10 Classic Wrestling Rivalries With ONE THING MISSING
5. Kenny Omega Vs Jon Moxley - A Classic Singles Match
That might read as a hot take considering the bruising battles the pair have had, but if there was one inch-perfect potential programme that whet the appetite of every AEW fan as the company launched it was this one. Especially when it was taken away and taken off the All Out 2019 card.
Injury to Moxley bumped the clash to the first pay-per-view of the Dynamite era, and with some weekly television build bolstering expectations, their Lights Out Match was an acquired taste even if it artfully fed into a long story Omega was attempting to tell. Their Winter Is Coming 2020 AEW Championship match a year had the big fight feel, but suffered from a slightly flabby middle within the confines of mostly-empty Daily's Place. Revolution's Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch is unfairly remembered for one catastrophic botch at its conclusion, but yet more gore over granular detail left some pining for something a little less fussy.
Oddly, considering how close Kenny Omega came to tearing his taint on a broken mesh wall, a steel cage match in 2023 was perhaps the smoothest of the them all. It summed up a bizarrely uneven 2023 for 'The Best Bout Machine' - it was utterly fantastic in parts but the feeling that it was a collector's item than the norm did a lot to harsh the vibe.
It's part of the feud's DNA to have a gimmick or stipulation at this point. But there's still lots to imagine about what they could do if "restricted" to a normal ruleset.