The Death Riders Story: Explained (And How it Can Be Saved)
On Sept. 7, 2024, after defeating Bryan Danielson for the AEW World Championship, Jon Moxley not only put the American Dragon’s head in a plastic bag, but the soul of AEW itself. Ever since then, AEW has been slowly suffocating. Now don’t get me wrong; the product is still good. 2025 has been a fantastic year so far for AEW. A new TV deal, hot crowds in smaller venues, banger PPVs, a resurgence of women’s wrestling — this company is still really, really good. And for the record, I still subjectively put it above WWE (in an article I’ll get to next week, as I will outline the fact that WWE hasn’t actually changed in 20 years…but that’s next week…).
Metaphorically, multiple feuds and talents have been poking holes in this plastic bag. But the past, and Jon Moxley, keep finding new parts of the plastic bag to tighten the grip around this company. It’s like cake. No matter how we look at it, you could make the most moist, fudgy, tastiest cake in the world — but if the frosting sucks and doesn’t look appetizing, not many are going to want to take a bite. This is the best way I can describe AEW right now.
And furthermore — the frosting is old, and well, haunted.
Michael Sidgewick of What Culture put it best (and to paraphrase him): I can’t help but think that the ghosts of Brawl Out 2022 still haunt this company. Keep that in mind as we move forward with this piece, as unlike another popular major storyline in another company — this story does make sense. However, if the execution is terrible, and the characters are weak — does it matter?
Let’s dig into this…cake.
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The Cake
Before we dig into the frosting, we should examine the cake. Because as mentioned, there are truly great things happening in this company right now. Toni Storm is one of the, if not THE, most over talents on the roster right now. Everything she touches turns to timeless gold. The tension between “Hangman” Adam Page and Swerve Strickland and their possible shaky future alliance is worth tuning in for. MJF‘s continued push to become a part of The Hurt Syndicate is a joy to watch. Ricochet continues to perform as a heel at a high level. Oh, hello, have you met “Speedball” Mike Bailey? He’s been incredible in his most recent outings. Athena is now on the AEW radar, and well deserved.
Kenny Omega as International Champion feels right, and his coming feud with Kazuchika Okada should be serviceable at the least. Mercedes Mone is still killing it with her belt-collector run (and her hilarious bits with Harley Cameron), and meanwhile, The Owen Hart Tournament rages on with great matchups (Ospreay/Page finals?), especially on the women’s side, where it’s a little less predictable. For my money, I think we end up with a Mercedes vs. Jamie Hayter finals (remember who took out Jamie Hayter over a year ago which led to her shoulder injury…)
Megan Bayne. Period. That is all.
FTR becoming the douchiest heels in a matter of seconds by turning on Copeland, setting up a potential Copeland/Cage reunion, should be money. And hell, even a likely Big Bill/Jericho feud is more intriguing to me than the frosting we’re getting right now.
There are so much to work with here in this company. But on any good cake, is good frosting, and well…how did we get here?
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Tony Khan’s Neck Brace
Around April of 2024, The Young Bucks and Jack Perry attacked Tony Khan in a memorable (memorably bad to some) moment in AEW history. The entire point to this angle stemmed from the incident at All In 2023 where Voldemort attacked Jack Perry backstage ‘IRL’. The Young Bucks, growing tired of Tony’s actions to suspend Jack Perry in regards to the incident, decided to attempt a “take over” of AEW. The idea was to “push” AEW originals, “toughen” them up, and take AEW to new heights. And while the new and improved ‘EVP Bucks’ had some good laughs here and there, the “take over” ultimately failed, and truly went nowhere.
They did “dastardly” things:
-Suspended “Hangman” Adam Page
-Took out Kenny Omega
-Dominated the Tag Team Division
But at the end of the day…that was kind of it. Jack Perry turned out to be a mid-card heel at best, his TNT Championship run face-planted, and fans cheered Okada too much for him to be taken as any serious heel. In short, the “take over” fell flat.
Enter the Death Riders…
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The Death Riders Take Over
When Jon Moxley defeated Bryan Daniels at All Out 2024, the world title was immediately put into a briefcase, Bryan was put into a plastic bag, and the “take over” started. And what we got immediately after were multiple segments of The Death Riders causing complete chaos on multiple weeks of Dynamite and Collison — doing basically whatever they wanted. Notably, on a few occasions, The Young Bucks refused to intervene. This culminated in the Oct. 30th episode of Dynamite where after more Moxley shenanigans, the Bucks, Cutler, and Perry, were seen shredding documents on their way out of the company on hiatus. They decided to “work from home” for the foreseeable future. They ran away, essentially.
And in that time period, we got the Death Riders doing…whatever they want. To an excessive annoying extents, all while Moxley continued with his cryptic messaging on why this group was running roughshod on the company.
After weeks and weeks, maybe months, we finally get more of a clear answer from Moxley, as he claims nobody “deserves” to see the AEW World Championship, and that the “man” makes the championship. This was part of the overall take over from this group in efforts to push AEW to the limit. The “better” man will find a way to beat Moxley. Okay, fine. I get it.
Could you have possibly LED with that from the beginning?
Time and challengers passed — all with the same result. Moxley wins via interference. Over and over.
And over.
AEW fans are getting tired of this. The storytelling isn’t the best to begin with, and it’s being overshadowed by many other better stories on the show. When Swerve Strickland challenged for the gold at Dynasty, many fans, including myself, were hopeful that perhaps TK might change course…
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There Was No “Swerve” Here
At Dynasty, on April 6th, we more or less got the same result: Moxley wins via interference, only this time, it was due to interference from a returning Young Bucks. And this doesn’t make much sense at first, but fans like myself started to put together the pieces. Perhaps Moxley has something over the Bucks. Perhaps blackmail? They did shred documents after all before leaving in October.
Perhaps there’s something else that Moxley knows that the Bucks doesn’t want to get out.
He must be holding something over the heads of the Jacksons for them to cause Swerve to lose the championship.
And then they explained it all…
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A Disappointing Explanation
On the April 9th edition of Dynamite, the Bucks made it clear why they helped Moxley defeat Swerve to retain the AEW World Championship.
- They did it for “Hangman” Adam Page in an effort to extend an olive branch to an old friend.
- They realized that their April 2024 “take over” failed, and that the Death Riders actually did it right.
Being the cowardly heels they are, they are choosing to align themselves with the current champions in order to save their own asses. Since the Bucks have past bad history with Swerve Strickland, it also makes sense why they did not want to help Swerve win his 2nd World Championship.
This angle now features weaving webs between Kenny Omega coming out to confront the Bucks, which will weave into a feud with Okada; all while we’re likely getting Swerve/Page vs. The Young Bucks. More than likely, Ospreay vs. Moxley and The Opps vs. Claudio/Yuta/Pac??? (injury pending) will build in the background.
All in all, this story does make sense.
However…
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Is it Good?
It’s not good.
I think many fans would rather see a Harley Cameron puppet show than another predictable Moxley main event, and I mean that in a complimentary way to Harley — she’s fantastic.
I can’t help but think that Tony Khan is thinking with his heart and not his brain right now. And that’s not an insult. Since Tony has been “back in the weeds” in 2025, AEW television has greatly improved. One just has to refer to the first section of this article. There are so many things worth tuning into AEW television for. However, the main story, the frosting, the icing on the cake — is just not good.
I get that TK and Mox likely want to see this out. The sunk-cost fallacy. You’ve invested this much time into it, so finish it out, and let other parts of your brand elevate the product as a whole. But…
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And this is important:
YOU CONTINUE TO TELL THE FANS THAT THE AEW ROSTER ISN’T “GOOD ENOUGH” WHEN THE MESSAGING IS ALWAYS BASED IN THE NOTION THAT AEW NEEDS TO BE “SAVED”.
AEW doesn’t need to be saved. It just needs to exist as is, in the same way as every other GOOD story that has been playing out over the last 3-4 months aside from the Death Riders. Keep it simple. Tell good stories. Continue being an alternative that focuses on wrestling.
Saving AEW means ENDING THIS ANGLE.
End rant.
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(Cont.)
But man, you’re going to create more hype at All In for an Ospreay/Page or Ospreay/Swerve or even an Ospreay/Swerve/Page main event than Ospreay/Moxley.
It’s that simple.
And I know this will lead to a Double or Nothing Anarchy in the Arena match between The Opps/Swerve/Ospreay/Omega vs. the EVPDRs and they’ll drag this out until July and it will likely culminate in a triumphant Ospreay win. But let’s face it — do we as AEW fans have the patience for this anymore?
I can only imagine what some fans were going through with The Bloodline story and the constant interference in Roman Reigns’ title defenses.
As good as AEW is right now, and as tasty as this cake is, and as loyal as we are — we need to send this order back for new frosting. It’s spoiled, and it’s going to make the next few months very tough. Tough to the point where we’re just going to start tuning out of AEW main events entirely.
Can it be fixed? Yes, and here’s how…
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New Frosting (The Fix)
If we really want to fix this, we have to realize one major part of this: Jon Moxley now has “go away” heat. As much as he has done for AEW, and as much as I personally respect him, this ain’t it. Stop it. Get help. Move on. So with this bit of knowledge at hand, we need to do something a little crazy.
And while we probably won’t get this, and nobody has to verbalize this in the comments section, it’s still fun to imagine.
We are a week away from Double or Nothing on May 25th. We have an Anarchy in the Arena match set in place: The Death Riders (Claudio, Yuta, Moxley) The Young Bucks and Okada vs. Swerve, Omega, and The Opps. However, with a clear favorites in numbers (6 on 5) it’s Tony Khan who himself comes out in a very rare appearance to tell Moxley that he is removing him from the match to even the odds. “This has gone on long enough”. IN addition, the winner of the Owen Hart Finals (likely Ospreay vs. Page) will face Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship that night.
With Team Omega/Swerve picking up a win, and the Trios Championships likely vacated due to PAC’s injury, the Death Riders are on their last breath. After Ospreay picks up the win over Page, he advances to face Moxley in the main event. After predictable interference from Shafir, Moxley gets help from a familair “sweet kid” — Jack Perry, who makes his return. But just as Moxley is about to pick up a three count — the lights go out, they come on — It’s the man they call STING. Sting takes out Moxley with a baseball bat, Ospreay hits a hidden blade, and becomes new AEW World Champion. The belt is finally unveiled.
After the match, Sting leaves a Darby Allin painted skateboard on a lifeless Moxley, sending a message that Allin will be coming for him soon.
What happens at All In?
We now have a Moxley/Allin match set for All In that Darby doesn’t need to be entirely present for as he finishes his climb to Mount Everest. This story more or less started with Moxley vs. Darby aside from Danielson, so this would be a fitting end. We don’t need a world championship for this. Ospreay will find himself in a spot with the odds stacked against him, and in what we would call a “true pillars” match.
Ospreay vs. MJF vs. Swerve vs. Page. The actual four pillars of this company for the men’s division. Meanwhile, I see Storm vs. Hayter in a match with some major history to it.
The Trios Championships, by power of the EVPs, are vacated and handed to The Bucks and Jack Perry. They will be defeated by The Opps.
Omega vs. Okada will crown a double champion with Omega as the victor.
FTR vs. Christian Cage and Adam Copeland, The Hurt Syndicate vs. Fletcher and Takeshita, Mercedes Mone vs. Athena, and why not throw the new women’s tag team championships into the mix with Statlander and Willow vs. Megan Bayne and Kamille. (a man can dream).
Fantasy booking aside, there is still time to turn this story around.
Moxley doesn’t need the world title to continue the story. But time is running out, and well, I can’t speak for all AEW fans, but many of us are growing a little bored and impatient with this one.
It’s not impossible to keep this interesting as it is up until All In, but I find myself dreading the thought.
-TKW
mocwrestling@yahoo.com