AEW's Kenny Omega Wins IWGP United States Title at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom

By Liam Crowley

A singles rematch seven years in the making finally went down at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17. Will Ospreay and Kenny Omega first met inside the squared circle at a Pro Wrestling Guerrilla event in December 2015, and as both men experienced meteoric rises to superstardom, their paths seldom crossed. Both Ospreay and Omega shared a locker room in New Japan for a bulk of the late 2010s, but Ospreay spent those years as a junior while Omega competed in the heavyweight division. Just as Ospreay was flirting with moving up in weight classes, Omega departed for All Elite Wrestling, effectively putting a pause on any chance of the Aerial Assassin and the Best Bout Machine locking up.

That changed in 2022, as Ospreay arrived in AEW for the company's joint pay-per-view with NJPW and returned just a couple of months later to compete in the AEW World Trios Titles tournament. It was in that bracket where Ospreay and Omega met once more, competing on opposite sides in six-man tag action. This multi-man bout planted the seeds for their inevitable singles clash, which was announced for NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 this past fall.

In an unexpected result, Omega defeated Ospreay at New Japan's premier show to capture the IWGP United States Championship. This begins Omega's second reign with the red-strapped prize. His previous run with the gold was as the title's first champion, as he carried the IWGP United States Championship from July 2017 until January 2018.

The match itself was a 34-minute hard-hitting affair, as both men unleashed stiff strikes from their respective arsenals. While it opened fairly evenly, Omega gained momentum after stomping a table through Ospreay's chest and dropping the leader of the United Empire with a DDT on an exposed turnbuckle. This bludgeoned Ospreay, resulting in him wrestling the rest of the match in somewhat of a dazed state. Despite the setback, Ospreay showed sparks of momentum, landing multiple Hidden Blade elbow strikes on Omega, but a flurry of V-Triggers and a One-Winged Angel was enough to put him away.

Omega now carries the IWGP United States Championship back to the country it is named after. The Best Bout Machine has another brutal match imminent, as he will tag with the Young Bucks to take on AEW World Trios Champions Death Triangle in a ladder match on the January 11th edition of AEW Dynamite. 

It remains to be seen if Omega will bring his newly-won NJPW title on AEW TV, but it's worth noting that the IWGP United States Championship has made multiple appearances on AEW Dynamite already. Former champion Jon Moxley entered with it on multiple occasions in 2021, even losing it on AEW programming to Lance Archer in July 2021.

Stay tuned to ComicBook.com for updates on Omega's NJPW future.

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