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AEW seemed primed to push Will Ospreay as a centerpiece championship act after All in London in August. Virtually every top wrestler in the promotion passed the torch to Ospreay both ceremonially during his entrance and in the ring with Kenny Omega putting him over as much as a big name incumbent top champion possibly could in the main event of All In London, which was the biggest show AEW held in 2026.
Has AEW pushed Ospreay as a centerpiece money-drawing champion since he captured the title at All In London? It has been a mixed bag. We’ve seen Will involved in some segments with his version of the United Empire that can only be described as goofy Dynamite.
None of the people in the group dressed as a top stable should. Ospreay hardly ever looks the part of champion unless he’s in his entrance or ring gear. The wrestlers in Ospreay’s version of United Empire don’t have matching gear. It’s hardly a championship presentation. The group looks like a collection of strangers when they’re shown together in backstage segments on TV. Ospreay followed up his landmark win over Omega at All in London for the AEW World Hvt. Championship with an excellent match with Jon Moxley at All Out with Moxley symbolically passing the torch to him in the ring. 
AEW has to endure a lot of heartache and tragedy since Ospreay won the title. The Butcher Andy Williams and Pac both died unexpected deaths. AEW had a tribute show in support of Rebel, who is battling ALS, a tribute show to honor Williams on Collision, and a tribute show on Dynamite to to honor Pac. It certainly hasn’t been business as usual for AEW since Ospreay’s big moment in the U.K. at the end of August.
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The week after the Pac tribute show, Ospreay successfully defended the AEW World Championship against Kazuchika Okada on Oct. 6 at Grand Slam Paris with no build after the tribute show to Pac. It was the right decision by Tony Khan not to push future programming on Dynamite during Pac’s tribute show. Okada vs. was an excellent match and although the match didn’t have much of a build, it was a notch in Ospreay’s belt to have an AEW World Hvt. Championship defense of that caliber on a big edition of Dynamite against a motivated Okada.
Now is the time for Tony Khan to really take a look at Ospreay and decide how they put him in the best position to be a money drawing act. There’s one problem though and it’s that despite doing his best to pot over Ospreay in recent months, Jon Moxley is still the heartbeat of AEW.
Moxley has been the center of AEW’s universe and the entire promotion revolves around him and has for quite some time regardless of who has held the top title. Who’s promos do you remember most from the last two months? Who’s match did you think about the most coming out of WrestleDream? For months, Moxley has been trying to not only put Will Ospreay in prime position to be the one person the promotion revolves around, but he’s just been too good on the mic and in the ring to not overshadow him at times.
Moxley is just better as a promo and in terms of overall presentation than Ospreay is. I never laugh when I see Moxley or his stablemates on screen. Ospreay has a goofy side that tends to rear its ugly head at times when he needs to be taken seriously. Meanwhile, Moxley seemingly nails every promo and carries himself in a serious manner that fits his character perfectly at all times.
He lost to Ospreay at All Out and he cut a promo backstage with the Death Riders behind him that was played during Pac’s tribute show that made me want to run through a brick wall in terms of how he talked about how he wanted to be remembered. It was a haunting promo with Pac standing just behind him a day before he tragically died. Moxley doesn’t hold the AEW World Hvt. Championship, but his Continental Classic Championship matches and even some of his Continental Classic Eliminator matches are starting to feel like they are some of the most important matches in the company.
Moxley is beating challenger after challenge often under adverse conditions. Although his character and his stable, The Death Riders, have been pushed while leaning both heel and face, Moxley has taken control over the attention of the fans as a fighting champion. Now that he’s tragically lost his friend, Pac, he’s even more sympathetic, as what his character is going through blurs a believable the line between real life and fiction.
The semi-main event of WrestleDream saw Moxley have a great match against Mark Davis that drew the attention of fans for how gritty and brutal it was in contrast to the Clockwork Carnage main event featuring Will Ospreay defending the AEW World Hvt. Championship in a wild mutli-stage match with pinfalls and submissions happening left and right with multiple wrestlers in the ring at the same time.
Whether you’ve suffered mental trauma during your life or not, the way Moxley sold his mental anguish and his overwhelming desire to give up as Mark Davis picked him apart during their match at WrestleDream was incredible. Marina Shafir’s pep talk to Moxley at ringside to get back into the ring and finish the job led to an incredible finish of the match. When WrestleDream was over, I was left thinking more of Jon Moxley than Will Ospreay and that’s going to be something Ospreay is going to have to overcome before he can be a true centerpiece act for AEW.
AEW still has plenty of time to make some tweaks to Ospreay’s presentation. Ospreay, if surrounded with good booking from AEW booker Tony Khan moving forward, can turn him into a true money-drawing act for the company. The key is he’s going to have to stick to cutting the passionate promos he excels at and being matched up against credible wrestlers at the top of the AEW roster while not being put in the position where he’s involved in segment that come off as funny or gooft at best. If he’s going to lead his own version of the United Empire, the wrestlers in the stable should all look unified with their primary mission being to prop up each other and Ospreay.
As much as AEW has tried to establish Ospreay as a centerpiece act, he has to be treated as special. Almost everything Moxley is involved in feels important lately. AEW should try to hold Ospreay’s segments to the same standard as Moxley’s and then more to achieve their goals with him as their centerpiece champion moving forward.
(Sean Radican has been Pro Wrestling Torch for over 23 years. He has covered the independents, ROH, and NJPW in-depth over the years in addition to also watching all the major promotions in the U.S. PWTorch VIP members get access to his weekly Radican Worldwide podcast looking at a variety of news topics from the past week and then an in-depth Go-Home segment with a guest on a big topic of the week. You can contact him at pwtorchsean@gmail.com. You can follow him on X @SR_Torch and on Bluesky @SeanRadican.)
