Ric Flair is not having the comparison.
Will Ospreay beat Kenny Omega in the main event of AEW All In: London, and the online reaction escalated fast to calling it the greatest match ever. Some of that discourse put it above Flair’s 1989 series with Ricky Steamboat. Flair answered on X.
No One Has More Respect For Kenny Omega And Will Ospreay Than Me! But To Compare Them To Steamboat And I Is Like Comparing The Mississippi River To The Pacific Ocean!
Then came the workload argument.
When They Have A Great Match 300 Times A Year And 200 Hour Broadways, Get Back To Me! Until Then, There Is No Problem With Being Number Two.
And the closer.
You Are Great Young Talent, But Let’s Get Serious Kids! You Should Only Hope That You Have People Talking About Your Matches 37 Years Later! WOOOOO!
The 37 years is his own math, and it holds up. Flair and Steamboat had three televised classics in 1989, at Chi-Town Rumble in February, Clash of the Champions VI in April in a two out of three falls match, and WrestleWar in May. A house show meeting in Landover that March was the first match Dave Meltzer ever rated above five stars.
Flair has been generous about him before. He and Steamboat were both at AEW Revolution in 2024 for Sting’s final match, and Flair said afterward that Ospreay was like nothing he had seen.
The match that started the argument closed out a trilogy. Ospreay kicked out of the One Winged Angel, hit the Hidden Blade and took the AEW World Championship in front of a home crowd at Wembley Stadium.
