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The G.O.A.T. 100 #76 | Jon Moxley
- Peter Edge
- 1 day ago
- 22 min read
Welcome to the G.O.A.T. 100 where we will count down with PWM wrestling historian Peter Edge the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time, based on many different stats and criteria. A new wrestler will be added on Mondays and Thursdays every week. Here is a link to an introduction essay with Peter explaining his GOAT100 concept. At the bottom of the article you can find the GOAT 100 Portal with links to all profiles so far published, as well as a visual key... Enjoy learning more about the history of our great hobby!
Add this one to the controversial column (unless you’re my mate Gallop – and even then he probably thinks he should be No.1.) On vibes, Mox might not even be in this 100 based on a few things but in a statement that might disqualify me from even being able to listen to Tunnel Talk, the facts over the feelings say that Jon Moxley is one of the 100 Greatest to do this art.
Born in Cincinnati on December 7th, 1985, Jonathan Good had an upbringing that might be too harsh to call troubled but too lenient to call rough. In his words, the area he grew up in was “...just a big swath of crappy apartment buildings in varying states of decay”.
Sounds like the kind of place that Tommy Carcetti would try to become mayor of.
But while Mox was shoplifting and doing coke (not the drink) in his teenage years, he would spend time when not stealing and taking bumps watching wrestling, and would learn about the history of the sport as he grew up. Jon dropped out of school to enter wrestling school, supporting himself by working jobs in factories, restaurants and warehouses – but would be fired from many of the jobs because he'd skip shifts to work shows.
Good would train at Les Thatcher’s Heartland Wrestling Association, working under the name Jon Moxley from the age of 18. While still a teenager, he twice won the HWA Heavyweight Title, beating Pepper Parks for the company's top belt on both occasions. (You might know Parks from such gimmicks as Braxton Sutter in TNA and The Blade in AEW.)
In his weekend warrior era, Moxley won tag gold in Puerto Rico’s IWA promotion with Hade Vansen from England, and worked shots at Dragon Gate USA, where he had some great matches with Bryan Danielson and Homicide – plus engaging in a great feud with Jimmy Jacobs that features a nuts "I Quit" Match.
During these years, he got tryouts with WWE and worked a couple of matches on Heat in the squash guy role. Then in 2011, Jon got a call from WWE and not long after "Dean Ambrose" was wreaking havoc in Florida Championship Wrestling, the developmental territory of the Fed in Tampa.
Ambrose was put in a feud with the standout prospect on the FCW roster, Seth Rollins (ROH World Champion Tyler Black in a previous life.) Doing battle over the "Jack Brisco 15" Championship, whose USP was that title matches were all 15-minute Ironman Matches, the two competed in three Ironman contests with the time-limit increasing from 15 minutes to 20 to 30 after the first two matches ended in 0-0 draws – with the half hour match ending with Seth (the babyface in this feud) winning 3-2 in a match that got a 9.06 rating on Cagematch.
Ambrose would be chosen as the opponent for CM Punk when he visited the territory in a guest appearance, and he would be put in a feud with William Regal which would conclude on the final episode of FCW’s television show before the developmental system training for WWE was revamped to occur at the WWE’s Performance Center in Orlando and its NXT show changed from that gameshow format to instead broadcast developmental matches from Full Sail arena.
Dean Ambrose was promoted to the main roster along with Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, a Georgia Tech football player who also was a member of the legendary A’noai family, with their first appearance at the 2012 Survivor Series seeing the trio attack Ryback and doing a triple-team Powerbomb through the announce table. After weeks of attacks on Ryback, Daniel Bryan and Kane, a TLC match was booked for the TLC PPV (where else?)... but it was in the TLC Pin format from the SmackDown 2 PS1 game that players would remember.
The trio known as The Shield had a dominant win over their opponents. It was clear that WWE were looking to make 3 guys with the three rampaging their way through the WWE roster. Roman and Seth became tag champs and Dean was the U.S. Champion. They only took their first loss in May of 2013 against the team of Kane, Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan. A five-month undefeated streak in WWE Land felt like watching Goldberg's undefeated streak in 1997 and 1998, considering the 50/50 nature of the booking in WWE at the time.
But even after that loss, the trio’s booking remained strong. Rollins and Reigns were still tag champs throughout the summer. Ambrose’s United States Title run would be the longest since Rick Rude’s run with the belt that ran through both Kip Allen Frye's and Bill Watts' time as WCW head honcho in the early 90s. Unlike the Seth and Roman tag title reign and Rude’s time as US Champ in WCW though, Dean's US Championship run had limited defences, even by Fed standards. There was a four month period when the title wasn't defended at all from October to February 2014.
But as the months wound on, the heel group got more popular. It's funny watching back and seeing Roman Reigns get cheered to the moon by the fans at Royal Rumble 2014 even if a percentage of those cheers were because of the resentment shown towards Batista’s apparent win. But in those months, seeing the three fit into their roles perfectly was some of the best telly WWE would put in in the 2010s. Rollins was the flashy, can't-miss guy, (like what Fedheads want you to believe Rollins was in 2023) Reigns the big bruiser who looked cool when beating people up and Ambrose was the loose cannon who was always the most likely to do something that would screw things up.
The first seeds of dissension in the group came because Ambrose eliminated Rollins from the ‘14 Rumble. But things were patched up and the three would start to tease a babyface turn when they embarked on a feud with The Wyatt Family, the other dominant (and also heel) trio in the company.
The “This is Awesome” chants that met the opening bell of the two factions' match at Elimination Chamber might come across as WWE fans being WWE fans but in an era that was as aura-less as a US golf Open final round, the feeling of special was there on this night. The match was really great too, even if it showed the limitations of Reigns and Rollins.
The two trios' tetralogy of matches were all “notebook”. They played out in the background of The Shield’s face turn which was certified on the night after WrestleMania XXX when they saved Daniel Bryan from losing the World Title against Triple H and The Authority.
What embarked was a two month feud with the Evolution group (sans Ric Flair) which saw The Shield booked the most strongly anything up against Triple H had ever been.
The win at the Extreme Rules PPV was followed up by a blowout win in a No-DQ elimination match at Payback. Such a dominant win in a feud can only mean one thing in WWE world – time to split The Shield up.
As mentioned earlier, Dean always felt like the loose cannon that would fuck things up when The Shield were together and Seth was the flashy fun to watch high spot inducing babyface. So of course, the guy to turn heel on the other two was Seth Rollins.
It felt too soon to break The Shield up. It felt like they turned the wrong guy and while the Seth/Dean feud was fun in-ring, it just felt weird. Seth was pushed to the moon. He won Money in the Bank. It always felt like Dean was going to play second fiddle to Seth which also meant being third in the post-Shield power rankings as Roman Reigns was clearly seen as The Guy amongst those in power in WWE.
After Seth and Dean had their Hell in a Cell match, (at Hell in a Cell, naturally) Seth was primed for his run with the World Title, Roman was at the start of his big push and Dean was put with Bray Wyatt – and whilst Bray was still near the top of the depth chart on the WWE side, he had by then lost a lot of his luster.
Seth’s World Title win at WrestleMania 31 would mean that Dean got the opportunity to go for the World Title and main event as a result. Main events of PPVs became a regular thing. Seth and Dean were the headline of Money in the Bank. When Seth suffered a knee injury and had to relinquish the WWE Title, the resulting tournament saw Dean in the final against Roman, which he lost. Ambrose would be the only title defence on air that Triple H had when he was champion from Royal Rumble to WrestleMania 32, after winning the title in the Rumble match that Roman was forced to defend the belt in, eliminating Dean last after Roman was the penultimate eviction.
Dean’s presence at Mania 32 would be against Brock Lesnar in of the most flagrant examples of two people just not co-existing IRL in a pro wrestling setting
WWE’s obsession with brand extensions / roster splits would mean that a second attempt would be attempted in the summer of 2016. The signing of a deal with the USA Network to air Smackdown live on Tuesday nights after 17 years of taped shows airing on Thursdays and Fridays gave an opportunity to try to get a brand split going again. That meant a World Champion on both shows just 31 months after they unified both the WWE Title and the World Heavyweight Title. How they got to crowning the Smackdown champ, the man who would hold the Smackdown version of Big Logo was very WWE.
Brace yourselfs…
Roman Reigns was the champ going into Money in the Bank. Dean Ambrose won the MITB briefcase. Seth Rollins would beat Roman for the belt in a singles match but Dean cashed in the case to beat Seth and become new champ. The brand split is announced and the two children of Vince get a show each because we must have a McMahon on every TV show of WWE content. Ambrose and Rollins have a match for the Undisputed World Title on the go-home RAW to the Battleground PLE which is main-evented by a triple threat match between all three members of The Shield faction. This ends in a double pin draw.
A rematch is set up for the first live episode of Smackdown on USA with the draft to allocate rosters for the future happening that same night. Seth is picked first by RAW (Stephanie McMahon is commissioner), Dean is Smackdown’s (commissioned by Shane) first pick. The match the pair have in the main event of Smackdown is won by Dean…
The Shield members' triple threat match would be won by Ambrose and he would be one of the tent poles of the first six months of the show and its world title picture.
Ambrose and AJ Styles would have a fun feud for the title which also included a triple threat that added John Cena to the mix. It was ironic (a little too ironic) that the late months of 2016 rivalled the quality of the "Smackdown Six" era in 2002. Like in 2016, the famed S6 era came in the beginning of a brand split. But unlike ‘02, a star wasn’t born from this period. The moment the feud ended, when AJ beat Ambrose in a TLC Match at the Tables, Ladders and Chairs show in December, Dean didn’t sniff the main event scene again.
At the first Smackdown of 2017, Ambrose won the IC Title, beating The Miz but during the reign, he faced Baron Corbin in an IC Title match on the pre-show for WrestleMania 33. After winning the main event of the pre-show, Ambrose was back feuding with Miz and his reign with the IC belt was ended by Miz.
By this time, Rollins was now a babyface and it didn’t take long for the pair to be back as a team in a feud with The Bar (Cesaro and Sheamus) with a set of matches that finished at 4 stars+, but as the feud ended Ambrose tore his triceps which surgery to repair it put him on the injury list for nine months.
Ambrose was back just before Summerslam 2018, looking beefier than he was a year before. The pair of Dean and Seth reunited with Roman Reigns after a false start the year before when Roman had an illness before the scheduled TLC Pin match against a five man team of The Bar, Miz, Kane and Braun Strowman.
But 16 days after The Shield beat the team of Drew McIntyre, Dolph Ziggler and Strowman at the Super Showdown show in Australia, Reigns announced that the Chronic Myeloid Leukemia that he had suffered earlier in his life had returned. The emotional scenes at the start of the episode of RAW when Roman announced his diagnosis was bookended with the shocking moment of Dean hitting his Dirty Deeds double arm DDT on Rollins just minutes after winning the tag titles with his Shield teammate.
The moment Ambrose hit his finisher on Rollins was the biggest heel heat moment in WWE for years. It always bred a huge amount of controversy as fans thought the timing of the heel turn was disrespectful to the moment that happened earlier in the night. But any hope that an Ambrose heel turn would set the territory on fire would be extinguished very quickly.
Within weeks, Moxley was coming out with a gas mask on because of how bad the fans smelt (bloke has been to Progress shows I guess.) We actually never got a storyline reason for Dean’s motivations as he never actually gave an excuse for the heel turn that night.
The germophobe era of Dean Ambrose saw its zenith (or nadir?) with a promo in a doctor's room where he got vaccine shots to protect him from the range of diseases that the fans carry (foreshadowing everyone getting Covid post- All In 2023 there) in which he was the first wrestler to get a needle in his buttocks on television. (He is definitely nowhere near the first wrestler to have that done to him in private, though.)
As much as the material was garbage – as was par the course of the content coming out of WWE HQ in this time – when the bell rang the matches were also not good. The two men's match at the Tables, Ladders and Chairs PPV had none of the trio of weapons associated with it and the lifeless 23-minute match gained the opposite of rave reviews.
Dean’s third Intercontinental Title reign started that night but only lasted 29 days before Bobby Lashley won the belt off him. Heel Lashley taking the belt off a fellow member of the heel side of the roster set the wheels in motion for Ambrose turning back face just months after that shocking moment on October 22nd… but one of the reasons for a U-turn so massive that a British Prime Minister would go “really?” was that Dean wasn’t going to be a WWE roster member much longer – his contract was set to expire on April 30th with no progress toward a new agreement.
The news was made public and Ambrose was turned face so the fans could get The Shield one last time. Roman was back after receiving treatment for the CML that had sidelined him and the trio would team regularly with the final night Ambrose would wrestle for WWE being nine days before the expiration of his contract at the the WWE Network exclusive event The Shield’s Final Chapter.
So what was coming next for TAFKA Dean Ambrose? He put out a vignette saying that Jon Moxley was back but the landscape outside WWE was different to what it was when Jonathan Good signed his WWE contract at the start of the decade.
NJPW was the strongest company in the wrestling world that wasn’t WWE but there was an insurgent company coming up the rail. All Elite Wrestling had been formed by Tony Khan, the son of Shad, the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL and Fulham FC in the Premier League in the UK. Its first event was coming on May 25th called Double or Nothing.
After Chris Jericho beat Kenny Omega in the main event, a lot of focus from the crowd was away from the ring. That’s because Jon Moxley was coming through the crowd. The events after were electric. Jericho got a Double Arm DDT and so did Kenny Omega with his happening on top of the poker chip structure on the entrance set. As first impressions went, Moxley’s entrance to the post-Fed world was out of this world… but AEW’s first impressions set a tone for what was to come.
The 5 months in between DoN and the first episode of Dynamite saw Mox’s death-match instincts take over, with a Joey Janela massacre, plus an appearance at the G1 Climax that earnt rave reviews including a Tomohiro Ishii match that got 5 stars from Dave Meltzer. This Jon Moxley person turned out to be a completely different human being to the fella by the name of Dean Ambrose that was on WWE telly for 6 years.
The scheduled Kenny Omega match for All Out would end being delayed thanks to a staph infection Moxley picked up on the G1 tour but when AEW put out their third PPV, Full Gear, the unsanctioned match between the pair that was the final match of the broadcast ended up one of the more gruesome matches on American PPV in a long time.
On the next PPV, Revolution on Leap Day in 2020, Moxley would main event against Chris Jericho with the AEW World Title on the line, and Moxley would win the belt to become the first babyface World Champion in company history. The feud with Jericho and his Inner Circle faction would carry on with Jake Hager being mentioned as a potential challenger in a sit down interview with Jim Ross on the March 11th show. But the 3/11 show in Denver would be the last AEW show to be allowed to take place in front of a full building of fans for 14 months.
Apart from a couple of weeks when AEW were forced to move out of Florida and into the Nightmare Factory gym in Norcross, GA – because of restrictions in the state of Florida that meant only a single digit amount of people were allowed at ringside at events in Gator country – Daily’s Place in Jacksonville was the host building for AEW and its weekly show (plus PPVs) for the next year plus.
Jon Moxley would be one of the main characters of this time, main eventing all but one of the PPVs held in front of either no fans or a limited capacity, and that one was the final singles match on the card behind the Double or Nothing main event of Stadium Stampede. In fact, Jon still has the most AEW PPV main event slots in its history so far (far ahead of everyone but Hangman.)
Moxley was one of the backbones of pandemic-era Dynamite as he defended his World Title against Jake Hager, Brian Cage and Darby Allin with his performances earning Moxley the 2020 Flair/Thesz Award for Wrestler of the Year, with the largest percentage of first-place votes in award history. Jon’s popularity with viewers during the forced Daily’s Place residency saw only Kenny Omega with more highest-rated quarter hours of an episode in that key demo we all know and love of 18-49…
Once the fans were back in the arenas, Moxley really didn’t do much for a while in AEW. He had a Texas Death Match against Lance Archer for the IWGP US Title – a rematch of their match pre-pandemic, in which Moxley had won that title and had the ruleset of having the loser be determined by down for a 10 count or a submission which would be present in some of the greatest matches in AEW history. Moxley wrestled in the main event of the Rampage episode that was most famous for being the First Dance of CM Punk and All Elite Wrestling's tumultuous marriage. But then at All Out – the biggest show in AEW to that point – he was in a preliminary match against Satoshi Kojima with zero build.
That match was supposed to be against an NJPW wrestler with some standing but politics got in the way. But just as AEW was going to a next level, Mox felt like he was being left behind. But then something seemed to be changing.
Moxley’s promos post-All Out had an edge that they didn’t have before. His victories over Wheeler Yuta and Ten in the first round of the AEW World Title Eliminator Tournament (ahhh, the days of filling the autumn single elimination tournament with names that were ok with doing jobs) had a meanness that they didn’t have previously.
The plan was that Moxley would win the tournament and turn heel in the process and be Hangman Page’s first challenger in his World Title reign. But before the scheduled semi-final against Orange Cassidy, it was announced that Jon was going into rehab.
With a dependency on alcohol that was leaving him unable to function with his home life, Jon felt he needed to go into inpatient treatment because of a fear that a medical emergency would happen with the frequency of his drinking.
After two months of rehab, Jon was back – looking healthier that he had in the months before his absence, Moxley was booked to face Bryan Danielson at Revolution where the pair would combine afterwards with William Regal to form the Blackpool Combat Club, named to honour Regal’s hometown roots, making it the first time that Blackpool was thought positively by anyone.
The original idea of the BCC bringing proper wrestling back to AEW felt very Cornette-coded, with heel Danielson leading the way. But this was modified quickly with the pair of Mox and Danielson joining forces with Eddie Kingston and Ortiz and Santana to feud with Chris Jericho’s Inner Circle 2.0…. Sorry, I meant The Jericho Appreciation Society. The feud would end up placing in the Top 10 of Feud of the Year in the Wrestling Observer Awards, but as good as the multi-man tag contests were – with a visceral Anarchy in the Arena and in my opinion the best Blood and Guts match in AEW so far – the feud seemed to last forever. But maybe one of the reasons for this was the chaos going on elsewhere in the company.
The summer of 2022 in All Elite land was dominated by the drama of CM Punk being a malcontent and also being injured. After Punk won the World Title at Double or Nothing, the next show saw the party end abruptly when Punk tried a stage dive from the ramp and fell shorter than his temper, causing a fracture of his foot when it hit the guardrail.
Because Tony Khan – as per the course of American wrestling booking – learnt the wrong lesson from the UFC having interim champions in the scenario of a champion being injured, he booked an interim champion while Punk was recovering from his surgery. Jon Moxley was that guy who was trusted with the interim title and post-Forbidden Door when he beat Hiroshi Tanahashi for that, Mox week in and week out turned up to work and had a match that never failed until Punk returned and a unification match would be scheduled – but not for All Out in Chicago, rather for a Dynamite 11 days out from the PPV.
In one of the more glorious “squash” matches ever, Mox demolished Punk in 190 seconds with the story being that the first test of Punk’s foot saw his downfall. The other story of this match was that Punk had evidently never watched a Rocky movie before in his life – as Moxley’s suggestion that Punk lose in humiliating fashion only to comeback like Mr. Balboa in Rocky III, to win the rematch against the real life version of Clubber Lang at All Out … was met with a “huh” (not literally) from Punk. But the final scene of Punk’s redemption intended for All Out ended up overshadowed by the “Gripe Bomb” (20 place penalty which means Punk finished in 101st in the G.O.A.T. 100 – look, I don’t make the rules, ok?)
Punk choosing violence that night in Chicago would lead to Moxley having to be in the position to save the main event scene of AEW again, and in the process, he also earned his second Flair/Thesz – making Mox one of ten to win the Observer award more than once in the 45 existence of the Wrestling Observer Awards.
After beating Bryan Danielson in a tournament final at Grand Slam, it would lead to World Title reign No.3. But whether Mox title reign #3 or Punk title reign #2 had Punk’s meltdown not happened, either way it was always destined to end at Full Gear at the hands of MJF. The chemistry between Mox and Max was as non-existent as shots on goal from Scotland during the World Cup in 2026. But the defining moment of Mox’s third reign would come by accident when on Title Tuesday, Moxley in a title defence against Hangman Page, hit a lariat that on a flip bump didn’t quite rotate properly causing Page to get knocked out and scare a lot of people for a long moment.
I still contend that the feud between Moxley and Page wouldn’t have happened if Jon had just visited Adam in hospital in the days after Title Tuesday therefore keeping Adam from being angry about the accident that happened and Mox being angry that Adam was being angry. (How do you spell toxic masculinity?)
[I had a few words about the escalation of this feud back in AEWeekly #42 in the Moment of the Week section]
But thank god Moxley didn’t visit the hospital because I adored the feud between the two and the Texas Death Match that ended the series of singles matches between the pair fucking rocked. I actually like this match at Revolution 2023 more than the Hangman/Swerve TDM and the TDM match at All In in Texas that Hangman and Moxley would do one more time.
And it was very clear that Moxley loved working with Page and the Elite in general as the BCC (who were now closer to the original USP the year before than they had been during the JAS feud after their heel turn) vs Elite feud that while people were clamouring for The Elite to work with CMFTR (including Tony Khan if you look at the buildings he booked in the summer of 23) The Elite with a __ days since Punk has had an incident counter on their desk working with BCC, showed people what such a story looks like if they work with grown ups.
The first All In at Wembley saw that counter back to zero and being put into storage never to be seen again.
That show at Wembley saw the BCC plus Santana and Ortiz – having to get on for one last night – face Best Friends and Orange Cassidy plus their acquaintances Penta and Eddie Kingston, in a match that felt designed to get people on the show.
Moxley would end the fantastic International Title reign of Orange Cassidy two weeks later in a case of Moxley not just being put in a position to get AEW out of a mire of CM Punk’s making but also having a “wrestlers' wrestler” title while MJF was World Champion.
But the International Title reign of Moxley ended when in a title defence against Fenix, he suffered a concussion and called an audible for Fenix to beat him. That changed plans. Orange would become champ again and beat the recovered Moxley at Full Gear and then Moxley hardly did anything for almost a year.
Moxley did take part in the inaugural Continental Classic and was IWGP Champion, taking the belt and then losing it to Tetsuya Naito but even a reign with one of the most prestigious honours in the art of wrestling… just felt meaningless.
It was rumoured that Moxley was very unhappy with his booking and spending time at home after his loss to Naito at Forbidden Door. Skipping All In at Wembley 2 wasn’t a good sign. But then the show after All In, he reappeared with a warning to Tony Khan (it was Tony Khan – not Schiavone that Moxley was telling that it was “not his company anymore”)
[I had some words about this promo back in AEWeekly #124 in the Moment of the Week section]
What followed was the Deathriders.
It started promisingly with the mother of all heat angles when the group with added PAC and Marina Shafir (a person that it was well known that Mox had been advocating for to get more screen time) turned heel on Bryan Danielson at All Out by putting a plastic bag over his head and then in Seattle, near Danielson’s hometown beat Danielson for the World Title and again put the bag over his head, ending Danielson's storied career.
World Title reign No.4 had the following premise: Mox had hated what All Elite Wrestling had become and Mox and co. wanted to mould AEW in Jon’s vision. He said that the AEW roster had gotten soft and Mox wanted someone to step up to him. What played out was shite television.
The feud between Mox and (Adam) Cope(land) is a war crime so bad that it fits in perfectly into a documentary about the Yugoslavian Civil War. Jon somehow got a bad match out of Swerve Strickland. Jon hardly showed ass in his heel work. It was hardly good…. until The Young Bucks got put into the storyline. But The Young Bucks and how good their character work is will be mentioned later in the G.O.A.T. 100.
But as bad as October to April was in the Deathriders era of AEW, from May to July, it was really great. The Deathrider and Young Bucks vs. Omega/Swerve/Samoa Joe/Katsoyuri Shibata/Will Hobbs/Willow Nightingale Anarchy in the Arena is my favourite AitA match, and then the last month of Moxley’s reign as World Men’s Champion saw Moxley play perfectly the role of a champion in denial that the end of his reign was coming at the hands of Hangman Page.
I can write a thousand words on the comparison between Moxley on the road to Y’All In and Nicolae Ceausescu’s final days as President of Romania but we’re already past 5,000 words.
The main event of All In 2025 got rave reviews with 9.63 (as of time of writing) on Cagematch even if the whole Endgame formula of the final stanza of the match got vocal consternation – even if that was in the minority.
Moxley would feud with Darby Allin after All In in a feud that culminated with an I Quit match that would be best described by football manager Louis Van Gaal:
Seriously, that I Quit match was the Spike/Buffy alleyway love scene in wrestling form.
Moxley submitting would spark a chain of events that ended up in Moxley going through the C2 and learning to fall in love with the ethos of AEW: that it was always the place “where the best wrestle”.
Also, winning the Continental Title, which had become the “wrestlers' wrestler” title on a night that MJF had won the AEW Men's World Title wasn't a coincidence folks.
This Continental Title run though – it has been the living epitome of the meme about Hardcore Holly that started on Bruce Pritchard's podcast… when at a “town hall meeting” with WWE roster members in which they were asked for creative ideas, Holly apparently said “how about I win the World Title and I beat everybody?"
Moxley would also during this reign become the evil whisperer in Will Ospreay’s attempt to win the AEW World Title with the events at the Redemption PPV setting the future path for Ospreay and his potential AEW Men’s World Title reign post-All In, which has somehow stalled Ospreay’s momentum going into the biggest night of his life.
As I was going through the research for this project, Mox was increasingly a cast-iron member of the G.O.A.T. 100. His two Flair/Thesz Awards put him in a unique club – yet he is the only one of that 10 in the “Flair/Thesz winner more than twice” club not to be in the Observer HOF. In fact he is the only F/T winner eligible to be on the ballot (Will Ospreay will be able to be on the ballot in 2028) that hasn’t been inducted. Mox is also the best brawler of his generation according to many. Moxley is someone that many have struggled to match in this era
But the last two years have shown that Moxley’s instincts aren’t as good as they once were. Heck, this really bad Ospreay/Moxley storyline that has invaded people’s television this summer was bad enough that it would have demoted him another 10 places on this list.
But Jon Moxley is one of the key figures in the last 14 years of American wrestling. A consistent box office attraction in his time in WWE and as one of the actual pillars of All Elite Wrestling (the AEW Match Guide episode that I’m scheduled to be on in a few months will be fun!) AEW is where it is because of Jon Moxley’s contributions.
But can we have the rest of the Deathriders turn heel on Moxley so he can be fun again?
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