AEW: Chris Jericho & Jon Moxley can redeem themselves from WWE feud

If booked properly, Chris Jericho vs. Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship can be the feud that kicks off 2019 with a bang and make up for the lackluster rivalry they had in WWE.

Coming off the events of AEW Full Gear on Saturday night, Jon Moxley setting his sights on Chris Jericho’s AEW World Championship seems to be only inevitable. Although the two have history with each other from their WWE days, the rivalry has the potential to be even better this time around now that they’re in an all-new and more cutting edge environment.

The pay-per-view saw Jericho successfully retain his title against Cody (who can no longer challenge for the championship per the stipulation) while Moxley bested Kenny Omega in an extremely brutal non-sanctioned main event. Both bouts were excellent in their own ways and gave Jericho and Moxley major wins over two of The Elite’s biggest stars.

AEW likely won’t have another pay-per-view until February at the earliest, but that doesn’t mean they can’t begin building toward Jericho vs. Moxley for the strap in the near future. If what we saw from their feud in WWE was any indication of how well they work together, they’ll need at least a few months to build that bout up and make it mean as much as possible.

In the power rankings AEW debuted over the weekend, Cody was pictured at No. 1 while Pac was pictured at No. 2. Of course, both men failed to win at Full Gear, which would mean “Hangman” Adam Page is next in line for a title opportunity.

Jericho and Page previously waged war at All Out, where Jericho became the inaugural champ. If AEW is going to book a rematch between the two, it should be held on an upcoming episode of Dynamite and not be saved for the next pay-per-view.

Interestingly enough, Omega is still slotted over Moxley in the power rankings due to his 2-2 record in singles competition. It’s worth noting that Moxley’s victory over Omega at Full Gear didn’t count toward his record due to being non-sanctioned, so he’ll have to work his way up the rankings in the coming months.

Regardless of how AEW gets there, all roads must lead to Moxley vs. Jericho. Lest we forget, on the same night that Moxley and Omega kicked off their heated rivalry at Double or Nothing, Moxley initially laid out Jericho with the Paradigm Shift.

Obviously, their bad blood dates back a lot farther than that, as they first faced off in WWE over three years ago. The seeds were planted as early as Night of Champions 2015 when Roman Reigns and the former Dean Ambrose unsuccessfully teamed with Jericho against The Wyatt Family, but it wasn’t until the spring of 2016 that their feud officially took shape.

The original plan, per Dave Metlzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, was supposed to see Jericho and Ambrose clash at WrestleMania 32. That program was put on hold until after the Show of Shows in favor of Ambrose vs. Brock Lesnar and Jericho vs. AJ Styles, but once it materialized, the feud failed to live up the lofty expectations of fans.

From an in-ring standpoint, the matches they had at Payback and Extreme Rules were perfectly fine. The promos they produced were also decent yet not what viewers were hoping for going in given their respective reputations as masters of the microphone.

By WWE standards, it was a serviceable storyline that served to set up Ambrose as a main event player ahead of his run with the WWE Championship that summer. Creatively, however, it felt limited in terms of what WWE was allowing them to do.

Fans couldn’t shake the feeling that they were capable of so much more together and in AEW, they’d be afforded the opportunity to give them the rivalry they envisioned from the start.

Jericho has undoubtedly been doing some of the best work of his entire career in 2019 alone. He’s been a man reborn since joining the Jacksonville-based promotion and has been incredibly entertaining as AEW World champion thus far.

Moxley, on the other hand, has also been among wrestling’s hottest stars this year. His departure from WWE gave him new life and it’s become clear how handcuffed he was there as a character now that he’s been let loose in AEW.

Their WWE rivalry may have underwhelmed, but there’s zero reason to think they can’t redeem themselves with a much better feud in AEW over the company’s top title.