Will Ospreay and Real Winners and Losers From AEW World’s End 2024 Match Card

Worlds End 2024 had a tall order to accomplish, following up perhaps the best year of pay-per-views AEW has ever produced.

This was also a night that had to make up for last year’s underwhelming Worlds End event, creating a new legacy for this AEW PPV.

It did not take long for this year’s event to establish Worlds End as a special show, delivering great Continental Classic action and multiple huge championship performances.

Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada managed to win in the semifinals, leaving Kyle Fletcher and Ricochet heart broken. The Rainmaker then overcame the best efforts of a weakened Aerial Assassin.

Every champion successfully defended their championships on this night, but every single challenger pushed those champions to their limit.

The following are the real winners and losers from World End 2024, ending their wrestling year on the best or worst note possible.

If this was about the real winners and losers of 2024, Kyle Fletcher would certainly be a major winner. However, Worlds End was not his night.

He pushed Will Ospreay to the limit once again in an incredible performance that may have been even better than his first battle with The Aerial Assassin.

None of that mattered as much as winning in this spot. He came out of the Gold League with the most points of any competitor, and he had already defeated Ospreay once before.

This could have been the crowning moment for Fletcher, looking to defeat Ospreay and Okada again, this time in the same night.

No one had more momentum lost in one night. He will certainly rebound and remains a rare star to hold pinfall victories over Okada and Ospreay in the same month.

He just will never look back on Worlds End fondly.

Ricochet delivered the best in-ring performance of his AEW career so far at Worlds End, but no one is going to remember it at the end of the night.

That is because everyone will just remember all the toilet paper that was thrown at him after his devastating loss to Kazuchika Okada.

It is hard to say if Okada or Swerve Strickland ruined The One and Only’s night more, but it was certainly an emphatic loss for Ricochet.

No performer has more universally turned the AEW audience against him than Ricochet, which is a major success in an era where cool heels often reign supreme.

Long term, this may be looked at as the moment that Ricochet was forever solidified as a top bad guy in AEW, but it will still be a night The One and Only would sooner forget.

Mariah May may be the best overall performer in AEW’s women’s division, and she continues to prove her value, elevating matches with limited stories to a world title level.

It certainly helps to work with one of the best women’s wrestlers in the world today, Thunder Rosa.

All around, this was a great night for May, who delivered one of her strongest title defenses yet and won against her toughest challenger to date.

2025 needs to be a major year for AEW’s women’s division given the talent involved. That starts with May continuing to dominate as AEW women’s world champion.

MJF and Adam Cole have been working together since June 2023. The story was so hot at one time that it main evented Wembley Stadium.

It feels like a lifetime has passed since that time. A Cole ankle injury in September 2023 delayed all plans and made last year’s main event heel turn from Cole at World End barely land.

When he returned at WrestleDream in October 2024, much had changed. The Salt of the Earth had recently turned heel again, forcing Cole to work face in this angle going forward.

Nothing since that time has sparked the same level of excitement as in 2023. It all led to World Ends 2024 where Cole and MJF had a chance to redeem this storyline.

Instead, the two delivered a solid but likely soon-to-be-forgotten match where MJF once more defended the Dynamite Diamond Ring successfully.

All that was accomplished was the official reunion of the Undisputed Era as Kyle O’Reilly helped Roderick Strong and Cole take down MJF after the loss.

Even if Cole can look fondly upon his immediate future with his friends at his side, Worlds End was far from what he promised to deliver.

Konosuke Takeshita walked out with the International Championship delivering another phenomenal match in his career, but this was all about Powerhouse Hobbs.

With the lights at the their brightest in his first PPV match since returning since his knee injury in April, Hobbs delivered the best match of his career.

It was a special performance that showed Hobbs can compete with the absolute best in the business. Even if he lost the match, he guaranteed himself plenty of future opportunities.

It is possible that a rematch between these two wrestlers would go differently the next time they clash, but Takeshita is too good to take for granted.

He has already delivered multiple times as International champion and has shown he can adapt to any performer on any night.

On the same night that Will Ospreay wrestled twice, it was Mercedes Moné and Kris Statlander that stole the show.

The CEO has looked untouchable in AEW since she arrived and will leave 2024 with an undefeated record. This was as vulnerable as she has ever looked though.

Down the stretch, Statlander’s fight through Moné’s most vicious offense sold her as one of the biggest babyfaces in the women’s division.

Arguably, this victory may have shot her straight up to number one.

She may have lost to The CEO, but it would not be shocking to see her dethrone Mariah May in early 2025 after this match.

The other option is a third battle between The CEO and Statlander, which ends with the powerhouse rising star emerging victorious to recapture the TBS Championship.

Either way, she is going to need a major push in the new year.

Meanwhile, Moné received much criticism for calling herself the best women’s wrestler of all time, but her work in the final quarter of 2024 may genuinely be the greatest performance of any woman in wrestling history.

When talking up the all-time great work of Mercedes Moné and Kris Statlander, nothing should be taken away from what Will Ospreay accomplished at Worlds End.

If there was any doubt that Ospreay is AEW’s truest ace in 2024, he proved it through two more incredible matches.

His rematch with Kyle Fletcher delivered as distinctly as the first while giving The Aerial Assassin his win back.

In the final, he fell to Kazuchika Okada to solidify The Rainmaker as an all-time great tournament wrestler while giving The Rainmaker his best match in AEW to date.

He also completed the best run of anyone in the whole tournament. His matches with Darby Allin, Ricochet and Claudio Castagnoli were all contenders for match of the tournament.

It may not have been his moment to capture the Continental Championship, but Ospreay is certain to hold gold in 2025, perhaps even the AEW World Championship.

The same Continental champion walked into the Continental Classic and walked out of it, Kazuchika Okada.

The Rainmaker walked into this tournament claiming to be the greatest tournament wrestler of all time, and he picked up his fifth tournament victory in impressive fashion.

He had multiple great performances throughout the tournament while also allowing stars like Daniel Garcia and Kyle Fletcher to shine by picking up points against him.

He and Ricochet delivered a strong PPV match followed by the absolute best match Okada has ever delivered in AEW against Will Ospreay.

Kenny Omega made his long-awaited return to clearly establish that he is not done with his greatest rival, making Okada feel bigger than ever.

This was the night of Okada, establishing that the top man of New Japan Pro-Wrestling is still able to compete at his best.

Any time a champion walks into a Fatal 4-Way, it is a good day if he can walk out still a champion.

The leader of The Death Riders accepted the challenge for three great wrestlers and overcame them all.

If anyone was going to dethrone Moxley on this night, Orange Cassidy was the most likely, but he still could not finish the job.

Hangman Adam Page and Jay White established they should remain in the main event picture, even if they may first need to deal with their issues with each other.

The drama got in the way of everyone’s aspirations to dethrone the leader of the Death Riders, even Christian Cage who watched the action closely.

Moxley will continue his agenda into 2025, reshaping AEW in the image he feels is right for the future of the business.

At Double or Nothing, Adam Copeland fractured his tibia on a bad fall and lost out on nearly the rest of 2024.

Luckily, a smooth recovery allowed him to return just before the year was out and set a clear challenge for the immediate future.

The Rated-R Superstar was delivering consistently in AEW before his injury and has a chance to add excitement to the main event scene of a company already loaded with talent.

He and FTR have fully committed to the Rated FTR alliance and will likely go after the Trios Championships first.

It is also likely Copeland will challenge the leader of the Death Riders for the AEW World Championship early in 2025.

If he is healthy enough to immediately compete at that high a level again, it is a good sign that 2025 will be the year Copeland hoped to have in 2024.