For AEW, it’s now or never to pull the trigger on Will Ospreay

It’s a beautiful sight to see, isn’t it? A babyface reaching the apex of their ascendancy. And if Wednesday night’s superb promo exchange on “AEW Dynamite” is anything to go by, then Will Ospreay looks to be making the final stages of his journey to glory with aplomb.

Will “The Aerial Assassin” win the Owen Hart Cup on Sunday? It should be pretty clear to anyone with even the slightest Spidey Sense for professional wrestling that this is one of those special moments where the babyface just has to triumph.

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There really is no question about it. If this weekend’s Double or Nothing event isn’t the penultimate step to making Ospreay world champion, then AEW will have some serious questions to answer. Maybe even existential ones.

I’ve aired my frustrations with Jon Moxley’s title run before, and all of those complaints are still valid. But let’s park them for a minute. Making Ospreay champion is nothing to do with the shortcomings of the Death Riders angle; it’s about rewarding a guy who has spent the past three years proving time and again that he is among the very best to ever wrestle for Tony Khan’s challenger promotion.

Wrestling nerds who lapped up Ospreay’s early work in Tokyo or London will hardly be surprised by that verdict. But for all his five-star matches over the past three years, Ospreay’s real triumph over fellow indie darlings has been his evolution into a fully formed character in the AEW universe — of which this week’s promo was just the latest example.

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From the moment he ambushed Kenny Omega to close out “AEW Dynamite” two years ago, Ospreay has hardly put a foot wrong. His reign as International Champion was perhaps the best in AEW history, while his participation in last year’s Continental Classic managed to revive a concept that was in danger of becoming stale.

His character work has been solid, too. Just look at his recent work with his real-life best friend Kyle Fletcher. For justifiable reasons, AEW gets some stick for its lack of interest in building long-running story feuds, but this one deserved every drop of praise it received. F***ing quality indeed, bruv.

For all his achievements, though, Ospreay has been largely kept separate from the AEW world title scene. Leave aside that one match against Swerve Strickland last year (which ended unsuccessfully for Ospreay) and AEW’s emerging golden boy has hardly made so much as a glance toward the biggest prize on offer.

Up until now, that’s worked perfectly. Every non-title angle has helped round him out as a three-dimensional talent and get the entirety of the fan base behind him. But now that task is complete. There’s no sense in coming up with more side quests. For both Ospreay and AEW, this summer will be a case of now or never.

It’s good news, then, that all signs point to AEW getting ready to pull the trigger. Betting odds for pro-wrestling are usually more of a publicity stunt than serious forecasts, but it hasn’t escaped my attention that a wager on Ospreay to win on Sunday offers the kind of paltry return more associated with savings accounts than sports betting.

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None of that is to knock his opponent, “Hangman” Adam Page, who also graced us with a heartfelt promo on this week’s “Dynamite.” Indeed it’s a tribute to Ospreay that he will be helping to boost his fellow babyface in his moment of glory. It’s not a million miles from the way that Cody Rhodes elevated Sami Zayn and Jey Uso during his journey to the promised land.

It should be clear to anyone with eyes that Ospreay deserves to be a champion. But it’s also worth considering why that outcome is so important to AEW. As I’ve written before, one of the big struggles for Tony Khan’s promotion has been its failure to create some of its own superstars. If you look at the roster of AEW world champions, almost all of them have had massive WWE runs. After five years, there should be more homegrown names among their ranks.

Surely, you think, this is the moment that starts to change. When was the last time the stars were aligned this perfectly? To fumble the Ospreay opportunity wouldn’t just be a cosmic injustice — it would plunge the entire AEW brand into a black hole. For the sake of pro wrestling, we can only hope that doesn’t happen.

Double or Nothing? Honestly, the gambling motif doesn’t quite capture the scale of things this time around. The odds might look like a foregone conclusion, but the stakes are higher than ever.