Jon Moxley: Image of Strength and Resilience

Jon Moxley recently allowed some quotes of his covering a wide variety of topics to be used for SI.com’s Week in Wrestling, including his current rivalry with Lance Archer, the importance of representing AEW during a pandemic, and the milestone of AEW Dynamite hitting the one-year mark.

Moxley wrestled at an event for the new Bloodsport (that name totally fits into how Mox wants to present his character) debut on October 11 – just days before his defense of the AEW World Championship against Lance Archer. The storyline with Archer dates back to their time with New Japan Pro Wrestling and the encounter between the two men at Wrestle Kingdom 14 – in January 2020 – in a Texas Death Match under last-man-standing rules – which Moxley won. Archer is quick to point out, however, that Moxley has never pinned or submitted him, which only adds to the rivalry.

Moxley can easily create a mystique surrounding his opponents, making them look like absolute stars in the process. He discussed how he “barely got out of there (the Tokyo Dome) with my head on my shoulders.” Now he wants to finish the job, so to speak. “Maybe he is my kryptonite.”

This is a prime example of how Tony Khan is perfectly willing to use his performers’ history with other companies to add more layers to a particular storyline in his own promotion. Moxley talked about how the success of AEW is extremely critical to the wrestling industry as a whole. The primary goal of the company at this stage, even though it’s still in its embryonic stages, is to create brand new stars in the world of professional wrestling. The company needed to lean on the reputation of guys like Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley (guys the wrestling world already knew from WWE) to get the ball rolling, but now that AEW has some momentum, new home-grown stars who have not necessarily made their name first in WWE need to be created to ensure the success of the company.

Jon Moxley takes an extreme amount of pride in being the pandemic-era world champion for AEW and being the guy who is relied upon to carry the company through extremely tough times and “provide stability in an unstable time.” People have been forced to adapt on the fly, and the professional wrestling industry is no exception. Moxley has had two title matches canceled for Covid reasons, and there might be more. He discussed in detail how much everyone in the company was looking forward to the six-man Tag match with Will Hobbs (one of the new stars I was talking about) and Darby Allin which was scratched due to the pandemic. “I think everyone is pretty used to it.” This is just the world we live in right now. Nothing can be planned in advance as much – because it is all subject to change at any given moment. AEW is doing about as good a job as anyone when it comes to this.

One last topic Moxley discussed is how he doesn’t like to compare himself, his mentality, or his accomplishments to that of anyone else. What the 34-year-old loves most about the art of professional wrestling is that, with the free-flowing creative process in AEW, he can develop the vision in his mind for each match, and then has the ability to execute that vision in the ring and make it a reality.

A perfect example of this was the match at All Out with MJF. Moxley claimed how he could see the match in his mind and develop a clear vision for how it will go “months in advance.” The very loose creative process gives the wrestlers freedom to use whoever’s ideas they resonate with most – and that allows them to create a very authentic presence for the crowd each week.