Wrestling Tonight: COPELAND SAYS TONY KHAN WOULD HAVE ALLOWED FINAL EDGE-CENA MATCH | OSPREAY & OMEGA GET PERSONAL BEFORE ALL IN, PAT MCAFEE SAYS HE’S DONE WITH WWE & CACTUS JACK-FUNK 31 YEARS LATER | 206

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Episode 206 of Wrestling Tonight begins with one of the biggest “what ifs” surrounding John Cena’s retirement run. Adam Copeland says he believes Tony Khan would have allowed him to step outside AEW for one final Edge vs. Cena match in WWE. Copeland made it clear that nothing was ever formally proposed, Tony was never actually asked and WWE never officially rejected the idea, but his belief is that AEW would not have been the obstacle. It is especially interesting because Cena and Edge were so important to one another’s careers, and a final match could have been more than nostalgia. It could have been one of those rare moments where WWE and AEW put the promotional rivalry aside for something that made sense historically. We look at whether it was ever realistic, what Tony allowing it would have meant for the relationship between the two companies and why one of the most obvious matches for Cena’s farewell never got beyond the hypothetical stage.

We then turn to AEW, where Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay have made their All In match increasingly personal. The story has become about far more than simply determining who the better wrestler is, with their history stretching back through PWG, New Japan and Ospreay’s years of being compared to the standard Omega established before him. That rivalry now intersects with Ospreay’s return from neck fusion surgery and his attempt to prove that he has finally surpassed Omega. Their sit-down with Renee Paquette revisited Omega questioning whether Ospreay ever truly replaced him and the lingering issue of Ospreay needing Don Callis’ involvement to defeat Kenny at Forbidden Door. Omega then crossed another line by bringing Ospreay’s family into the discussion before ultimately putting him through a table with the One-Winged Angel. With Ospreay back in front of his home crowd at Wembley after everything surrounding his surgery and recovery, AEW has turned this into one of the most important matches of his career.

Pat McAfee’s WWE future also appears increasingly clear. More than a year after stepping away from Raw commentary because of burnout, McAfee has added another major ESPN responsibility by joining Monday Night Countdown throughout the NFL season. His daily show will also broadcast from the site of Monday Night Football each week while he continues working College GameDay on Saturdays. McAfee has now reiterated that he does not intend to return to WWE television following the WrestleMania 42 stipulation where Cody Rhodes defeating Randy Orton meant McAfee would leave WWE programming for good. He even acknowledged that he may have been wrong about Cody after spending the storyline attacking him. Wrestling stipulations can always be undone, but between McAfee’s comments and an ESPN schedule that now consumes both Saturdays and Mondays throughout football season, a regular WWE return looks increasingly unlikely.

Josh Alexander is also moving closer to an in-ring return just over four months after undergoing knee surgery. Alexander resurfaced on Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling Mayhem and confronted Stu Grayson, teasing the eventual unification of MLP’s Canadian Championship. Alexander has remained champion throughout his injury while Grayson became interim champion, giving them a ready-made program whenever Alexander receives clearance. No date has been announced, but MLP’s Northern Rising on October 3 in Toronto would be a logical destination if Alexander is ready. The return is particularly meaningful considering Alexander has spoken about how disappointing it was to be unable to fulfill his responsibilities as champion after becoming the inaugural Canadian Champion following Scott D’Amore’s relaunch of the promotion.

On the WWE injury front, Logan Paul appears to be making progress from the torn triceps that required surgery after Saturday Night’s Main Event in May. Paul recently visited Champion Sports Medicine in Birmingham, with Kevin Wilk saying he is looking good following surgery and eager to return to the ring. Paul himself has been more cautious, recently describing himself as still “very much injured” while saying that he is healing quickly and undergoing PRP treatment as part of the rehabilitation process. WWE has kept him involved on television during the recovery, while The Vision continued without him and Bron Breakker stepped into the tag team picture alongside Austin Theory. There is still no confirmed return date, but the latest update suggests Paul is progressing toward eventually getting back in the ring.

Jim Johnston also believes the door to a WWE return is essentially closed. Johnston says he would happily compose wrestling themes again but believes Triple H views him as one of Vince McMahon’s guys and has little interest in bringing him back. That is Johnston’s interpretation rather than something Triple H has publicly confirmed, but it creates an interesting conversation about one of the most criticized aspects of WWE’s current presentation. Johnston’s greatest strength was creating music that immediately communicated who a wrestler was before they ever reached the ring. WWE does not necessarily need to turn its entire music department back over to Johnston, but completely ignoring someone responsible for so many instantly recognizable themes is worth discussing when modern entrance music continues to struggle to create that same connection.

And finally, 31 years ago this week, Cactus Jack and Terry Funk produced one of the defining matches in the history of deathmatch wrestling at IWA Japan’s Kawasaki Dream. Nearly 29,000 fans packed Kawasaki Stadium for the King of the Death Match tournament, with Funk and Cactus each surviving two violent matches before meeting in the final: a no-rope barbed-wire, exploding barbed-wire board and exploding-ring time-bomb deathmatch. Both men entered already beaten up, and what followed became the gold standard for the genre.

The match worked because Funk and Foley could create emotion underneath all of the violence. The exploding boards delivered the spectacle, but the planned centerpiece of the match nearly became a disaster when the ring explosion at the ten-minute mark dramatically underdelivered. Instead of allowing the match to die with it, Funk and Cactus improvised. They went back to the remaining explosives and brought a ladder into the match, with Cactus eventually coming off it with an elbow before the closing sequence left both men tangled and destroyed in the wire. Cactus crawled over Funk for the pin and was crowned King of the Death Match.

That victory meant considerably more than winning a tournament. Terry Funk was already one of wrestling’s great legends and had rarely lost in Japan, while Cactus was still establishing what his career would become after leaving WCW. Foley has described the night as Funk effectively passing the torch to him, and the prestige from defeating Terry gave Cactus credibility that followed him long after Kawasaki. The match was messy, dangerous and even technically failed at the moment that was supposed to provide its biggest spectacle, but Funk and Foley turning that failure into something memorable is part of why it has endured. There have been crazier and more dangerous deathmatches since, but when you combine the atmosphere, violence, improvisation, emotional connection between the two men and what the victory ultimately meant for Mick Foley’s career, Cactus Jack vs. Terry Funk remains one of the genre’s defining matches.

Episode 206 brings together one of wrestling’s biggest crossover matches that never happened, Omega and Ospreay turning their decade-long rivalry personal before Wembley, Pat McAfee seemingly closing the door on WWE, Josh Alexander moving toward his comeback, Logan Paul continuing his recovery, Jim Johnston questioning whether WWE would ever welcome him back and a look back at the night Terry Funk helped make Cactus Jack the King of the Death Match.