AEW had a different plan for its Montreal pay-per-view. The Wrestling Observer reports that Kenny Omega against MJF for the AEW World Championship was originally laid out as the Redemption main event. It ended up on television instead, and the report gives two reasons.
The first was MJF’s knee. He hyper-extended it against RUSH on the June 3rd Dynamite and kept working through it. Dropping the title on July 8th rather than July 26th handed him nearly three extra weeks of rest before All In: London, a show he was never going to miss.
The second was the build. Getting the belt onto Omega earlier meant the outcome was public sooner, and AEW could start advertising Omega against Will Ospreay for Wembley.
That is how it played out. Omega beat MJF in the Beach Break main event in Clearwater, Florida, in a match where a loss would have ended his title challenges for good. It ran 24 minutes, and the All In main event was announced the same night, 53 days out.
The knee was written into the match. MJF buckled on a Heat Seeker attempt and collapsed, and the finish came after Ospreay appeared on the stage and took the Dynamite Diamond Ring off him.
Sports Illustrated reported at the time that MJF pushed for the move himself. That night started the other story too. MJF and Ospreay have been at each other since, with MJF spending the summer refusing to accept the loss and billing himself as the one true champion.
Neither man got what he wanted at Wembley. Ospreay beat Omega for the title in the main event, and MJF had the Casino Gauntlet won before Andrade El Idolo stole the pin.
