This Wednesday’s episode of AEW Beach Break is promoted around Kenny Omega vowing never to challenge for the AEW Championship if he loses, a stipulation AEW has used since its first year of operation.
Tony Khan spoke with Q101’s Case Lowe about the origin of the stipulation, first used by Cody Rhodes in 2019 when challenging Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship at Full Gear.
Well, in the case of Cody, it was Cody’s idea to do that, and I did have some reservations about it at the time, and he felt pretty strongly about it, and that’s how it came to be. I went along because I could see why he wanted to have it, and it would certainly build unpredictability around the event. It did add intrigue, and that was a great show and a great match, Cody versus Jericho at Full Gear 2019, but the aftermath did create challenges. Not long after that, the pandemic hit, and I had the idea for the TNT championship. I think Cody was great as the TNT champion to be the first champion, defending the title on TV, and he built a great rivalry with Darby, and Cody believed very strongly in Darby. It made a lot of sense as we went on that he could be someone that eventually did win the big one against Cody after coming close a number of times in those matches. I did have reservations about that at the time, but it was something he felt pretty strongly about, so I went along with it.
The outcome surprised many, with Rhodes losing the match and never violating the stipulation throughout his AEW tenure, which lasted until early 2022.
Earlier this year, the stipulation was reprised when Hangman Page agreed to the same vow when challenging MJF for the championship at Revolution in March and lost. Khan told Lowe that Page also asked to do it, but this time, while having some reservations, Khan felt it made a lot of sense for where they were going and the different landscape compared with 2019.
