“Double or Nothing” was a matter of pride for Paragon. Current TNT champion Adam Cole stepped into the ring with his brothers Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong, teaching lessons to Don Karis family members later Sunday.
Fletcher and Cole were ready to start the match, but “Protostal” was quickly tagged in the Takeshita River powerhouse to wear down the TNT champions. Takechita wore Cole on several hard strikes, but Cole leveled the Japanese star with a fierce neck breaker. O’Reilly stepped into the fight and struck for a strike with Takeshita until Alexander was tagged. Strong was next door to join the fight.
Strong took away most of the Don Charis family’s abuse and kicked off the Charis himself. Chaos exploded as Cole joined the fight to level Takeshita with a superkick before quarantining Alexander. O’Reilly and Cole did a short job with Fletcher and Alexander, but the Don Chariss family fought back by isolating the TNT champions for a triple power bomb.
The match deteriorated disorderly as all the teams began to fight and completely ignored the legal competitors of the match. When all the parties pushed, they were unable to secure finisher attempts and had far fewer pin covers. It was only finished after Takeshita interrupted O’Reilly’s guillotine attempt with an enclosed elbow.
Paragon received backup courtesy of NJPW.
Don Karis’ family issued a full attack on Paragon after Bell, with families Lance Archer and Trent Barrette putting their hands on the mix. Paragon found an alliance of Brody King and Tomohiro Ishii, but the Don Karis family made his presence known to President Tanakajima, the NJPW president, to support Paragon’s numbers game. This segment ended with Cole landing the boom on Fletcher and surrounded by his new allies.
As AEW commentary team noted, the AEW and NJPW “Forbidden Door” event is scheduled for August 24th in London. However, it remains to be seen whether or not he was a hint for the forbidden door card or not.
