The Elite's 10 Best Matches Together
Olivia Owen Primarily consisting of Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks, Nick and Matt Jackson, The Elite began as a sub-group of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s popular gaijin stable Bullet Club but quickly gained a following of their own thanks to projects like their YouTube series Being the Elite. Since then, The Elite has wrestled all over the international and indie wrestling scenes before setting up their own promotion, All Elite Wrestling.
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Kenny Omega is the highly acclaimed “Best Bout Machine” and The Young Bucks are considered one of the best tag teams in the world, so let’s take a look at some of the Elite’s best matches.
10 ACH, KUSHIDA & Matt Sydal vs. The Elite (ROH 14th Anniversary Show, 2/26/2016)
Kenny and the Bucks first teamed up in 2015, but didn’t officially form The Elite until Omega assumed leadership of Bullet Club from AJ Styles at New Year Dash!! 2016.
The following month, they participated in Ring of Honor’s 14th Anniversary Show, where they defended their NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Championships against a trio of the flippiest guys possible: ACH, KUSHIDA, and Matt Sydal. The result is exactly as fast-paced and high-flying as you’d expect.
9 Hiroshi Tanahashi, Michael Elgin & Yoshitatsu vs. The Elite (NJPW Invasion Attack 2016, 4/10/2016)
A couple of months later, at New Japan’s Invasion Attack event, The Elite once again defended their NEVER Six-Man titles, but this time against a different kind of trio: NJPW ace Hiroshi Tanahashi, power wrestler Michael Elgin, and Bullet Club hunter Yoshitatsu.
It’s a much wackier Elite match than AEW fans may be used to, as they use all sorts of oddball weapons and shout-out various WWE wrestlers in a pointed way throughout the bout.
8 The Elite vs. Matt Sydal, Ricochet & Satoshi Kojima (NJPW Kizuna Road Day 6, 7/3/2016)
The Elite ended up winning back the NEVER Six-Man Titles from Tanahashi and company after a few weeks and went on to defend them against previous challengers Sydal and Ricochet -- now with Satoshi Kojima backing them up -- during NJPW’s Kizuna Road tour.
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Kojima was a bit of an odd fit considering the rest of the competitors in the match are North American indie guys, but he ends up a great foil for the less-high-flying Omega.
7 The Elite vs. The Briscoe Brothers, Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay (ROH/NJPW Honor Rising: Japan 2017 Day 2, 2/27/2017)
The main event on the second stop of Ring of Honor’s co-promoted tour of Japan, The Elite (with Cody in tow) took on the top tag team of ROH alongside Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay in an eight-man tag match.
It’s a great 20-minute bout that turned out to be a highlight of the tour, with lots of crazy spots and a promise of more Omega/Okada encounters after their classic Wrestle Kingdom 11 match.
6 The Elite vs. British Strong Style (FCP Dream Tag Team Invitational Day 1, 4/14/2017)
Tyler Bate was already WWE United Kingdom Champion when he and his British Strong Style partners, Trent Seven and Pete Dunne, took on The Elite in a trios dream match for Trent Seven’s own promotion, Fight Club: PRO.
It starts off with the requisite Young Bucks indie wrestling comedy stylings -- which isn’t to every fan’s tastes -- but soon picks up and builds to a really exciting (nearly 30-minute) bout featuring North America’s best wrestlers taking on the UK’s finest.
5 The Lucha Brothers & Flamita vs. The Elite (PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 2, 9/2/2017)
The first time The Elite took on The Lucha Brothers -- Pentagon Jr. and Rey Fenix -- it was during the 2017 iteration of Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s beloved annual tournament, the Battle of Los Angeles.
With Flamita aiding The Lucha Brothers this time around and surrounded by the typically hot and rowdy PWG crowd, this turned out to be an indie main event of the year candidate, with lots of awesome spots in the cramped American Legion hall.
4 The Elite vs. The Lucha Brothers & Laredo Kid (AEW Fyter Fest, 6/29/2019)
A bit of a rematch from their BOLA six-man tag extravaganza, The Lucha Brothers enlisted AAA’s Laredo Kid in their second clash with The Elite, this time at All Elite Wrestling’s second-ever PPV event, Fyter Fest.
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The match is incredibly fun, as The Elite work great together, Rey Fenix and Pentagon Jr. seem incapable of putting on a bad match, and American audiences got their first look at AAA standout Laredo Kid.
3 Adam Page & Kenny Omega vs. The Young Bucks (AEW Revolution, 2/29/2020)
At AEW’s first pay-per-view of 2020, Revolution, Kenny, and the Bucks found themselves on opposite sides of the match as Kenny Omega and “Hangman” Adam Page defended their AEW World Tag Team Titles against The Young Bucks.
This 30-minute effort turned out to be a modern tag team classic, intensely fought, and full of great pro wrestling drama as the rising tension between Adam Page and the Young Bucks going into the match played out beautifully in the ring.
2 The Elite & Matt Hardy vs. The Inner Circle (AEW Double or Nothing, 5/23/2020)
AEW has yet to deliver the much-promised Elite vs. Inner Circle WarGames style cage match they call Blood & Guts thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, but they did offer something just as entertaining: the Stadium Stampede, a chaotic pretaped match where both stables clashed at the TIAA Bank Field, the football stadium attached to their home venue of Daily’s Place.
The Stadium Stampede has everything fans could hope for from a match in a football field, like flips off of goalposts and attacks on mascots, and some stuff they weren’t expecting, like Sammy Guevara being chased by a horse.
1 The Elite & FTR vs. The Dark Order (AEW Dynamite, 7/30/2020)
One of the most fun matches of 2020 was certainly the 12-man (!) tag team match where The Elite teamed up with tag team rivals FTR to take on the sinister cult Dark Order, including boss Brodie Lee and “will he or won’t he” potential member Colt Cabana.
That number of wrestlers was sure to result in chaos and result in chaos it did. The action is fast-paced and full of the expected excitement, but it also worked to advance the various storylines involving The Elite and FTR.
