Every AEW PPV Main Event (So Far) Ranked Worst To Best
Jon Moxley, Kenny Omega, MJF, and others have had some classics, but which is the greatest?
The main event of a contact-sports pay-per-view - professional wrestling, mixed martial arts, boxing, et al - should be the key match to selling that specific show.
It's a loose term in the modern wrestling world, though as it tends to now mean the final contest of a card. By that logic, Shelton Benjamin and Tamina are main event talent, having lost, respectively, to John Morrison and Liv Morgan in the final matches of the two most recent WWE Main Event broadcasts. The key there is that nobody, WWE themselves included, cares about Main Event anyway. Anyone can technically be a main eventer in that company.
All Elite Wrestling, however, has redefined the pay-per-view main event to mean something other than a tediously overlong 20-25 minute WWE Title match between Bobby Lashley and whoever Vince McMahon fancies that particular month. It's now a place where you need to reach to cement your legitimacy within the Tony Khan-helmed promotion.
Crucially, the AEW World Title has only been defended in six of a possible nine pay-per-views, excluding the three that took place prior to the inaugural champion's crowning moment. The whole point is that your main event is your biggest attraction, championship or not.
Case in point...
12. Jon Moxley Vs. Kenny Omega (Full Gear 2019)
As of this writing, the 2019 Full Gear main event is AEW's most divisive contest.
While your writer can traditionally stomach such stipulation affairs, Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley went entirely too far too soon. This was the first pay-per-view post-Dynamite launching on TNT, mind; more eyes would now be open to an alternative televised wrestling product.
A family could have easily become engrossed in All Elite Wrestling because their child became infatuated with Orange Cassidy. What, then, will that same child think when they see Kenny Omega hanging Jon Moxley over the ropes with a chain, as shown in the above image? The story at that point didn't justify such a spot. It hadn't gotten personal enough for the now-AEW World Champion to attempt to kill his opponent.
It's frustrating, really, as the actual wrestling was fairly good when you got past the excessive weapon usage. Omega missing a Phoenix splash to land atop the exposed ring boards served well as a closing spot, but that suplex off the ramp, and into a pit of barbed wire would have succeeded more had it been the cliffhanger ending to a pre-Full Gear Dynamite.
Had it not been as needlessly violent as it was, this would have ranked higher for sure.