetalweight champion, expect a match that has lots of comedy but can turn serious at a moment’s notice.
Prediction: Maki Ito has this in the bag.
Jinny vs. Nina Samuels
This match was set up at Let’s Get Shitfaced. Jinny and Sammii Jayne wrestled a very good match that Jayne won, and Nina Samuels came out to challenge Jayne and show she could do what Jinny could not. She accused Jinny of getting soft, even. Jayne won again, and Jinny sarcastically applauded Samuels on her effort. Samuels challenged Jinny to a match at Queendom and here we are. Is this the beginning of a face turn for Jinny? She did compliment Sammii an awful lot in the post-match promo that Samuels interrupted. Either way, Samuels is the clear heel in this rivalry.
Prediction: Jinny’s going to win this one. I don’t see them dragging this out very far past Queendom at all, and it’ll be best for Jinny to get a feel-good win if she is turning face.
Zoe Lucas vs. Nor “Phoenix” Diana
Another in-ring debut in EVE is Nor “Phoenix” Diana, the Wrestlecon champion in Malaysia Pro Wrestling. She’s the first hijabi woman wrestler, and she made her first EVE appearance at Battle Cry. Until then, her opponent was unannounced, and Zoe Lucas came out to taunt her. And now we have a match. Lucas is an incredible heel, so this match should build some tremendous heat and really get the crowd behind Diana.
If you’ve never seen Nor wrestle, enjoy this match from Philippine Wrestling Revolution.
Gisele Shaw & Sammii Jayne (c) vs. The Woke Queens (Debbie Keitel & Valkyrie) vs. Medusa Complex (Millie McKenzie & Charli Evans) elimination match for the EVE Tag Team Championship
This is a complicated one and most of the SHE-1 and Let’s Get Shitfaced shows were dedicated to building this match. Charli Evans qualified for the SHE-1 but put up her spot against Mercedes Martinez, which she lost. In the final of the SHE-1, Millie McKenzie beat Martinez to win the tournament and become Ace of EVE. She announced immediately that she planned to use her title match at Queendom to win the tag titles alongside Charli Evans. Everything looks simple so far.
Along the way to that final, Millie McKenzie, Gisele Shaw, and Laura Di Matteo all sat at four points. They had a tiebreaker match at the beginning of the fourth show, and it is worth noting that Gisele Shaw never lost to McKenzie in the course of the block matches. McKenzie won the tiebreaker, but she pinned Di Matteo and more importantly did it following up on Shaw’s offense against Di Matteo.
Gisele Shaw has therefore declared herself the true Ace of EVE, going so far as to force Emily Read to announce her as such. At Let’s Get Shitfaced, the Woke Queens challenged her to a match in the spirit of festive charity, if she could find a partner. After two matches and building crowd support, Sammii Jayne shocked the audience by coming out as Shaw’s partner. The decision was entirely mercenary on Jayne’s part–she just wanted gold again–and the two managed to win the tag team titles.
Prediction: I really want Medusa Complex to win the titles, but I’m also curious to see the Jayne/Shaw dyad continue. Still going to go with the Medusa Complex to win this. The time feels right.
Rhia O’Reilly (c) vs. Laura Di Matteo for the EVE Championship
Finally, the main event match also stems most immediately from the SHE-1 tournament, though this one goes to the aftermath of Wrestle Queendom 2. At the Dawn of a New Era show two weeks after last year’s Queendom, Rhia O’Reilly’s heavy Livvii Grace interfered in the EVE Championship number one contender’s tournament. She tripped up Millie McKenzie during Millie’s match with Laura Di Matteo, preventing Di Matteo from advancing into the second round. Laura Di Matteo and Mercedes Martinez also beat Rhia O’Reilly and Livvii Grace tag team championship tournament at Check Yourself. Di Matteo pinned O’Reilly to win the match.
So Laura Di Matteo has beaten Rhia, and the champion has thus made sure she does not have to fight Laura. At the final show of the SHE-1, Gisele Shaw’s offense that put Laura Di Matteo down for Millie McKenzie was aided by Rhia O’Reilly coming to ringside to distract Di Matteo. Laura demanded a match with Rhia to open Let’s Get Shitfaced. Rhia patently refused any such thing. Dann Read took up a microphone and laid out the facts. Laura has pinned Rhia and Rhia seems scared that Laura has her number and is constantly interfering in Laura’s matches to stave off an eventual match with her. And so he made the match official.
Prediction: When I reviewed Wrestle Queendom 2 last year, I took particular note of Laura Di Matteo vs. Jordynne Grace and predicted that Laura had a good chance of becoming Ace of EVE. Well, she got to the final and she’s in a title match against the EVE champion at Wrestle Queendom 3, so I was wrong, but not far from the mark. In any case, I’d say I had an inkling she would be in the EVE Championship match at Wrestle Queendom 3 and I suspect she’s walking out champion.
