Jon Moxley Explains His Vision For 'Building' AEW's Future & How It Came To Him

Jon Moxley rejects the narrative that he and the Death Riders are out to destroy AEW. The phrase "takeover angle" is sometimes used to describe their actions, but Moxley views things a little differently. Speaking to "SHAK Wrestling," the AEW World Champion dismissed those viewpoints as shortsighted.

"Idiots destroy things. Children destroy things. What we are doing is building and creating," he said. "There's a very basic, narrow-minded way of looking at things. It's a quick reaction to an unexpected stimulus. And I understand, but hopefully, more people see the clearer picture as time goes on." Moxley said he spent two months in deep introspection, reading books and walking the streets of Cincinnati late at night. It was during this time that Moxley's current persona took form, especially as he continued to observe the behavior of AEW colleagues. He claimed others dodged accountability and passed the blame around, which inspired his bizarre philosophy of taking responsibility for things he had nothing to do with. He also criticized AEW for doing too much, too soon as a young organization.

"If the branch grows out of the dirt before it's ready, it will not have the structural integrity to hold the fruit that it bears," he prophesied. "Crawl, walk, run. And maybe we went from a certain cadence of walk, and tried to jump into a run, and things got a little bit out of balance." However he frames it, many on the AEW roster appear united in their opposition to Moxley's philosophy. The strongest detractor, Orange Cassidy, will try to stop him at Full Gear, and perhaps take his AEW World Championship in the process. Cassidy dispatched Moxley's Death Riders stablemate Wheeler Yuta on November 20's "AEW Dynamite," but the aftermath left him beaten and bound with duct tape.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "SHAK Wrestling" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.