Chris Jericho retained the FTW Championship at AEW Double or Nothing PPV in a three-way match involving Katsuryori Shibata and HOOK. I suspected the champion might continue his reign with Big Bill’s help, but I never dreamed the match would go down the way it did. A new member of the Learning Tree joined the champion and Big Bill.

The champion introduced a bag of dice in the match. Everyone thought it would be the typical thumbtacks, but Jericho continued his tradition of unusual objects. Last time, it was hockey pucks. Then the champ was promptly suplexed onto the dice by both challengers. Many fans loved this aspect of the match since they had been booing Jericho.

Weapons Getting Used

All three men confronted each other in the middle of the ring with kendo sticks. I liked these kendo sticks. They seemed a lot more substantial and not as flimsy. HOOK and Shibata didn’t move when the champ swung first. HOOK and Shibata proceeded to beat up the champion with these weapons. Shibata set up a table in the ring. Then HOOK got him on the table. HOOK went to the top rope, but Shibata got to HOOK before he could hit Jericho. Shibata hit a Death Valley Driver with HOOK on Jericho. The problem was that the table didn’t break. It looked like HOOK’s head clipped the table.

HOOK put Jericho into a Red Rum sleeper, but was blindsided by Big Bill. He attempted to chokeslam HOOK through the table set up outside the ring. HOOK countered Big Bill’s attempt and sent him through the table instead. While this was going on, the FTW Champion placed Shibata in the Walls of Jericho. Shibata rolled through and turned it into a figure four. As HOOK got back in the ring, he proceeded to get Jericho (still in the figure four) into the Red Rum sleeper again.

Masked Man Enters the Picture

This is how both Shibata and HOOK won the match on the May 22nd Dynamite episode against Bryan Keith. The three of them competed in an FTW Championship Eliminator match. Shibata and HOOK made Keith submit as they both had submission holds on him. That’s how the FTW Championship match at AEW Double or Nothing PPV became a three-way. Keith later that week confronted Jericho about it.

As HOOK and Shibata had the champion locked into different submission holds, a masked individual climbed into the ring. He took aim at HOOK and Shibata. This masked man revealed himself to be Bryan Keith. Jericho hit HOOK with the Judas Effect and then went over and pinned Shibata for his victory keeping his championship reign alive.