It’d be hard to argue that the stars who have carried AEW on their back since the beginning are Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega.
Omega vs Moxley was the first big dream match in the company’s history, and was teased as early as their first ever show.
At Double or Nothing 2019, Kenny Omega lost in the main event to Chris Jericho. However, the post-match shenanigans saw Jon Moxley make his debut for AEW, fresh off leaving WWE, and attacking the Canadian star.
Since then, the pair have wrestled four times, tearing the house down in each one.
Here are the matches that showed why Kenny Omega vs Jon Moxley is the match that made AEW.
4. AEW Winter Is Coming 2020
While the first one this list, the AEW Championship match at Winter is Coming is still a fantastic title bout.
Kenny Omega beat Adam Page at Full Gear 2020 to earn his shot at Jon Moxley, who held the AEW title for almost the entirety of 2020.
In a show that also featured the debut of Sting, Jon Moxley vs Kenny Omega stole the show, showing just why they were the top men in the company.
With his heel turn fully realised, Omega took the help of Don Callis to put down Jon Moxley and win the AEW Championship for the first time.
This began his legendary reign with the belt, lasting almost a year before being ended by Hangman Page.
3. AEW Dynamite 10th May, 2023 (Steel Cage Match)
Over two years after their last encounter, the Blackpool Combat Club and Elite feud came to a head on AEW Dynamite, inside a steel cage.
Representing their respective factions, Kenny Omega stepped into the ring with Jon Moxley on the main event of Dynamite, with each man’s pride on the line.
With weapons like a barbedwire chair and a screwdriver used to great effective, the brutal and bloody affair had the crowd on their feet, and lusting for more explicit violence.
In a reversal from their last match, Don Callis cost Kenny Omega the win, seemingly joining the BCC and shocking the world as Dynamite went off the air.
2. AEW Revolution 2021 (Exploding Barbedwire Death Match)
The first match of its kind in AEW may be the last, after the horrendous ending to the third Jon Moxley vs Kenny Omega match.
After Omega won the AEW Championship from Moxley, they needed to settle the score in the most brutally violent way possible.
Taking inspiration from Atushi Onita in Japan, they brought back a long-forgotten match type that had never been attempted in a major US-promotion.
The Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match saw the ring ropes replaced by barbed wire, and set with explosive charges that went boom on every touch, adding some extreme jeopardy to the bout.
The match was fantastic, and would have been a match of the year candidate, had the explosion at the end of the match not failed to go off, ruining the spectacle for many in attendance.
1. AEW Full Gear 2020 (Lights Out Match)
AEW’s first major “dream match” occurred at Full Gear 2020, when Kenny Omega locked horns with Jon Moxley for the first time.
The match was nearly 40 minutes of Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega just beating the absolute tar out of each other. It could be argued that it was more extreme than their “Exploding Barbed wire death match” at AEW Revolution 2021.
The match featured barbed wire, chairs, and trash cans. The pair went through tables, strangled each other with chains and even suplexed each other through a mess of barbed wire.
They even tore the ring apart. Exposing the wood below, they ripped the canvas from the ring just before the finish. Omega tried a 450 splash onto Moxley, who rolled away as Omega smashed his face onto the wood below.
Moxley then hit Omega with the Paradigm shift, and won the match. Omega was now 3-0 in major AEW pay-per-views, losing to Chris Jericho and PAC in previous iterations.