Every AEW World Championship Match That Wasn't One-On-One

At the upcoming AEW Worlds End pay-per-view that will take place on December 27, Samoa Joe will defend the AEW Men's World Championship against Swerve Strickland, Hangman Adam Page, and MJF, who executed the contract he won back at AEW All In Texas for a title shot, in a four-way match.

Strickland made his big return to the company at Full Gear in November after Joe dethroned Page, and has been gunning for the "Samoan Submission Machine" as he has vowed to take back the title he lost at AEW All In London in August 2024. For Page, he felt cheated out of his title as it was Hook who turned his back on him in order to help Joe become the new champion, and is hoping to close out the year by gaining a sweet measure of revenge. As for MJF, he is coming back fresh after three months of filming movies and getting himself into the best shape possible as he certainly hasn't forgotten about the fact that his record-breaking reign as champion was stopped by Joe at the inaugural Worlds End event back in 2023.

In the near seven year history of AEW, there have been a total of 73 matches where the AEW Men's World Championship has been on the line. When including the Interim AEW Men's World Championship that existed in the summer of 2022 while CM Punk was sidelined with a broken foot, that number jumps up to 77 matches, but out of all of those bouts, only five of them have featured more than one challenger. That number will of course increase to six after the conclusion of Worlds End 2025, but in preparation for that match, let's journey through the AEW history books and look back on the five occasions where the AEW Men's World Champion had to deal more than one opponent at the same time.

A historic event for a company that at the time was embarking on one of the hottest runs that any wrestling promotion has ever been on, AEW Double or Nothing 2021 holds a soft spot in the hearts of many AEW fans. For starters, it was the first wrestling pay-per-view anywhere in the United States to be held in front of a 100% capacity crowd as the restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic had started to relax. This meant that the crowd at Daily's Place in Jacksonville, Florida were as hot as any wrestling crowd in recent memory for the simple fact that they hadn't been allowed to let loose and be proper wrestling fans for almost 15 months, making this show feel more alive than anything in wrestling at the time.

The other historic fact about AEW Double or Nothing 2021 was the fact that for the first time in its history, the AEW Men's World Championship would be contested in a three-way match. Since the inception of the company, the rankings system had always determined a clear and obvious number one contender to whoever was champion, making multi-man matches a rarity in the main event scene, but in the spring of 2021, two hotly contested rivals simply couldn't be separated.

PAC had returned to AEW at the end of 2020 after being stuck in England due to travel restrictions implemented by the COVID-19 pandemic, and since his return he had remained undefeated in singles competition. Since the start of 2021, Orange Cassidy had also been undefeated in one-on-one bouts, making PAC and Cassidy the top two contenders and an Eliminator match to determine who the champion Kenny Omega would face at Double or Nothing was set. However, that match would end in a double knockout thanks to interference from Omega, but that would backfire on the champion as he was forced to defend his crown against both Cassidy and PAC at the pay-per-view.

The match itself was heralded at the time as one of the best three-way matches of the modern era. PAC was finally given the main event push that so many of his fans had been asking for, the same goes for Cassidy given his immense popularity, and their own personal history added an extra layer of intrigue to this match. As for Omega, just the sight of him strolling through the entrance tunnel literally covered in gold as he was "The Belt Collector" at the time still gets shared on social media to this day, and he lived up to his name of the "Best Bout Machine" as well. Omega left Daily's Place with his title in hand, and would keep hold of it for another six months, Cassidy would have to wait another three years for his next shot, while PAC has amazingly not challenged for the top prize in AEW since this night, which he likely hopes to change in 2026.

It would be another two years before the AEW Men's World Championship was defended in a multi-man setting as AEW Double or Nothing 2023 saw a match that had a lot of people talking; the "Four Pillars Four Way."

When AEW first got on TV with "AEW Dynamite," four men were quickly cited as the future of the company, and potentially the future of the wrestling business itself. Those four men were MJF, Darby Allin, Sammy Guevara, and Jungle Boy, with all four of them possessing unique qualities that made them stand out, while also wrestling at an insanely high level for their age. It's because of this that the company itself was confident enough to back them and name them the "Four Pillars of AEW," taking inspiration from the "Four Pillars of Heaven" of All Japan Pro Wrestling's peak in the 1990s.

Following MJF's victory over Jon Moxley at AEW Full Gear 2022 to become champion, some fans had a sneaky suspicion that if he held on to his beloved "Triple B" long enough, Darby, Sammy, and "Jungle" Jack would be waiting in the wings ready to pounce at the chance of being one of the youngest world champions in the world. The only thing that those three men hadn't considered was that they would all take their opportunity at the exact same time. MJF was badly beaten up after his Iron Man match with Bryan Danielson at AEW Revolution 2023, but the rest of the pillars weren't going to wait around, and after failing to convince Sammy to take a dive for him so he could get one of his patented "Easy Dubs," the long-awaited "Four Pillars Four Way" was signed.

What makes this match pop for so many people is that on the night itself, the Las Vegas crowd weren't exactly impressed with what they had seen. There were some notable moments of excitement and the wrestling was good, but it wasn't an event that matched the lofty standards that the company has set itself for its pay-per-views. The crowd wanted to get invested in something and sure enough, the pillars did their job as the T-Mobile Arena was bouncing by the closing stages.

All four men invoked the men they were trained and influenced by as moves from Sting, Christian Cage, Chris Jericho, and even Cody Rhodes were busted out in this one. Guevara, who had just announced before the match that he and Tay Melo were having a baby together, tried to fool MJF into thinking he could trust him, only to have his own agenda. Darby and Perry flew around the ring like lunatics, but eventually it was Maxwell Jacob Friedman once again proving that he was a better wrestler than Darby by beating him with a Side Headlock Takeover for the second time on pay-per-view. Darby, Guevara, and Perry haven't challenged for the title since this match.

The match we almost got at AEW Worlds End 2025 until the surprise return of MJF on the Holiday Bash edition of "AEW Dynamite," whenever Samoa Joe has the AEW Men's World Championship, it always seems like Swerve Strickland and Hangman Adam Page are right there with him ready to take the top spot in AEW.

After dethroning MJF at AEW Worlds End 2023, Samoa Joe entered 2024 as the AEW Men's World Champion and decided to make some changes when it came to how certain things were decided. Namely, Joe made sure that the rankings system was reintroduced so he knew that whoever was challenging him was a worthy competitor. He gave Hook an opportunity in January 2024 as the "Cold Hearted Handsome Devil" had lost a total of three matches during his two-plus years with AEW, but Joe made light work of him and waited to see who was next in line.

Two men stepped up for completely different reasons. Swerve Strickland kicked off 2024 with the goal of being the first-ever black AEW Men's World Champion, and Hangman Page kicked off 2024 with the goal of making sure Swerve Strickland got nowhere near the AEW Men's World Championship. They both had 4-0 singles records since the turn of the new year, but their number one contender's match ended in a time limit draw, meaning that Tony Khan had no choice but to have both Strickland and Page face Joe at AEW Revolution 2024 for the title.

Revolution 2024 is widely considered to be one of AEW's greatest pay-per-views ever, but given everything else that happened on the show, the AEW Men's World Championship match has slipped through the cracks in the memories of fans. Eddie Kingston got another big win over Bryan Danielson for the Continental Crown Championship, Will Ospreay defeated Konosuke Takeshita in his first match as an official member of the AEW roster, and Sting wrestled the final match of his career on this night, but that doesn't mean the efforts of Joe, Strickland, and Page should go unnoticed.

Their three-way match was quite unique as Joe walked in with the advantage of knowing that the hatred Page and Strickland had for each other meant that there was a very good chance that they would cancel each other out. Page and Strickland didn't make it easy for the champion throughout the match, but it was very clear that Page cared more about making sure Strickland didn't win than winning the bout for himself. This was evident in the finish where Joe forced Page to tap, with the tap looking a little light for some fans as they believed Page gave up just so Strickland couldn't break it up. Now that Page and Strickland are aligned with a common enemy and their differences have been put aside, the Worlds End 2025 main event will probably look a little different to this title match.

The four-way match at this year's Worlds End pay-per-view will mark the second year in a row where the AEW Men's World Championship will be decided in a multi-man setting at the end of AEW's final pay-per-view of the year. With that said, the company is in a very different place one year on from this match as this was less of a four-way match and more of a three-on-one handicap match.

After putting an end to Bryan Danielson's full-time wrestling career, Jon Moxley had AEW in the palm of his hand. He put the top prize in the company inside a briefcase and demanded that the rest of the roster work their way up to his level as he felt like the company had been overrun by egos and people who didn't want AEW to be as good as he wanted it to be. Orange Cassidy was the first man to step up as he had previous experience of beating Moxley in a title situation dating back to the 2023 Full Gear pay-per-view for the AEW International Championship. However, Cassidy was no match for Moxley or his Death Riders at the 2024 Full Gear pay-per-view when the AEW Men's World Championship was on the line.

The other two men in the match were Hangman Adam Page and "Switchblade" Jay White, and much like the Revolution 2024 title match, Page had more of an issue with someone that wasn't the champion. "Switchblade" had beaten Page not once, but twice on two consecutive pay-per-views leading up to Worlds End, and Page was determined to show the world that he could beat White. Despite this, they were reluctantly convinced by Cassidy that if they all banded together for a four-way match, there was no way that Moxley would be able to leave Worlds End with his title, thus saving AEW from the grasp of the Death Riders.

Of course, that isn't what happened as Cassidy, White, and Page all realized that the match was every man for himself and that only one of them was going to be able to leave Worlds End as the AEW Men's World Champion. One thing that they didn't consider was because it was a four-way match, it also meant that there were no disqualifications, and that gave the rest of the Death Riders permission to swing the match back in Moxley's favor whenever things weren't going his way. Moxley's crew didn't come out of the match unscathed as "Switchblade" took out Marina Shafir with a Blade Runner in the closing moments of the match, but he was quickly intercepted by Moxley who pinned him for the win.

Worlds End 2024 didn't go off the air with the Death Riders reigning supreme though as a returning Adam Copeland ran them off and declared himself as the next man to try and take out the Death Riders. Speaking of The Rated-R Superstar...

Technically speaking, this match shouldn't really be on this list as it was billed as a straight singles match for the AEW Men's World Championship between Jon Moxley and Adam Copeland, who by this point had shortened his name to Cope. The two men main evented the 2025 Revolution pay-per-view, and after a night of action that saw "The Hollywood Ending" between Toni Storm and Mariah May, a steel cage match between Will Ospreay and Kyle Fletcher, and Kenny Omega's first AEW pay-per-view match in 16 months, it's safe to say that the Los Angeles faithful were a little tired by the time Moxley and Cope got things going.

So if it started as a singles match, where does Christian Cage fit into things? Back at AEW All In London 2024, Cage earned an AEW Men's World Championship match by winning a Casino Gauntlet match, and he could execute his contract at any point he wanted within one year of winning it. That rule has since been modified so that the contract must be executed ahead of time to avoid a situation like the Revolution 2025 main event happening again, but there were a number of fans who thought that Cage had picked his spot perfectly.

At the time, Cage hated his former tag team partner more than Cope hated the Death Riders, meaning that much like the Revolution 2024 title match, the champion was dealing with two men whose burning hatred for each other got in the way of either man walking away with the gold. Cage hadn't forgotten about the fact that his reign as the AEW TNT Champion came to an end because of Cope, and he wasn't going to let his former partner one-up him by having one more run as a world champion in a major company, so he decided to insert himself into the Revolution 2025 main event, and it almost worked out for him.

Due to how long Cage had held onto the contract, some fans had actually forgotten about it, but given the history of wrestlers having title shots that they could cash in at any time, those same fans all of a sudden thought that Moxley's reign of terror as the AEW Men's World Champion was about to come to an end. However, just as Cage landed the Killswitch on his former partner, Moxley grabbed a quick Bulldog Choke and squeezed the life out of Cage and forced him to pass out. With Cope already taken out of the equation, Moxley was able to once again escape with the title in hand, much to the disdain of the fans in attendance who at this point were begging for someone to come along and take the title from the leader of the Death Riders.

Moxley entered 2025 as the AEW Men's World Champion, and the question of who will enter 2026 as champion will be answered on December 27.