Jon Moxley Is The Most Important Person In AEW’s Short History

Since the day that Jon Moxley walked through the doors into All Elite Wrestling, people haven’t stopped talking about him. He has easily become one of the most popular stars in AEW if not the most popular of them all.

At the inaugural All Elite Wrestling pay-per-view show, Double or Nothing, AEW was really going into the event with a double or nothing bet. After the success of the independent show All In, AEW was born and looked to have the same success that All In had. With around 11,000 fans in attendance, Tony Khan knew that the wrestling world had all eyes on his company taking its first steps. Luckily for him, the show went off as a huge success with multiple great matches to introduce many new wrestlers to viewers. However, the show ended with two of the most well-known names in professional wrestling colliding for only the second time ever.

The two competitors, Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega tore the house down in a match to move on to fight to become the inaugural AEW World Champion. In the end, Chris Jericho was the winner of the match and in typical Jericho fashion, he looked for a microphone after the match. He started to demand a thank you from the AEW fans when he was interrupted by the first major former WWE star to make their shocking AEW debut. The man that was formerly known as Dean Ambrose, Jon Moxley made his way through the crowd before entering the ring and attacking everything that was in his sight.

He targeted Chris Jericho first and quickly took out the man that looked like their biggest star so far. Moxley planted Jericho head first into the mat before showing that nobody was safe from him in AEW by taking out the referee for getting in his way. Last, but certainly not least, Moxley targeted Kenny Omega for the first time in his career and the crowd went wild. Moxley and Omega proceed to fight throughout the arena before Omega met the same fate as Jericho and was dropped head first on a giant pile of poker chips. Jon Moxley ended the show on top and hasn’t allowed many to take that spot from him.

At the special AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door show, Jon Moxley showed the world that he is the most important figure in the three years that All Elite Wrestling has been around. When the AEW World Champion CM Punk became injured and an interim AEW World Champion needed to be crowned, Jon Moxley got the nod once again to hold the biggest championship that AEW has to offer. While he may have made a name for himself elsewhere, that name he made in that company means nothing to him anymore. Moxley has been determined to make a new name for himself in AEW and he has done exactly that.

He has been through wars since he has been in All Elite Wrestling. He has made people forget the person that he was and has made them all know the name of Jon Moxley. He became one of the company’s most popular superstars overnight and even though he wasn’t in the inaugural AEW World Championship match. Fans of the newly created company were already campaigning for and asking when Jon Moxley was going to become the AEW World Champion. As soon as he started fighting for the company, Moxley tore his body apart in grueling matches that he would have never been allowed to do in the WWE.

He had classic matches against Kenny Omega that brought out the hardcore side of “The Cleaner” to take Moxley to his absolute limits. He went into battles against Chris Jericho and The Inner Circle that brought the most diabolical actions out of the members of Jericho’s stable. They beat down Moxley every chance they could get and Chris Jericho even went as far as to hit Moxley with a spike directly to his eye and tried to blind him. Even with the numbers game against him and one good eye, Moxley still fought to get a shot at Jericho’s AEW World Championship.

At Revolution in 2020, Moxley and Jericho went through a bloody battle for the championship. In the end, Moxley took off his eye patch and revealed his eye was fine before hitting Jericho with his finisher and becoming the AEW World Champion. The long and hard road that Moxley had to go through and the star power that come with him only made the AEW World Championship and the entire company more prestigious. Just like Chris Jericho, Moxley is a face that any wrestling fan can recognize and brings in more ratings when they are on screen.

However, Moxley would prove to be a great world champion as he would not only put on great matches, he helped make his opponents look like even bigger stars. Moxley went through hell in his feud with MJF’s and went through a war with Lance Archer for the championship. However, it was his feud with Eddie Kingston that really stands out to me. During this feud, Eddie Kingston really came off looking like a star and a lot of the credit goes to Moxley for helping make the bitter rivalry seem so real. Even though Kingston didn’t win the match, Kingston won over the fans and that can mean more than a championship.

Moxley would eventually find himself going full circle and going right back into a feud with Kenny Omega after the latter earned a championship opportunity. However, things had changed since the last time they had fought. Kenny Omega would turn heel during their AEW Championship match at the television special Winter is Coming in December 2020. With the help of Don Callis, Kenny defeated Moxley giving him his first singles loss in the company and taking the world championship from him at the same time.

After losing the championship to Omega, Moxley continued to try and get it back from Omega, who had been joined by old Bullet Club allies, The Good Brothers. During this time, Moxley would be saved by his bitter rival Eddie Kingston and the two would start teaming together and receive much fanfare. Moxley would continue to chase after the world championship. In October of 2021, he was in line to enter a tournament to name a number one contender for that very title when Moxley shocked the wrestling world by making the decision to enter rehab for the rest of the year.

On January 19, 2022, Moxley made his return to AEW looking incredible after his stint in rehab. You could clearly see that he was healthier than ever and the wrestling community couldn’t be happier for him. Since his return, Moxley has been on the top of his game going on to put on an instant classic with Bryan Danielson at Revolution in March. After the match, Moxley and Danielson looked to continue fighting before William Regal made his AEW debut to bring the two together and form the Blackpool Combat Club. Since then, the group has recruited Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castagnoli to become one of the biggest threats in professional wrestling.

At Forbidden Door, Jon Moxley went into another war with the “Ace of New Japan Pro-Wrestling” Hiroshi Tanahashi and came up victorious. Moxley has beaten nearly every person that has called them the best to do what he does. He has proven that he is better than many of them and has tested the limits of others. However, it is hard to see All Elite Wrestling where it is today with Jon Moxley’s arrival from day one. The moment that Moxley walked through that crowd, you could feel things change. You could tell that this wasn’t going to be any random company. You knew then that All Elite Wrestling was a real threat to the WWE and that was because of Jon Moxley.

At that time, fans were speculating about the future of Dean Ambrose. Many didn’t believe that he was actually leaving the WWE as the rumors had stated. They didn’t even believe it when The Shield had their emotional goodbye moment. It wasn’t until the fans actually saw Jon Moxley in AEW that they believed it and it was also then that many started to believe the hype about AEW in general. When Tony Khan is thanking his wrestlers for all that they have done for his company, he might want to thank Moxley twice and give him a handshake with a pay bonus in hand.