As All Elite Wrestling steams toward the fall, a few major turns seem to be in the offing at the top of the card.
First, to Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks. The Elite have been babyface pals since the launch of AEW in 2019, and of course dating back to their run together in New Japan dating back several years.
The most recent storyline with the Bucks and FTR has the Bucks and Omega seeing their budding relationship with FTR very differently.
Omega, two weeks ago, dumped out a celebratory beer offered him by FTR, then last week, trying to make amends, after offering the newcomers a pair of brewskis, had them dumped on his head.
Omega, still one-half of the tag champs, with “Hangman” Adam Page, didn’t respond all that well to that gesture, exposing frictions with his fellow Elite members.
Adding intrigue to the storyline was a backstage vignette that had FTR meeting with Page at a bar and sharing mixed drinks.
I like where this is all going. The Omega-Page tag team was a marriage made to be able to enjoy the inevitable divorce, and what I’d expect to be a stellar months-long series of great singles matches.
It’s obvious that the patty cake being played between the Bucks and FTR is leading to its own inevitable feud.
The risk here is overthinking this one, in the sense that there is the natural rivalry between these teams, a dream match for years as the two competed in different companies.
Still, it’s good to add your own logic and a new backstory when you’re finally on the verge.
The Omega quandary
Setting Omega out on his own will finally unleash the current top singles performer in the business, whose fizzling to this point AEW run has come under criticism, for good reason.
I get why Tony Khan went with the slow build approach. First, building around Chris Jericho, christened as “Le Champion” to generate mainstream buzz, then going to Jon Moxley, whose title reign has, honestly, been underwhelming, though to be fair, he’s been the champ during the pandemic, crazy as these past four months have been.
My thinking all along was that the first year would present Omega as the guy-in-waiting, anticipating that we’d see him build a record of wins against top opponents that would make it seem natural when he’d eventually win the world title, much like his long climb to the top in New Japan, which made it that much more special when he finally dethroned Kazuchika Okada at the end of their classic series.
Instead, Omega has been a peripheral player at best, not a player in the title scene, relegated to the tags the past several months.
It’s time to push the button on Operation: Omega.
Cody: heel
Cody is a top babyface promo, but he’s so much more interesting overall as a heel, so it’s good to see the storylines finally moving in the direction of having him go back to the dark side.
Last week on “Dynamite,” Cody defended his TNT title against Sonny Kiss and worked as the heel from the opening bell, mocking Kiss early and often, and clearly clashing with his manager, Arn Anderson, as the cameras panned several times to the crowd, to see Tully Blanchard watching with great interest.
Anderson, one of the best heel talkers in the business, has been miscast as a babyface manager, so we can maybe hope for him to go over to the dark side with Cody and reform an alliance with Blanchard, his Hall of Fame tag team partner.
It would be interesting to see how AEW builds out from here, if, as above, there is also a heel turn for Omega in the offing.
Maybe have Omega and Cody pair up to form a super group, maybe with The Young Bucks, with Anderson and Blanchard as their advisors?
Then, down the road, you have Omega and Cody break as they struggle for control of The Elite, setting up a mega feud for the world title.
This was teased back when all of the above were together in New Japan, but then the march toward AEW interrupted.
We could finally get that payoff from a couple of years back.
Story by Chris Graham
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