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#1 Jon Moxley vs. Val Venis
The most famous pre-Shield picture of Dean Ambrose, used as the main picture in this article, comes from his match against Val Venis on an episode of Heat in January 2007.
Competing as Jon Moxley, he had long pink hair and was described by the commentary team as “a relative unknown” who “is not in Venis’ league”.
Unlike his previous WWE encounters, the match against Venis came across as less of a squash match and more of a test to see what Moxley could do against an established WWE Superstar. He lost, of course, but his performance was still surprisingly impressive for somebody who was not part of the roster.
Following his third WWE match in 12 months, Moxley went on to compete for promotions including Ring of Honor, Dragon Gate USA and CZW before signing a developmental contract with WWE in April 2011.
