Current AEW World Champion Jon Moxley recently spoke with the New York Post, discussing what he says is a “hard reset and complete restart” of AEW.
Moxley said behind the scenes, the restart and the current storyline with his Death Riders group consisting of current AEW World Trios Champions PAC, Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castagnoli, along with Marina Shafir taking over AEW, is as an opportunity to bring up as much of the other talent around him and to build something even more sustainable for AEW as the company looks to the future. Moxley added he wants AEW to be a place “not just about putting on great wrestling shows” but that makes “great people.”
The storyline began back on the August 28 episode of Dynamite, after Moxley returned from a two-month hiatus due to a hip injury.
Moxley also stated that AEW might not look much different at the present time, but that it will and things are accomplished in small incremental steps as AEW continues to do little things consistently. He added that is how big changes will be made over periods of time.
He further noted to the New York Post that there was an instance earlier this year backstage when a person had said the felt talents were not put in a position to succeed due to a lack of “preparation, framework and direction.”
“This individual said, ‘Well, it’s the bottom of the card; it doesn’t matter. It’s the bottom of the card; it doesn’t matter.” Moxley responded by saying “Can you imagine saying that? ‘Like, you’re f—— fired. Yeah, you’re f—— fired. Go work at Sunglass Hut. You should be f——- pistol-whipped for saying that…everybody that’s on the top was at one time on the bottom. That’s how it works. You climb the ladder. You see a lot of frustration and confusion from some of these talents because there is no f–king ladder. They don’t know what to do. They’re kind of just wandering in the desert. We’re gonna grab them by the shoulder and were gonna walk ‘em.”
Moxley went on to say to that AEW may have been so successful that it “broke through the dirt” quicker than it was able to effectively handle. Since launching in 2019, AEW has four-hours of live TV a week, with one hour taped and went from four PPV events a year to now nine. “The more weight you put on something, you have to add infrastructure and support to support that, or otherwise, it’s gonna break down.” Moxley further added that this is likely the ideal time for an AEW refresh that included it television ratings [which are well under 1 million] viewers a week and low ticket sales for its weekly shows.
AEW is set to begin it’s new $185 million per year multi-year media rights deal in January 2025 with Warner Bros. Discovery that will see Dynamite and Collison continuing to air live on TBS and TNT, with a simulcast of both shows streaming live on Max. In addition, all of AEW’s PPV’s will be available on Max at a discounted price for Max subscribers.
Moxley will be taking over TBS on this Wednesday’s Dynamite. He is also set to defend the AEW World Championship against Orange Cassidy at the Full Gear pay-per-view, which takes place live from the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ on Saturday, November 23.