AEW apparently made one thing very clear backstage at All In—don’t take time away from Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay. With the massive Wembley show working against a strict schedule, talent were warned that going long and cutting into the main event would get them heat.
Speaking on the post-All In show, Sean Ross Sapp revealed that staying on time was heavily stressed during rehearsals. AEW wanted to protect the time allotted to Omega and Ospreay, especially with several elaborate entrances also built into the show.
“They were, like, really, really stressed in rehearsals to stick to their times because they didn’t want to cost Will Ospreay and Kenny Omega their time in that main event.”
This apparently wasn’t presented as a casual request either. Talent were warned there could be consequences backstage if their matches ran long and forced AEW to take minutes away from Omega and Ospreay.
“And it was pretty much communicated, like, if you do that, you’re going to get some heat for it because, like, this is to the minute. They wanted to make sure this was right. And there were a lot of big entrances on this as well.”
AEW ultimately went past the planned 5 PM ET curfew, but the Best Bout Machine and the Aerial Assassin still got the time needed to deliver the match the company had built the entire night toward. Ospreay survived everything Omega threw at him, including the One-Winged Angel, before finally putting Kenny away with the Hidden Blade to become AEW World Champion in front of his home-country crowd. Afterwards, Omega seemingly passed the torch to the new champion with a simple message on Twitter: “The rest is up to you, Will.”
Considering how tightly AEW was apparently watching the clock throughout All In, the message backstage was pretty simple: everyone had their time, but nobody was going to be allowed to eat into the match Wembley was waiting for.
What do you think about AEW warning talent not to cut into Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay’s main event time? Let us know in the comments.
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