The Phantom Rant: Jon Moxley’s War

I would like to re-introduce myself to you the fine fans here at NODQ.com. You may remember me from back in the day as Phantom Lord and with my column “The Rant of The Week”. You can still call me Phantom, but Joe works fine too. I was enjoying retirement from the IWC and just being an occasional snarky commentator on Twitter. But the truth is I missed writing about wrestling and when I saw NoDQ was looking for new columnists I said what the hell. The first column was a smashing success. I’d like to thank everyone who left comments on the site and twitter. I really wasn’t expecting the column to blow up like it did, but I guess everyone is a bit sensitive to AEW. As I said in the column, I don’t want to see AEW go out of business. Tony Khan should not step down completely. Just from booking. He’s all ready the CEO, President, head producer and too many other things to list. All I was suggesting was he let someone else handle the booking. I wrote the column before All Out, so the events of All Out were not factored into my own little fantasy booking suggestions.

As for All Out, it was a pretty good show from top to bottom. So the question is could AEW build off of that buzz towards Dynamite? I think they did especially with the big story for the show being Jon Moxley explaining himself and his actions against Bryan Danielson. It was a nice tribute to Terry Funk trying to suffocate Bryan with a plastic bag. Maybe it was a bit much for modern audiences (hell it was a lot for 1989 audiences). Moxley explained that Bryan had gone soft so measures had to be taken. Today, he chose war. I really liked the promo Moxley did to open the show. Gone is “Wild Thing” Jon Moxley. The Death Rider is back. I’m glad this version of Jon Moxley is back because maybe it will spark some life back into him. For the longest time he’s just been there if you know what I mean.

This rejuvenated version of Jon Moxley should be fun to watch. He has all ready set his sights on Darby Allin. On Dynamite they had a great promo segment where Darby poured his heart out wanting to know why Jon called him out. Jon says Darby has a world title shot at Grand Slam, but Bryan is out for who knows how long and Jon wants that title shot. He says Darby is not ready to be World Champion. So he goads Darby into putting up his title shot and at Grand Slam it will be Darby vs. Moxley for a shot at the AEW World Championship. I thought this was an excellent segment and I’m really excited to see Darby vs. Moxley at Grand Slam. As for a winner I’m not sure I can pick one at the present time. There’s cases to be made for each guy winning this match. Darby is the heart and soul of AEW right now and I would like to see him continue to be the number one contender. On the other hand, Moxley tried to “murder” Bryan Danielson, so from a blood feud standpoint that match would be amazing. Moxley wants the World Championship and will go to any length to get it back. That match honestly does not need the world championship attached to it, so that’s just a nice bonus.

As I said, he’ll go to any length to get that title back. One has to wonder if at least for today’s audience it’s too far. We all ready got the plastic bag spot which you know parents with young kids must have just loved. I’m all for violence in wrestling. But we have to remember kids will reenact things they see no matter how many times you tell them…DON’T DO THIS AT HOME. I’m afraid the violence will outshine the storytelling. Oh lets see what crazy thing Moxley does next. It would be like AEW is turning into CZW. Maybe Moxley wants to channel the Mox of CZW. This is 2024 though. We don’t need to see him rolling around in broken glass just for a cool visual.

As much as I want to see Bryan vs. Darby, we’re almost certainly getting Mox vs. Bryan. It makes you wonder how this eventual showdown with Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley will go down. Hanging over this match also is the fact that if Bryan loses the title, he’s done. So not only would Moxley be champion, he would be the one to retire Bryan Danielson. Moxley’s war is to shake AEW back down to it’s core and rebuild it. Get rid of all the pretenders to the throne so to speak. I like the core group Moxley has around him. Marina Shafir as his muscle. Shafir is good in her role here where she just tosses hired security jobbers around. As an added bonus you have Claudio and Pac as some added muscle to this group. Moxley/Claudio/Pac are a very imposing group on their own. But the one out in the wind is poor Wheeler Yuta. They didn’t clue him in on what the plan for Bryan was at All Out and he looked like he had his heart ripped in half as Bryan gasped for air in that bag.

Speaking of Bryan, AEW has kind of booked themselves into a problem. On Dynamite, Nigel McGuiness announced he had challenged Bryan Danielson to a match at Grand Slam and it’s on provided Bryan is medically cleared for it. On the one hand, all the ROH fanboys are overwhelmed with delight at the prospect of one more Nigel vs. Bryan match. Nigel has been picking at Bryan for months now on commentary so it would be poetic if Bryan defeated him in this match that Nigel has been angling for. But not even an hour before this announcement, Jon Moxley said Bryan wouldn’t be at Grand Slam. So either he is and you’re getting Bryan vs. Nigel or he’s not and you’ll have a pissed off NYC crowd upset at the bait and switch pulled on them.

Thank you for making it this far and maybe next time I’ll actually write about the WWE and the grievances I have with them. I really want AEW to succeed and Moxley vs. Bryan should be a good angle for the company. They need something to pick things up for them and fast.

As always feel free to leave comments down below, on twitter or e-mail me (people still do that, right?) at phantomlordnyc@gmail.com