When Kenny Omega lost his AEW World Championship to Adam Page after two years of television that had been meticulously mapped out from Page’s initial loss to Chris Jericho in 2019, the feel of AEW shifted as its influx of talent, its political dynamic shift, and its growth, such as the additional programming and purchase of Ring of Honor, completely radicalized the booking philosophy and ended its long-term, cohesive feel. That cohesive feeling is something that professional wrestling as a whole hasn’t seen a company have long-term since the days of Jim Crockett, and it’s something that many lamented about the growing pains AEW felt coming out the pandemic. The Codyverse, the name given to the Cody Rhodes story as one of its initial founders found himself vilified for refusing to integrate himself with the rest of the show and ultimately pushed him out the door, irsonically a similar feeling he has now bubbling beneath the surface as SmackDown’s top guy amidst the WWE fanbase in 2026, is one thing the rest of the show can work around. But when you have talent who refuse to work with certain talents because they think they’re above them, or a talent on a big money deal who has to be pacified onto his own unofficial brand split of people who are willing to coddle him and mold themselves to his perception of what pro wrestling should be, a thorough sequence of your programming becomes increasingly difficult to book around.
Then the follow up to Will Ospreay vs Kenny Omega happened. It was at this show, Forbidden Door 2023, that it became obvious that the aforementioned big money contract was on his way out. It was that match between Omega and Ospreay that began to give AEW its feel back. This also coincides with the reports that Tony Khan had taken back full control over his booking, something he deviated from after Page’s win. Over that time, AEW has seen the reigns of MJF, Samoa Joe, Swerve Strickland, Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Adam Page, Darby Allin, and now Kenny Omega. The hottest signing, just months after the Omega match, Will Ospreay, has had a three year odyssey to the AEW Championship that will culminate in the rematch with Omega, and the dynamics of every single championship reign between Forbidden Door 2023 and All In 2026 have built to Will Ospreay’s coronation in his home country, and every dynamic is ultimately set to play into its finish, with his road back being feuds with every single wrestler mention. For the first time since AEW initially did it with Adam Page, Khan has finished a three year angle to make the biggest of championship victories.
The championship lineage since Will Ospreay signed with AEW: MJF, Samoa Joe, Swerve Strickland, Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Adam Page, Samoa Joe, MJF, Darby Allin, MJF, and now Kenny Omega. To go through the dynamics of each of these characters individually is to blueprint the rise of Ospreay in AEW.
Let’s start with Jon Moxley, as that seems most critical with Mox being the hive that the bees fly around, and considering Ospreay’s the latest member of the Death Riders. As you’ll be able to tell as we go along, Moxley being the glue is going to bring every single name into this. Moxley’s arc over this period of time includes a significant heel run that became clearer as it went along. Hiding the most coveted prize in the industry in a briefcase over a prolonged period because nobody in the company is worthy of seeing it is one thing, but Moxley’s entire angle with the Blackpool Combat Club was about respect. If you bleed with Jon Moxley, you’re in the Blackpool Combat Club. Of course, after the forced exit of Bryan Danielson, a name that will be coming up momentarily, the Blackpool Combat Club became the Death Riders with Moxley at the helm. The idea for Moxley with his group is to train them to be the best professional wrestlers they can be, and over time we’ve seen him go against his group and aid his group depending on what he thought was best for the people in his circle. A good example of this is the Wheeler Yuta head shave where Moxley went against Yuta for going against his word, forcing him to have honor. While this may seem uncharacteristic of a heel, especially when he’s still allied with Yuta, it’s not about the traditional heel vs. babyface structure that pro wrestling is very much behind the times as a whole in deviating from as much as it is the character, in theory, is about respecting the industry, and going against his team forces them to learn respect in news way. Meanwhile, keeping the belt and cheating to do so is theoretically the antithesis of what Jon Moxley is supposed to believe in, however, as Moxley has explained on numerous occasions, pro wrestling likes to stack the deck, and anybody who cannot upend him with the deck stacked is not capable to lead a pro wrestling company. You have a hybrid of Moxley in his in-between stage, because the training to be a main event star is nuanced. You’re not just going against honor against a babyface like Omega, but you’re going against the dishonorable like MJF.
When Will Ospreay lost the opportunity to face Jon Moxley at All In 2025 to Hangman Page, it needed to be Hangman. The downfall of AEW that forced Moxley into his attempt to get people to step up began the moment that the day one thoroughbred lost his championship to a talent who didn’t respect what Moxley had built, and almost destroyed it. For Page, that was always going to be his moment, and it was the right call for Hangman to be the man who righted the ship. But when Hangman bled with Mox, when Hangman quite literally lived up to his name to make Moxley quit and you see Moxley smile, it’s at that point that Mox knows AEW is in good hands, and his attention needs to focus to anybody who didn’t have the right goal for AEW, anybody who was focused on putting themselves first, and not the company. Go back and watch All In 2025, firstly because it’s a fantastic show capped off by one of the best matches the company has had to date, but primarily for this purpose: who’s out at the end of the show for Hangman against Mox and the Deathriders? Swerve Strickland, Bryan Danielson, and Darby Allin make their presence felt at the end of the match. Ospreay and The Opps had also been helping throughout, but more begrudgingly. The Opps worked the Death Riders to open the show, but Ospreay had been attacked so he couldn’t help Hangman. Everybody but MJF and Kenny Omega in this nucleus of people, who aren’t involved in this aspect of Ospreay’s story.
Darby first shows up with a video where he’s quite literally planting a flag on Everest. Darby had to be out there. Swerve had failed against Moxley and it had gotten so bad to where he needed to help his nemesis. Swerve as a character needed to be out there. Ospreay may have helped, but his character shouldn’t have been there, and therefore it wasn’t. Ospreay’s character in December of 2024 had issues with Darby because this was Darby’s focus, but it had never been Ospreay’s focus. This promo right here from the Continental Classic tells you that this was never about anything other than being World Champion for Ospreay. For Page? It was so much more. For Ospreay? He wasn’t ready.
On his attempt to capture the World Championship in 2024, Ospreay had a match with the aforementioned Danielson. For those who don’t know, Bryan Danielson prematurely retired from professional wrestling due to a neck that couldn’t sustain any more damage ten years earlier. Though he ended up returning in 2018 to the sport, that was after many medical breakthroughs in a short period of time. In the match, Ospreay is desperate to win, so he hits a Tiger Driver ‘91, which is a move made famous by legendary AJPW pillar Mitsuharu Misawa, who was so desperate to defeat Akira Taue in a match in 1991 that instead of hitting his traditional tiger driver, a double underhook suplex, he dropped Taue directly in his neck instead of flipping him through the suplex. It’s a move Misawa rarely went back to, but used it scarcely when he had no other option. When Ospreay nailed Danielson with his Tiger Driver ‘91, Danielson lost all mobility in both of his arms, causing Ospreay to break down thinking that he had paralyzed one of his heroes. Due to the danger, Ospreay promised to retire the move until Danielson convinced him to use it against MJF, which led to their match in Wembley Stadium, giving Ospreay the biggest win of his AEW career at All In 2024. It’s clear from that story that Ospreay struggled stepping on the neck of his opponents to put them away in scenarios where an Oscutter, Hidden Blade, or Styles Clash may fail him. With Moxley having broken his neck, Will Ospreay came back this year focusing on the fear the Death Riders made him feel, and as he continued to fight with Moxley, the realization that he needed Moxley set in, and the respect that Mox had for him stepping up came through. Ospreay’s lack of killer instinct comes from within, the idea that lives are on the line every time he steps through the ropes. It’s that experience with Danielson that triggered the initial anxiety that Moxley was going to eradicate, but the real neck injury suffered by Ospreay put a fascinating wrinkle into what would become the long-term story as Ospreay’s real life engagement made him question the mortality of his own career. For Ospreay to be ready, there’s two things that needed to happen that hadn’t happened for him to become the ace of AEW, what he touted he’d become the moment he came in: he needed to develop a killer instinct to put opponents away, and he needed to not be afraid of what could happen to him. The Owen Hart Tournament match with Samoa Joe, whose chant is aptly ‘Joe is gonna kill you,’ ended up being the vehicle that provided the proof of a killer instinct brewing. It’s the match in the Finals that determined his fear, and it was against the most dangerous man in AEW.
While Hangman celebrated his triumph, one of Ospreay’s oldest friends in the industry, and the guy who had been teaming with Ospreay, Swerve Strickland is watching on in a look of bittersweet disdain as he just had to help the man who once burned down his home just to save his own career. Before Ospreay’s neck injury took him off television, a quiet resentment from Swerve came through. During Ospreay’s absence, the demeanor shift in Swerve made him snap. With a date etched with Will Ospreay in the Owen Hart Tournament finals in 2026, the tournament that Ospreay lost to Page in 2025, two weeks before Forbidden Door told all. Three years of television came bursting out of one promo.
After a year of no contact, the old pals unleashed their own frustration. Swerve is angry that Ospreay is playing ‘booty boot camp’ with the Death Riders after everything the group of main event talent went through, including Ospreay with Swerve against The Young Bucks at the same event, to eliminate Mox’s death grip on the show, and points out that Ospreay never explained why he made such a decision. Ospreay pointed out, just two weeks before he officially joined the Death Riders, that he hasn’t forgotten and he hasn’t forgiven them, but he just let it go because the training is working. But Swerve was the only wrestler who didn’t try to help Ospreay when the Death Riders broke his neck. See if these names who did try to help sound familiar: Kenny Omega, Samoa Joe and the Opps, Darby Allin. Ospreay believes the reason is because he was angry that he had to help Hangman, and while Ospreay points out that he would run through a brick wall for Swerve, but he wouldn’t have done it with Ospreay, even though he did what Ospreay wanted to do with him by himself. It’s all set up in this promo right here, though the extended version of this promo is significantly richer for the purpose of the story if you want to go find it on the HBO replay. For Will Ospreay, who came in friends with everybody, he continues to realize the loyalty isn’t returned in a competitive environment.
Everything shifts back into focus. For Will Ospreay, an explanation isn’t necessary because it’s not his main focus, it’s never been his main focus. He has the most dangerous man in AEW standing in between him and a World Championship shot in his home country in the biggest venue in the world, the one venue every kid from England wants to headline at some point in their life. He will do anything to have that match. At Forbidden Door, Swerve nearly ended Ospreay’s career, and Ospreay still won, because for Ospreay, the fear of what he has to do and what’s being done to him is no longer going to stand in his way to get his championship. Will Ospreay wanted his chance to kick the ball because after three years of saying he will be AEW’s ace, he is ready to become the ace. For those uncultured wrestling fans who refuse to watch anything outside of the Western Culture ‘sports entertainment bubble,’ is a term that originates from the Japanese tradition of professional wrestling as the guy that weather any storm for a company if he’s the focal point, and AEW’s undisputed ace to this point? The guy training him. Jon Moxley’s entire arc the last couple of years? Finding AEW’s ace to replace him.
So where are MJF and Kenny Omega in all of this? MJF defeated everybody mentioned, while also having his own feud with Ospreay in the interim. As MJF is now on his third AEW Championship reign, having missed a majority of Moxley’s Death Riders run due to Hollywood calling his name, MJF’s long-term stories with Darby and Hangman have changed their dynamics, particularly Hangman’s, who can no longer challenge for the AEW Championship, something that Swerve brought up in the promo we just looked at Ospreay’s expense.
But the general stipulation for Omega’s final title shot is that he faces the same stipulation that Hangman, Cody, and the Bucks have faced. Kenny’s four best friends that founded AEW with him. For a character like Omega, who breathes the championship, the stipulation that he can’t challenge means his entire life is at stake. And for a character who relies on honor, the focus in recent weeks noting that he’d never been able to defend the championship without help, alluding to his original run with Don Callis during the pandemic, means he needs the honor. Since wrestling Ospreay, Omega’s bouts with diverticulitis have put him on the shelf throughout, making him question if he still has it. After his two best friends in the industry had their title aspirations killed by stipulations that required them never challenge for the belt again, he had to agree to that to even get the shot to prove it to himself.
The other thing they set up with Omega is that the kickout at one when his back is against the wall, a kickout that he used against Will Ospreay at Forbidden Door as Ospreay used his finisher against him, was a big focal point of Omega’s title win last night. The other thing they set up? MJF kicking out of the One Winged Angel months ago as the referee was down and he could count until 30 seconds later. The One Winged Angel has not been kicked out of in fifteen years, and a heel who technically did but had still been beaten by it has spent months saying he ‘kicked out of it like it was nothing.’ This drew attention to the fact that it’s the most protected finisher in professional wrestling, in fact, it’s probably the only finisher in any major company that hasn’t been prostituted in any capacity.
MJF was arrogant because the only person he’s beaten straight up this year is Darby Allin, who had beaten him very quickly when 100%. With Allin destroying his body before the match, MJF was able to pick him to pieces. Other than that, even his win over Omega where he ‘easily kicked out of the One Winged Angel” required both cheating, and the referee being knocked out. But MJF’s arrogance is exactly why Kenny was able to take the championship. The week before the match with Kenny, the night after Forbidden Door, Ospreay met multiple characters backstage at the top of the show. It started with Moxley, it continued with Kenny, and it ended with Max. As Max is set to face Omega, he simply looks right past Omega and tells Ospreay he’ll see him at Wembley, thinking there’s no chance Kenny still has it.
It was that night at AEW Dynasty where Omega lost to MJF and Ospreay lost to Moxley. Ospreay began to side with the Death Riders, and Omega began to question if he was still the Best Bout Machine. But that night, when Darby Allin won the World Championship with a headlock takeover to complete his arc as a man who kept losing the big one, which by the way is a perfect example of a thread throughout a show, maybe the best example of a bottle episode in wrestling in generations, there’s one interaction that made it crystal clear that All In would be Kenny Omega vs Will Ospreay for the AEW World Championship. In the trainers room, a banged up Omega and Ospreay just sitting there talking about how they let people down, and Ospreay reminded Omega how he bounced back ten years ago after the Tokyo Dome loss to Okada. Omega, noting he doesn’t have time left, looked at Ospreay and said ‘but you do. AEW, professional wrestling? It’s all you from here on out, man.’ Ospreay responded saying ‘I think we still got this, man. My dream, and my ambition, is to still be the AEW World Champion, and I hope you haven’t given up on that dream either.’
With that promo, I looked at the person I was watching that show with, and I said ‘I don’t know how they’re circling back to Kenny for the championship, but that’s your match at All In, and they just confirmed years of television,” only for him to scoff at me. Last night, when I was in the venue, my best friend and I had what can only be described as a new core memory, watching Kenny Omega cap this story in a way only Kenny Omega could, but we were also with three people who aren’t wrestling fans, my best friends other friends who wanted a night out with their friends. I remember looking down at this one lady who was with us, who had only seen wrestling one time when we went to the UCF show in January as a group, and for the first time, I saw her going insane, the way I did when I was a child discovering wrestling, while we were watching the main event, and she knew nothing about Kenny Omega’s story. She just knew what she saw, and she was entertained as much as anybody in the audience, who popped so loud that I couldn’t even hear myself think in an open-air venue on Clearwater Beach when Kenny did the patented kick out at one spot. Mick Foley in his post on Facebook today said that the match ‘felt like a sense of community’ for the people in attendance, and he’s right. For the first time since Daily’s Place, a moment in professional wrestling felt like a communal experience, and it’s entirely in the story they told, no matter where along the ride you came in. In an era where people are accustomed to overly produced professional wrestling with generic matches that need to be cookie cutter for branding, companies that let artists make art make something that’s worthwhile, and that’s entirely where the energy comes from.
Personal tangents aside, the segmen set the scene. Omega was once the best wrestler in the world, and in their rematch, he wasn’t able to defeat Ospreay. Ospreay is now the best in the world, on the precipice of confirming it, and Omega needs to beat him one more time to solidify he’s still that guy, while Ospreay needs the victory to prove that his win isn’t hollow.
Double or Nothing 2026 was one of the highest buyrates in AEW history for any pay per view. The show did the second-largest gate in company history for a U.S. show (for those who think putting the belt on Darby via television left money on the table, Darby as champion was the driving factor, as noticed by the massive move in ticket sales after the title win. It’s almost as if it’s a dated television concept parrotted by bad faith podcasters who have run every wrestling company they booked into the ground). Ticket sales are up year-over-year, the ratings are in a very solid place working in harmony with HBO Max, and AEW has been growing in a variety of different ways with their outside ventures. AEW is back to the feeling of hope for the future of professional wrestling that it had before the drama of 2022 threatened its immediate future, and with its future looking bright, it’s all been building to the crowning moment of the guy who will lead it.
Long-term storytelling still matters, even if many writers in wrestling would rather write as they go. In this time period, they’ve wrapped the career of Bryan Danielson, completed the arcs for the Hangman and Swerve long-term program, Kenny Omega in a post-diverticulitis world, and the original Death Rider angle, using all of it to build to a singular moment for Will Ospreay.
Every wrestler that Ospreay worked with to take down the Death Riders has been integral to evolving his character as the Death Riders finish the evolution so he’s ready to win the World Championship. Each of those acts? They passed him in the line to become World Champion when his character was expected to come in and win it immediately. Each reign has had a purpose to the long-term angle of who Will Ospreay is, and adding layers to the Billy Goat persona, bruv.
Now, it’s time for him to face the one person he roots for as much as he roots for himself, the one person who mentored him, the one person he’s struggled the most against. The first match took place in their home away from home of Japan. The second took place in Kenny’s home country of Canada. In London, the story for Ospreay is that he’s main eventing in Wembley for the World Championship, and now he’s ready to punch his ticket as the ace in his country. Since the dawn of AEW, Ospreay and Omega are 1-1, with classics in New Japan and AEW. It’s time to complete the trilogy.
Expect a One Winged Angel, and for Will Ospreay to kick out at one. Expect the most thunderous ovation of the night. The finisher being protected only matters if you eventually use it to make a star, and Kenny’s always noted that that’s the end goal. The match will be violent and bloody. The match will have a palpable feeling that only those two can bring to their matches, but it’ll be a deeper level because of the work every character on the program has put in to build to this one match.
AEW is the hottest it’s been since the last time Kenny Omega was World Champion, and that has little to do with who the belt is on, but the cohesion of the show that waned when they reached the ultimately goal of creating their first major star. To create a second one, they went back to that strategy, and AEW gained its feel back.
The question that any title change AEW has that’s conveniently not asked with any other title change is ‘when you crown the guy, where do they go from there?’ as if it’s a valid question. But AEW already has that set up, too. There are only three men that have beaten Will Ospreay in AEW who have not had a loss to Will Ospreay. Jon Moxley, and expect that to come back up immediately following his championship win, considering he’s not forgotten or forgiven. Darby Allin, who of course, just gifted MJF the championship after destroying himself in his sprint of a title reign. Darby has yet to get a rematch for the championship as he’s been focused on the post-match attack by Kevin Knight. Adam Page, who as of right now can’t challenge for the World Championship again. But for a character defined by that belt, expect a heel turn when the time comes that wiggles his way out of it. He has his immediate future after the win already mapped out for him, considering all three men he’s failed to beat are all main event talent who have a reason to go after the championship. That’s before you factor in the long-term story with Kyle Fletcher, who I’d have be the guy that beats Ospreay a year from now if he can get the right momentum, the title claims that Andrade, Speedball, MJF, and a number of other talents currently have. They’ve fostered an environment where there can be ten different guys that realistically get the title match, keeping the main event scene from becoming derivative of itself.
In London, Will Ospreay will be elevated to the sky.
Photo credit: AEW.
Jameus Mooney is an entertainment writer for Comicbook Clique, having covered the entertainment industry for years. You can follow him on Twitter here, and Letterboxd here. You can also listen to his horror podcast, The 2:17 Horror Podcast, at the DeathArts XIII YouTube channel.