In sports, there’s often a debate around award voting time about whether the “best” player is the same as the “most valuable” player. It applies to pro wrestling too, as even though he still strives to live up to his “Best Bout Machine” label, Kenny Omega doesn’t necessarily feel he’s the performer who’s been the most consistent ingredient in AEW’s success to date.
Instead, Omega would give that nod to the man he’s about to have a Steel Cage match this week on AEW Dynamite, Jon Moxley. In an interview with SI’s Justin Barrasso, Omega left little doubt about that.
“If I’m being honest, the MVP of AEW hasn’t been me,” Omega admitted to Barrasso. “It’s Jon Moxley.”
“For AEW, Jon’s been the one,” he added. “He’s been at almost every show. He’s bled at almost every show. There is no one higher on the blood-giving list. … And Jon hasn’t stopped working.”
The two men have a history that dates back to the very start of AEW, when Mox attacked Omega at the conclusion of the company’s debut pay-per-view, Double or Nothing, in May 2019. They didn’t face off in a singles match until November of that year at Full Gear, in an Unsanctioned Lights Out match that saw Moxley claim the victory.
They’ve met one-on-one twice since then, both times with the AEW World Championship on the line. Omega claimed the title from Moxley on the December 2020 Winter is Coming episode of Dynamite, then defended it successfully at Revolution the following spring in an Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch that unfortunately is probably best known for the planned finale encountering technical gremlins.
That shouldn’t be a problem this week inside the cage, where Omega says he wants to beat Moxley at his own game — meaning straightforward brutality. Though he says the two men have a rivalry born of mutual respect, he also told fans not to expect anything less than a vicious spectacle on Dynamite.
“This will be a grueling, physically demanding and violent cage match.”