Sareee pulled from AEW women’s Owen Hart Foundation tournament, semifinals set
The AEW debut of Sareee will have to wait for another day as the Japanese women’s star was pulled from the Owen Hart Foundation tournament Wednesday.
Just prior to AEW Dynamite, Tony Khan announced that she was not cleared by AEW doctors and couldn’t compete. Thus, Maya World replaced her in Wednesday’s quarterfinal against Skye Blue on the same week she unexpectedly lost her younger brother.
World defeated Blue in an upset to advance to a semifinal match against Athena with the other semifinal — Mercedes Mone vs. Hazuki — will take place next Wednesday. The tournament finals are set for this month’s Forbidden Door pay-per-view with the winner advancing to August’s All In with a guaranteed Women’s World title shot.
There was a question as to whether Sareee would even be able to compete in the tournament as she was dealing with a neck injury before the tournament was announced. Khan had previously said that both Persephone and Sareee’s matches would be held later on to try and give them more time to return.
On Tuesday, she hinted at not being able to compete and that her tag team partner Takumi Iroha was traveling to the U.S. to corner her and would take her place if she couldn’t go. That was obviously not the case.
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.