Ospreay vs Omega – The Last Dance?, the Curtain Call?, The Final Battle? – by Wrestle G

Hello NoDQ.com readers I hope you are all well and enjoying your graps however you consume them.

If you had told me 10 years ago that a company other than WWE would be running Wembley Stadium on a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, I’d have slapped you round the face and had you taken away to the funny farm. But here we are and I am ecstatic about it; I can’t wait to get into the home of football and now the cathedral of wrestling for the event.

I’m going to do my full preview closer to Sunday as I believe there may be some match additions from collision on Saturday. But today I want to delve into something that I don’t think a lot of people have discussed or thought about in regard to the main even of Ospreay and Omega.

So, let’s get right into it shall we?

Ospreay and Omega – end of an era?

Forgive my bland title above this isn’t some HHH style re branding exercise for the hell of it (that guy has had more Eras than Taylor Swift) But I’ve been pondering the fall out of the title match at All In for a while now and I feel like this really might be a turning point for AEW.

Since its inception there have been many ties with AEW to New Japan pro wrestling and the American Independent scene and ROH. This makes sense of course because many of AEWs top stars had competed there for the majority of their careers before joining Tony Khan on the AEW adventure in 2019. Over the years in AEW we’ve seen multiple cross overs from performers times in NJPW and the indies:

The Drama of the Elite being played out over time building off of their friendships from other promotions

Omega and Okada

Jericho and his pain maker gimmick.

Heck Forbidden Door was a whole concept because AEW had an innate connection with other promotions and a fanbase who knew the histories and culture of each different promotion.

Over the years however that lore and that connection has felt faded to me. Not in a bad way. But every year AEW gets older those old NJPW feuds move further away in the rear view mirror. More AEW call backs happen in feuds now as AEW grows its own cannon, its own moments and its own history. And indeed, many of those talents becoming full time AEW talents year on year.  Tony Khan was very clever in partnering with New Japan in order to be able to showcase his rosters history. But now he has a much bigger library of his own footage to showcase which elevates the AEW brand overall.

Looking at the current AEW roster and the big feuds they have already put on over the years it strikes me that we are about to enter a phase where AEW feuds and performers stand on their own two feet as it were. A point where peoples legacies and motivations pull much more from the present than the past.

And this main event at All In this weekend seems like the perfect send off for that NJPW era. In one corner you have Kenny Omega a man you could make a case for in being the face of a renaissance of New Japan Pro Wrestling for Western audiences, having incredible matches that will live long in the memory especially against Okada which managed to break the Meltzer scale. But probably the most influential match was the Wrestle kingdom 12 contest against Chris Jericho which was a huge factor in Tony Khan believing there was an appetite for this style of wrestling in the US and beyond.

And in the other corner is Will Ospreay another performer who hasn’t needed the lights and profile of WWE to forge his way to the top of the card. The Successor to Omega who took the ball and ran with it when Omega decided to go ‘All In’ on AEW and leave New Japan behind. Ospreay took real pride in maintaining as much momentum as possible for the company and his work there has led him to being a top guy in AEW.  I think it would be fair to say that his matches with Omega is what cemented him as the top guy there. So, it seems fitting that this is where we are again but this time in AEW a chance for Ospreay to best the torch carrier of AEW.

But after this is all said and done and AEW looks forward whomever holds the championship, this feels like the last big feud and angle that has the weight of previous feuds from New Japan within it. And I think that is going to be really interesting to see moving forward that new stars and new angles will be working from the AEW history book, they will be working from the AEW style and AEW lore. I think this will really help the image of AEW that they no longer have to rely on fans having to go away and look up feuds. Now this isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it’s much easier to tell your stories by pointing toward your own product.

I think as we’ve seen with CMLL as well the partnerships AEW has with other promotions will be a lot more free to build new things rather than being reliant on some nostalgia hits and callbacks.

After 7 years and 3 massive Wembley stadium shows I believe we are now at time where after Sunday we can celebrate the job that Tony Khan has done in transitioning a section of the wrestling world to mainstream audiences in North America and beyond and look forward to how he and AEW may shape their work going forward.

What do you think? Do you think this is a time for NJPW lore to be left to one side? Let me know in the comments below.

I’ll be back tomorrow hopefully with my All In Predictions and I will be covering All In from London all weekend so please drop me a follow on Twitter via: @Wrestle_G and via TikTok on @wrestleg and I will have you hooked up from inside Wembley Stadium.

But Until Next time,

Cheers,

G