Credit: All Elite Wrestling AEW world champion Kenny Omega weathered the early storm of challenger Rey Fenix in the main event of Wednesday’s broadcast, delivering a snapdragon suplex on the arena floor and dropping him spine-first across the guardrail as he sought to successfully retain his title.
Fenix answered moments later, delivering a double springboard dropkick and following with the damndest tope con hilo on the arena floor. Back inside, Fenix delivered a springboard into a German suplex that folded Omega up but only earned a two-count.
During the break, Omega unleashed a series of open-hand strikes across the chest and back of the challenger but Fenix answered with hard right hands to the torso. Omega dropped him with consecutive powerbombs but Fenix kicked out. The challenger reversed the One-Winged Angel into a reverse rana, followed moments later with an inside-out cutter and looked for a frog splash.
Omega got the knees up, answered with an impressive Tiger Driver and scored the win with the One-Winged Angel. Omega stood tall, his title in-hand, while Don Callis grabbed a microphone. He threw to the back, where Eddie Kingston, Butcher and Blade beatdown Pac and Penta El Zero M.
Callis encouraged Omega to finish Fenix and put an end to his career. Instead, Jon Moxley hit the ring with the barbed wire baseball bat and drove it into the midsection of his rival. As Moxley threatened further damage, Impact Wrestling tag team champions Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson hit the ring and beat down the former world titleholder.
They delivered The Magic Killer to Moxley stood alongside Omega and Callis. The AEW world champion added repeated shots to the back with the baseball bat before Brian Pillman and Griff Garrison hit the ring to try and make the save. No one proved effective, though, as they were all stymied amid the dominance of the heels.
The Young Bucks finally hit the ring to try and talk reason with their longtime friends and former Bullet Club cohorts. “Where do they stand?!” the commentary team asked. Matt and Nick added their signature “too sweet” hand gesture to Omega and The Good Brothers, seemingly reuniting with their friends as the show went off the air.
Result
Omega defeated Fenix
Grade
A
Analysis
There is so much to unpack about this main event and its aftermath.
Omega and Fenix did exactly what everyone expected them to, tearing the house down in a pay-per-view quality main event that had the commentary team exclaiming they had never seen some of the moves or sequences before.
Fenix looked every bit Omega’s equal and came within seconds of winning the AEW title. His passion and intensity matched his ability to do things between the ropes few could only ever dream of. He looked the part of a main event competitor and very easily could headline a pay-per-view for this company if they so chose to book him in one.
He’s that good and he has proven it at every turn.
The post-match angle with Anderson and Gallows, and the confusion surrounding Matt and Nick Jackson’s place in all of it, was exactly the type of red-hot cliffhanger you would see back in the days of the Monday Night Wars. It was unpredictable, energetic, and fun.
It wasn’t overbooked, overproduced or cringeworthy. It worked because fans knew of the relationship between the Young Bucks, Gallows, Anderson and Omega and genuinely cared about the possibility that they would reunite.
While it appears they did, it will be interesting to see if that is the case or just perception.
Regardless of the answer, the audience now wants to tune in next week to see what is going on, the definition of an effective angle.