Will Ospreay’s Good Reserving, Largest Takeaways From AEW World’s Finish 2024 Outcomes

AEW delivered its ultimate pay-per-view of 2024 Saturday evening in Orlando with Worlds Finish, a present that felt little or no like the tip of one thing and extra like the start of a march into the brand new 12 months with the returns of Adam Copeland and Kenny Omega.

Each of these noteworthy moments had been among the many largest takeaways of the printed, as was a flawless evening for Will Ospreay.

Dive deeper into all three with this recap of the December 28 extravaganza.

All Ricochet needed to do was run his mouth and he immediately turned one of the crucial despised opponents in AEW. That a lot was on full show Saturday evening in Orlando because the followers rained down on the generational high-flyer with a thunderous refrain of boos earlier than, throughout, and after his Continental Basic Semifinal in opposition to Kazuchika Okada.

From chants mocking his baldness to the overwhelming assist of The Rainmaker, it was clear that Ricochet’s path to main-event greatness in AEW includes him embracing the position of villain, one thing he has been eager to do so far.

His in-ring work has by no means been questioned and we noticed as a lot in his match with Okada, however his promos are a transparent weak point and have earned him some scorn from followers who acknowledge how out-of-place they’re on a serious wrestling promotion’s TV in 2024.

He was by no means going to attach with the AEW viewers just by being an excellent in-ring performer as a result of there are such a lot of of them within the firm. How he leans into his promos, performs up his pure cockiness, and embraces the position of villain will finally decide how a lot success he finds on the high of the AEW card.

If his evening at Worlds Finish is any indication, he might be a sustainable important occasion performer fo the foreseeable future.

Mariah Could capped off a breakout 12 months in 2024 by efficiently retaining her AEW Girls’s World Championship Saturday evening over Thunder Rosa in a Tijuana Avenue Combat.

To take action, The Glamour overcame a ferocious assault by her opponent, he sought revenge and her first reign with the gold since 2022. Could, as she did all 12 months, performed thoughts video games by focusing on Rosa’s father at ringside. It threw the challenger off her recreation simply sufficient for Could to remain within the combat regardless of the bodily toll it took.

Late within the match, she used dust from a Tijuana graveyard to blind Rose and delivered a piledriver by means of a desk to safe the hard-fought victory and profitable title protection.

The winner of the Owen Hart Basic, the champion leaves 2024 behind having exploded onto the scene in AEW, rose by means of the ranks within the girls’s division, and received its high prize whereas concurrently ending “Timeless” Toni Storm.

Whether or not Could crosses paths once more with Storm stays to be seen however barring a big harm, there isn’t any motive to imagine The Glamour can not replicate the big success of her first 12 months on TV.

Effectively over a 12 months after it started, the rivalry between Adam Cole and MJF lastly wrote its ultimate chapter Saturday evening at Worlds Finish.

The latter manipulated the referee, using the Dynamite Diamond Ring, and pinning his former tag staff championship associate for the contaminated victory.

The gang in Orlando was not as scorching because it ought to have been for the rivalry or match, reacting virtually solely to MJF’s makes an attempt at garnering warmth quite than for any of the character or story work alongside the way in which.

Tony Schiavone even famous on commentary the group sitting on its arms, chalking it as much as MJF being accountable for the motion. In actuality, it was the results of a fan base that had stopped caring in regards to the rivalry way back.

Not even the Undisputed Kingdom getting their warmth again on MJF hit as laborious because it ought to have, a lackluster conclusion to a very lengthy program.

The constructive? Each Cole and MJF are free to maneuver onto actually the rest now.

Lastly.

For the second, consecutive AEW pay-per-view, Mercedes Moné and Kris Statlander tore the home down with an instantaneous basic for the TBS Championship.

For the second, consecutive AEW pay-per-view, Moné received the very best of her challenger.

The opponents as soon as once more set the usual for girls’s wrestling within the firm, delivering a unprecedented match that noticed Moné narrowly outwrestle her opponent and catch her with a pinfall for the win.

So good was Saturday’s match, and their Full Gear showdown, that the rivalry has earned a 3rd chapter, one through which Statlander lastly bests Moné and takes the title.

The followers’ response to the challenger after the match was one in every of respect and gratitude for the motion the followers in Orlando had simply seen. The demand for such a match is there, particularly after the sequel lived as much as expectations.

Reserving it in time for Revolution on March 9, within the firm’s Cypto.com Enviornment debut, seems like the best transfer if AEW chooses to take that route.

No matter the place it takes place, the corporate can set the tone for the ladies’s division shifting ahead. It ought to make the most of it and immortalize a feud that has delivered the 2 biggest girls’s matches within the promotion’s historical past.

Will Ospreay is already among the finest wrestlers of his era and, arguably, the standard-bearer in AEW this 12 months. It’s becoming that he reiterated as a lot with an ideal efficiency throughout two Continental Basic Event matches.

The Aerial Ospreay bled considerably as he battled Kyle Fletcher, looking for revenge for a loss at Full Gear and the chance to advance to the finals. He did, absorbing all the pieces his former protege threw at him and countering what he may, finally delivering a Types Conflict to finish that chapter of the rivalry.

His face was painted with the crimson masks and there have been questions on what he may have left to supply within the finale in opposition to Kazuchika Okada.

He answered any doubts with a gutsy efficiency that noticed him commerce counters, reversals, and finishers with Okada earlier than succumbing to the Rainmaker as the previous New Japan star earned the victory.

From the rivalry with Fletcher enjoying out to perfection within the semifinals to being confronted with the opposition of one of many biggest event wrestlers ever within the finals, each of Ospreay’s matches had that means past the Continental Basic itself.

Extra of that inventive, the place tales are weaved into the matches themselves as a substitute of reserving them for the sake of excellent wrestling, would do the corporate as a complete an excellent service.

Look no additional than the extraordinary response for Ospreay throughout each matches and the way a lot the followers genuinely cared about him and his pursuit of the event victory.

AEW followers received what they’ve waited over a 12 months for, the return of Kenny Omega, moments after Okada bested Ospreay to win the Continental Basic.

Described as an EVP by Christopher Daniels and the commentary staff, Omega made his technique to the ring with the AEW Continental Championship and introduced it to the victor, however not and not using a tense staredown.

Omega has an extended and wealthy historical past with The Rainmaker relationship again to their time in New Japan Professional-Wrestling. In that promotion, they helped revolutionize the game by means of a sequence of instantaneous classics. In AEW, it was Okada who joined The Younger Bucks in beating Omega down and contributing to his lengthy absence.

The tease of unfinished enterprise or an impending match-up not solely set issues up for an thrilling new 12 months but in addition created thriller about Omega’s position. Will he feud together with his former Elite mates? Does he put aside the non-public factor of their rivalry and unite for the sake of battling The Demise Riders?

Will he tackle an authority determine position to tide him and the followers over till he is able to tackle a extra constant in-ring presence?

Regardless of the case, Omega’s return generated appreciable fan curiosity and the pop for his return was amongst one of many loudest in firm historical past, indicative of the love the AEW trustworthy have for The Greatest Bout Machine.

Adam Copeland made his much-anticipated return to AEW within the closing moments of Worlds Finish, becoming a member of FTR to take down The Demise Riders and arrange a huge Six-Man Tag Workforce Match on Wednesday in Ashville, North Carolina on Dynamite.

The return was an exclamation level on the present, despatched followers residence completely happy, and arrange a giant important occasion for Wednesday’s present, all positives.

Even with all of that, although, it felt like a short-term reply to the uninspired Demise Riders storyline.

There isn’t any unpredictability or drama to talk of within the Jon Moxley-led program. The champion beats individuals up, declares a hostile takeover, cheats to win, retains his title, and issues stay establishment.

The sudden re-emergence of Copeland and his pairing with FTR as they fight the villains might result in some renewed curiosity for per week or two however is way from the long-term reply to a storyline that has not struck a chord with followers.

AEW wants to deal with the shortcomings of the storyline and work out a technique to repair it or carry it to an finish sooner quite than later as a result of the highest of the cardboard is exponentially damage by it at this level.