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At the first All Elite Wrestling Revolution pay-per-view event in February 2020, Jon Moxley pinned Chris Jericho to become the organization’s second heavyweight world champion.
Moxley has faced one of the most trying years in recent memory, having to be the world champion during the global COVID-19 pandemic. He held the belt until December 2 when he lost to Kenny Omega in one of the best games of 2020.
The path to regain gold has seen many twists and turns. But Moxley will have the chance to become the two-time title holder in Sunday’s Revolution against Omega in an explosive barbed wire deathmatch. This is the first time this type of match has taken place under the spotlight of a large professional wrestling organization in the United States.
Days before the historic battle, Moxley sits down with DAZN News to preview the match, who are the two best wrestlers in the world and what’s so special about him and Omega.
(Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
DAZN News: I remember we talked about it a year ago, just before the Revolution. We talked, and we felt it was a big game (with Chris Jericho). It was really well built. You could feel the energy even in the building on the night of the show. Is this match like the match a year ago with Jericho? Or is it on a completely different level than you?
Jon Moxley: It’s different. (These are) two different stories, two totally different things. The thing with Jericho was the highlight of a year or so for me coming to AEW and killing the last dragon at the end, which was Jericho. It was the culmination of our eight weeks of TV storytelling. It was a real highlight for me just over the last 18 months from there, to sort of be on top of everything where I felt like number one in the company.
The world championships at stake, but it’s different. Because me and Kenny just had this thing where it’s like we’re meant to destroy each other. It’s even difficult to put into words. They’re two guys just for some reason, they’re two positively charged ions or two diametrically opposed things or whatever, and they just saw lions and hyenas whatever you want to call it that are seemingly destined. to create explosions, literally. , in that case. From the moment I walked into AEW I threw Kenny off a 20 foot thing and almost killed him and put him in an ambulance. It was my first night. Obviously, we had the pay-per-view (Full Gear 2019) match before we took it to all kinds of extreme levels of violence that we haven’t seen in this country in a long time. I dropped it on his head. He beats me. We fought bloodily. He’s the only guy who ever beat me at AEW. It’s been almost two years now, since I joined AEW. It’s not even like we have this deep story or this deep story like a story with like me and Eddie Kingston, where we have like a personal story.
Me and Kenny, we’re like him and me in the same room, on the same show, on the same map, on the same TV screen; just something about the energy creates an explosion. Of all the people that I have been and gone through, and all the people that I fell on the head and choked unconscious and everyone will last two years, I put Kenny more than anyone in the wringer. I threw it on a huge pile of poker chips, threw it in barbed wire, popped it and dropped it headfirst onto a bunch of different hard surfaces . I put him a wringer, and he always comes back to ask for more and to raise the stakes. So that tells you what kind of performer, competitor, and what kind of coward performer he is. It’s just that real combustible thing. You talk about an explosive barbed wire deathmatch. I don’t think there are two perfect guys if you want to do this, you’re going to try and put this on pay-per-view, if you’re going to try to sell tickets and put people in the building to watch this. match, I don’t think there are two better guys. And certainly, I don’t think better with just some sort of personal chemistry and the combustion that creates an explosion. I don’t think there is a better combination than me and Kenny Omega for this game. I don’t think I would want to do it with anyone else.
DN: Is it fair to say that you are kind of related spirits?
JM: Yeah absolutely. I think you find that the highest level in this business and probably many other sports, and different areas of entertainment or any other endeavor, certainly in wrestling, which is a bit of both. The guys at the top have some loose screw. If you go back to the beginning of their careers, the way they did things differently, or the way they were obsessed, you find that they are the people even though on the surface you could say that these two guys are totally different people. , and they could be.
The common point is there. The obsession with being at the top. Obsession with what we do. I think the commonality with me and Kenny, more specifically, is that a lot of people just want to be on top and in a more literal way like, ‘Oh, yeah, I want to be the champion. I want to be in the main event. I want to be the most famous. I want to make money. I want to have the most beautiful, like, whatever ”. It is important for them to be recognized as “Oh, I am the best in the competitive sense”. While I think that with Kenny and I, I’ve fought him enough times to know that I think we share the common thread is that we are obsessed with the work of life. We are mad scientists or artists. While we may play slightly different music, we are equally obsessed with our artwork. It’s a cool thing about wrestling because you have different guys with different styles and different stuff. It’s like music, or it’s like classic Kenny Omega matches considered classical music. Like a form of storytelling. Highly detailed ups and downs and those great epic sagas. Lots of my stuff that I’m known for, where I’m the best, and what I bring better than anyone else would be like thrash metal, like Anthrax, Slayer.
Three minutes in your face, rain and blood, aggressive, offensive, coming in and going out in three minutes, hit your d– off. When you combine two things, like the first time Run DMC and Aerosmith got together, it’s rock and hip hop; two different things. Now we combine them. Now I have walked this way, something entirely new. I think the games you saw with me and Kenny, especially last time, were on pay-per-view together. You have the best of Kenny and the best of what I bring and create something entirely new that no one has seen before. That’s exciting. We’re definitely cognate spirits in that we’re both mad scientists and obsessive artists, and we really, really care about the work and feel happy with what we’ve created. This is the most important part for us more than any material achievement.
DN: In the grand scheme of it all, do you think you and Kenny are the two best guys in this business?
JM: To answer your question very simply and quickly, yes. But I’m not, especially in something like wrestling; it’s not like you win a Stanley Cup, you are the best hockey team. In wrestling, this is not necessarily the case. It’s different. You can be one of the best. The most important thing is how to say who is better: Shawn Michaels or Ric Flair? You can’t choose. If your favorite wrestler growing up when you were a kid was Big Van Vader or Ahmed Johnson, then you are the best wrestler in the world. It does not matter. It doesn’t matter who drew the most money or who made people think people had better games. The most important thing is that you are the best in yourself.
Yeah, I think we’re the two best wrestlers in the world right now. Because if I had to answer why, I would say because what we do, especially here at AEW, is we are the best versions of ourselves. We are neither chained nor restrained. We are not put in any box. We fully create the things we want to create the things we want to be. We’re not held back by just about anything. There are some things you can’t do on regular TV, but that’s about it. As long as I don’t swear or whip my spell, I can pretty much do whatever I want creatively. I wouldn’t need it anyway. You get the best version of Kenny Omega, the best version of Jon Moxley on a weekly basis on Dynamite. I don’t think anyone is doing it at a higher level than me and Kenny right now. We’re both in our prime, both in our prime, both really hitting all the cylinders. We’re in a position with AEW where we just get to go out and receive the ball and have the chance to score touchdowns every week. No one is doing it at a higher level than the two of us right now.
DN: Why should fans watch the explosion of the barbed wire deathmatch between you and Kenny Omega on Sunday at Revolution?
JM: I think you have to watch this weekend, not only because it’s going to be an amazing top-down pay-per-view, but AEW may have the most stacked talent list or one of ‘between them right now. I think one of the best and best PPVs available today. It’s not even a shot at anyone. I think we have the best. I think it is a fact. I think we’re hitting all cylinders right now, top to bottom. I think we’ve never delivered a big home run, I think on PPV, when it comes to the best of all types of wrestling from top-level wrestling to team wrestling to the main event . You are never disappointed. It’s always worth getting an AEW pay-per-view. For the main event in particular, I think you’re going to see something because you’re guaranteed to see a type of match that you’ve never seen on US soil in the first place and haven’t seen anywhere. for decades. Not only is this perhaps the most dangerous type of match ever, but it is the most spectacularly violent type of match ever with probably the two best wrestlers who have ever attempted to attempt it or to engage both at the same time. It’s not just an explosive barbed wire deathmatch.
As we talked about earlier, these are the two best wrestlers in the world having an explosive deathmatch with barbed wire. It will be something incredibly special that may never happen again. It can be an absolute utter disaster. But anyway, people are going to be talking about it for decades. So you really want to be there live to make sure you’re a part of it or remembered when you talk about it for the next 20 years.
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