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It’s that time of the year, time to start considering what the field for the annual Continental Classic is going to look like. AEW’s roster is impossibly deep so the make up of this tournament is wide open.
For the purposes of this breakdown, I’ve broken it down into three tiers.
Locks:
• Jon Moxley
• Konosuke Takeshita
• Jay White
• Adam Copeland
• Kazuchika Okada
• Nick Wayne
Jon Moxley is the current Continental Champion. Jay White is his current adversary and has made the winning the Continental part of the mission statement of his new faction The Cut.
Konosuke Takeshita had the run of the tournament last year not losing a match until the semifinals. It would be malpractice not to put him in this year’s tourney.
Adam Copeland is retiring next year, so it would only make sense for the C2 to be on his retirement bucket list.
Kazuchika Okada is regarded as the greatest tournament wrestler of all-time, a former Continental Champion, and hasn’t missed one of these yet.
Nick Wayne got two wins over Chris Jericho. It feels like he’s got the promotion behind him and this tourney would be his opportunity to build on that and really break out.
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Likely Participants:
• Darby Allin
• Kyle O’Reilly
• Mark Davis
• Jack Perry
For differing reasons, these four are likely entries into this year’s tournament but not the virtual certainties that the top six are. Darby Allin has been in two previous C2s and was knocked out of the tournament due to injury in just his first match last year. Putting him in this year would be a make good.
Much the same case could be made for Kyle O’Reilly. He was supposed to be in last year’s tourney but suffered an injury just before it began. It feels like he could be inserted into this year’s C2 as a sentimental favorite who’s there to eat pins.
For the last couple years, Brody King has been the big brusier. This year, that person should be Mark Davis. He’s had a great 2026. A strong run in the C2 would just be the capstone. From a storyline perspective, Don Callis is always one to increase his odds of winning by having more than one Family member in it.
Jack Perry is the middle of a strange push. He’s wanting to prove himself but hasn’t won a singles match. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was this year’s guy who doesn’t win until his last match and acts as a spoiler.
Potential Participants
• David Finlay
• “Hangman” Adam Page
• Swerve Strickland
• Brody King
• Claudio Castagnoli
• “Speedball” Mike Bailey
• Kevin Knight
• Ilja Dragunov
• Tomasso Ciampa
• Andrade El Idolo
• Kofi
• Austin Creed
• Orange Cassidy
• Kenny Omega
• Mìstico
This final tier of candidates is basically who amongst the remainder of AEW’s roster are reasonable possibilities to be included in the tournament.
To me, the key names in this group are Ilja Dragunov and Kenny Omega. Omega has never been in a C2 and imagine that Tony Khan would love to get the living legend in at least one while he’s still available. Omega is currently embroiled in a storyline in New Japan right now, but it’s not impossible for him to return to AEW to take part. The C2 ends well before WrestleKingdom in January, so it wouldn’t interfere. The only snag is the risk of injury especially for someone with Omega’s mileage especially if he’s in the WrestleKingdom main event.
Then there’s Dragunov. AEW’s newest signing feels like he’s tailor made for this kind of tourney. As of right now he’s undefeated and I don’t see that changing before the C2 starts. If Omega is unable to participate, Dragunov could take that spot and dominate like Takeshita did last year all the way to the semifinals.
Assuming that all of my lock and likely participants make the cut and either Dragunov or Omega takes the 11th spot, that leaves one spot open and virtually anyone on this list can fill that spot. I’d take one of the New Level guys (assuming they’re not feuding with The Young Bucks) just to inject some fresh blood, but frankly any of these guys would be acceptable. I also think there’s an outside chance Mìstico is put in because of his status as a lucha legend and to lose to Nick Wayne after their interaction last night.
