With a career that spans 15 years, at just 34-years old as of today, Jon Moxley has made his mark everywhere from CZW, WWE, NJPW and of course AEW.
Around this time last year, I found myself writing about a match between Jon Moxley (then Dean Ambrose) and Seth Rollins at WWE TLC 2018 where their bout got booed out of the building. A year later, Moxley is one of the top contenders in a direct competitor to WWE, AEW, a promotion that did not even exist in December of 2018.
My, what a difference a year makes.
And, really, what a difference an entire career makes. Not even Moxley could have guessed the trajectory that his career could have gone over the course of a 15 year time span.
From his first wrestling match in 2004 to now, Mox has gone from an independent deathmatch enthusiast to a bonafide WWE Champion. Then, to a deathmatch enthusiast again in the second biggest wrestling company in the world, AEW, and bouncing his talents around to other promotions, like New Japan Pro Wrestling.
The career of Jon Moxley as it stands now is a fascinating one to digest and think about as a whole. However, rather than think about his career ups and downs from behind and in front of the camera, let us talk about some of his best matches instead.
Regardless of where he has wrestled or what his name is on the billing, Moxley has always been a standout, multi-dimensional talent. Whether he’s highlighting some technical prowess or wacking somebody over the head with a barbed wire steel chair, he puts on stellar matches.
In honor of Moxley’s 34th birthday today, here are some of those matches.
Disclaimer: Going to try to stick to his singles matches. So as much as I want to put something like The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family at number one, don’t expect it on the list.
5. vs. Juice Robinson – NJPW Best of the Super Juniors
Jon Moxley has gone in depth this year in multiple interviews regarding just how burnt out he was during his final months in WWE. No matter how you feel about how often he speaks at length on the subject, it paints a pretty picture as to where his mindset was leading up to his release.
Keeping that in mind, it’s hard not to look at his match against Juice Robinson for the IWGP United States Championship, watch how he wrestled that night, and not think Moxley felt like he had something to prove that night.
After years of playing the silly faced Lunatic Fringe that played with slime, Moxley competed like he was anxious to prove he still had it in him to wrestle a match with the focus primarily on the actual wrestling.
He wasn’t the only one who seemed like he had something to prove, who Robinson (who, like Moxley, exited WWE on his own terms after not being satisfied with his booking) was in the biggest match of his life yet.
After years of working in NJPW as the undervalued underdog, even as IWGP US Champ, was determined to prove he had what it takes to prove he had what it takes to be a main event caliber star one day. Both men delivered and proved their critics wrong with a stellar contest.
4. vs. Kenny Omega – Lights Out Match – AEW Full Gear
It almost seems too soon to put this on any “Best of” list this soon just a couple weeks after it took place, but it also, I suppose, is just a testament to just how great this match-up was.
Any dream match holding the magnitude that Jon Moxley vs. Kenny Omega held on paper alone was something that audiences would always be excited about. When the match finally arrived to our screens, fans were beyond ready to see it, especially after we were supposed to get it in August at the company’s All Out Pay-Per-View.
A returning staph infection for Moxley postponed the match, but when it was relegated to their November PPV, Full Gear, a stipulation was added: a Lights Out Match. Which is basically just a No DQ deathmatch with the promise that it’d be too violent to officially sanction.
And boy, did it get violent. Barbed wire broom. Bed of barbed wire. Steel chairs. Barbed wire bats. Gold chains. Trash cans. Trash can lids. Exposed mat boards. You name it. Anyway these two could find a way to hurt each other, they used it.
I typically don’t go for wacky, over the top, violent deathmatches like this, but somehow, this one felt different. This didn’t feel like the usual senselessly violent hardcore match.
For every nasty word these two hurled at each other during their storyline, specifically how neither could handle the other’s world or handle each other for that matter, this was an endurance test that literally melded the best of both worlds.
Both men put out all the stops to unleash the most painful, harsh aspects of their world onto the other with the idea that whoever could handle the worst hurled at them deserved the victory.
3. vs. Kevin Owens – Last Man Standing – Royal Rumble 2016
The late 2015 to early 2016 feud between Kevin Owens and Jon Moxley is something understated and very entertaining in retrospect. Both guys hungry to cement their legacies in the main event picture (Owens still fresh from an NXT call-up and Mox having nearly won the WWE Championship the previous November), this feud set the stage for their success.
In trying to climb up to the next level on the WWE totem pole, both men battle for the proverbial workhorse title that is the Intercontinental Championship. After a series of matches (one-on-one and multi-man) over the course of several months, their rivalry culminated in a Last Man Standing match at the Royal Rumble.
Much like the aforementioned Lights Out Match, this was an endurance test, but not over who could handle the other’s punishment. It was about two hungry talents wanting to prove who wanted that belt more and most importantly, who wanted to reach the next step into their careers; itching one step closer to immortality.
What followed was one banger of a fun Last Man Standing matches that delivered some eye popping action and even more jaw dropping moments.
2. vs. Triple H – Roadblock (March 2016)
When this match first aired, Jon Moxley was hotter than he ever was as Dean Ambrose. The crowd was itching for him to finally win his first WWE Championship, especially after struggling to do so the previous year so many times in high octane matches with Seth Rollins.
This match with a record 14-time World Heavyweight Champion was, at the time, Moxley biggest test under the company yet.
As much as so many fans wanted Moxley to pull off an upset by finally winning the big one and going as far as to walk into WrestleMania 33’s main event the following month with the title, there was a bigger story to be told here.
Still fresh in the main event picture and still viewed by most audiences as a quote-on-quote “hardcore wrestler,” Moxley needed to prove that he did not need weapons to hold his own against not only the best of the current roster, but against a future Hall of Famer in Triple H.
Even in defeat, Mox passed the test with flying colors. The crowd (for an event that was, essentially, a televised house show) was on their feet and as electric for the match as they would be for a Big 5 PPV. Fans were at their loudest when Moxley caught a nearfall from a Dirty Deeds.
Moxley wrestled a hot, technical match-up against a self-proclaimed student of the game. He had the momentum to make us all believe in a win, but also had enough love from fans behind him to crush our souls to see him lose another big one.
1. vs. Seth Rollins – FCW Iron Man Matches (I, II, and III)
Yes. All of them.
Okay, I know, I’m cheating and breaking my own rule at featuring one singles match per entry, but it’s my list so HA! I’ll do what I want!
Anyway, seriously, this is just one of my favorite wrestling trilogies ever. I’d put this right up there with trilogies like Steamboat vs. Flair, Samoa Joe vs. CM Punk and Owens vs. Cena.
It’s that great and it just astonishes me to think that Jon Moxley and Seth Rollins’ chemistry was always this good from the start, even as early as their rookie years in WWE’s developmental brand at the time, FCW.
For those less familiar with the 2011 trilogy, Moxley challenged Rollins for his FCW 15 Championship (equivalent in tier to the IC Title, the FCW 15 belt was a title that could only be won and defended in 15-minute Iron Man Matches) the same night that he debuted.
Shortly after, they had a title match that went to a 15 minute draw. An unprecedented moment at the time for the belt, a title rematch took place two weeks later. This time in a 20-minute Iron Man match that also went to a draw.
They had one more, 30-minute Iron Man match shortly after and this time, the catch was there must be a winner.
Every match highlighted two future WWE Champions at their hungriest wanting to prove they deserved the spotlight shining atop them and, eventually, a main roster call-up.
That hunger produced three back to back to back electric matches that hold up as matches that are just as good (if not better) as the PPV classics they’d have years later.