What If The Winner Of AEW's Continental Classic Received A World Championship Match?

Since the inaugural tournament back in 2023, the AEW Continental Classic has seen some of the best wrestlers in the world fighting over the AEW Continental Championship, a title designed specifically for the competition. In 2023, the title was grouped with the ROH World and NJPW STRONG Openweight Championships to form the American equivalent of the Triple Crown Championship in All Japan Pro Wrestling, but that would be broken up in the spring of 2024 when Eddie Kingston, the winner of the first Continental Classic, lost all three titles in separate matches, and the competition has just been for the AEW Continental Championship ever since.

Despite the Continental Classic being one of the most anticipated periods of the AEW calendar, there is one element of the tournament that has rubbed some people the wrong way: the Continental Championship itself. There are a number of reasons for this, namely the fact that AEW didn't need another title on TV when it was introduced (they still don't), and the idea that, outside of the tournament itself, the Continental title is realistically the least important men's singles title in AEW. Why would some of the best wrestlers in the world put themselves through so much punishment for a title that is largely an afterthought for 11 out of the 12 months of the year?

There are always discussions around this time of the year about the tournament and how Tony Khan didn't want to completely copy the G1 Climax in New Japan Pro Wrestling, and incorporated elements of the Real World Tag League from AJPW by having a title on the line. But what if Khan did copy the G1 Climax and made the top prize for the Continental Classic a shot at the AEW Men's World Championship instead? That's what we're here to talk about today, so join us as we venture into an alternate timeline where we see what AEW would look like if the Continental Classic winner was given a world title shot instead of a belt.

In NJPW, the winner of the G1 Climax receives a shot at the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. With the tournament finishing in August, the winner can choose to take their shot early and have the title match before the end of the year, or they can choose to wait it out until the company's annual January 4 show at the Tokyo Dome, Wrestle Kingdom. Using this template, the winner of the Continental Classic would be decided at Worlds End, with the eventual title match coming at the next pay-per-view, and on the AEW calendar, that would be Revolution.

Revolution is widely considered to be the second biggest show of the year for AEW. If All In is AEW's WrestleMania, then think of Revolution as the AEW equivalent of SummerSlam. The company takes its time to build Revolution, with January and February typically being used to create anticipation for the big event. With anywhere between eight and 10 weeks to get people excited, just imagine if the main event of the show was already set in stone before Worlds End went off the air.

Tony Khan would have two full months to create the big match feel that is sometimes lacking from AEW Men's World Championship matches. The company hasn't quite fallen into the WWE rhythm of things where a title match doesn't really get people interested unless its at a WrestleMania or SummerSlam-level show, but there has been more than one occasion where the richest prize in the company doesn't feel like the most important heading into a pay-per-view. That would change, at least for Revolution, as fans would see the challenger work their butts off to earn the shot, creating a vibe of unpredictability heading into one of the biggest shows of their year. 

While he probably wouldn't have wanted to give up the opportunity of holding a version of the Triple Crown while decked out in the yellow and black of one of his heroes, "Dangerous K" Toshiaki Kawada, Eddie Kingston was the winner of the first Continental Classic and would have earned a shot at the AEW Men's World Championship if he lived in this alternate universe.

If we are sticking with Revolution as the place where all tournament winners get their shot, it would mean that the match for the AEW Men's World Championship at Revolution 2024 would have been between Kingston and the champion at the time, Samoa Joe. We've recently gotten a glimpse of what a world title match between Kingston and Joe would look like in AEW as the two men recently fought over the gold on the 2025 Winter Is Coming edition of "AEW Dynamite."

It's unlikely that the match would have main evented Revolution 2024 given that the show was built around the retirement of Sting, but there are a few knock-on effects that would have changed 2024 for the better in Kingston's case. Kingston would probably not have wrestled Gabe Kidd at NJPW Resurgence in May 2024, the match where Kingston got injured and had to spend 16 months away from the ring. Kingston would have been all over the AEW product in the first half of 2024, and the promos he would have cut in the lead up to Revolution would have had some fans saying "Sorry Stinger, but that main event slot belongs to the Mad King."

Whether or not Kingston would have won that match remains to be seen, but if he didn't, he would have been included in the Anarchy In The Arena match at Double or Nothing that he was pulled from due to injury. He would have also been involved in the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament to determine who faces the World Champion at All In London, and given that he won the Continental Classic, Kingston would have been one of the most feared men in the field, with anyone who beat him being pushed massively given the success Kingston had.

Of course, there is every chance Kingston would have lost to Joe at Revolution and life would have continued as normal, but 2024 would have looked a lot different with "The Mad King" still in the picture.

That question mark isn't there by mistake, as the fact that the Continental Classic isn't for a title shot actually worked out for the better in 2025. The winner of the 2024 tournament was Kazuchika Okada, who defeated Will Ospreay in the final to become the most successful tournament wrestler of all time (that is most certainly up for debate in some people's minds). What this would have meant is that the Revolution 2025 main event would have been a dream match between Okada and the reigning champion Jon Moxley, but the two men were, and still are, heels, so how do we fix it?

At the time of the 2024 Continental Classic, The Young Bucks and Jack Perry had disappeared from AEW, meaning that Okada was just floating on The Elite island all by himself. He is very good at being a petty heel with a Cheshire Cat grin on his face, but there was a portion of the audience who really wanted to cheer for Okada during that tournament. Winning would have put Tony Khan in a position where he would have had no other choice but to turn Okada babyface, which in the grand scheme of things wouldn't have been the best move. 

However, Okada is the definition of a big match wrestler, and having him challenge for the AEW Men's World Championship, something he's only done once since joining the company, would have had a lot people thinking that Moxley's reign of terror was coming to an end. On the other hand, Moxley beating Okada would have made him look even more dangerous than what he already was, and it would have made fans think that if the greatest tournament wrestler to ever live can't beat Moxley, then who can?

What this would have also done is completely erase the AEW Unified Championship, something that is essentially a trophy at this point, meaning that the match between Okada and Kenny Omega at All In Texas would have also been in doubt. With that said, a match between Okada and Omega for both the AEW International (which Omega held at the time) and the AEW Men's World Championship would have been something that a lot of fans would be falling over themselves to see.

The Continental Classic is already an integral part of the AEW calendar, but once again, the idea of people getting excited about wrestlers fighting over the fourth most important men's single title in the company can only go so far. A shot at the AEW Men's World Championship wouldn't just be something to set up for a big main event at Revolution a few months later, but it could genuinely be AEW's version of something like what WWE have with Money in the Bank or the Royal Rumble. If a shot at the biggest prize in AEW was on the line, the Continental Classic would be an opportunity for AEW to push a lot of younger stars, or those who have been grinding in the midcard, to finally break through the glass ceiling and become a part of the main event scene.

For example, if someone like Kyle Fletcher was in WWE, there would be calls for him to win the Royal Rumble or become Mr. Money in the Bank. Not just because he's a good wrestler and people enjoy watching him, but because fans have been conditioned to expect those matches, especially Money in the Bank, to be a chance for a company to strap the rocket to someone and make them one of the most important parts of the show. That's what AEW can do with the Continental Classic. The company already has something similar as the winner of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament gets a shot at the title at All In, but a round robin tournament means that you can see younger stars and workhorses grow and evolve across the tournament, meaning that by the time they win it, the fans are eager to see them stay in the main event scene.

NJPW aren't the type of company to waste their G1 Climax winner's spot on someone they don't want to push to the main event, and that's what AEW could do with their tournament if a title shot was on the line. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the AEW Continental Championship, but you just get the sense that there's money being left on the table by having a title on the line rather than a title shot.