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The most interesting wrestling-related news story of 2019 was undoubtedly the launch of All Elite Wrestling. Not only did the premiere of AEW's Dynamite bring wrestling back to the famed U.S. cable network TNT for the first time in 20 years, but it proved that another arena-level wrestling company with a global audience was a possibility. Jon Moxley was one of the big names snapped by AEW in its early days
AEW's success not only proved to be fan-oriented, but the entertainment industry as a whole quickly took notice. In turn, earlier this year it was announced that AEW was going to be on TNT until 2023, as part of a long-term contract extension. AEW Dynamite had only been on the air for about three months at the time of this announcement.
This weekend, AEW hosted the second edition of its Double Or Nothing pay-per-view. As part of the event, Mike Tyson presented the AEW TNT Championship to its inaugural titleholder Cody Rhodes. The card also included the Stadium Stampede between Inner Circle and The Elite, its first Casino Ladder match and the AEW World Championship bout between Jon Moxley and Brodie Lee. Sportskeeda had spoken with Brodie Lee earlier this week about this weekend's match.
Following the latest Double Or Nothing, AEW hosted a "media scrum," inviting select journalists from all around the world to speak with the aforementioned AEW World Champion Jon Moxley, TNT Champion (and AEW EVP) Cody Rhodes and AEW President Tony Khan. I had the pleasure of asking a question to Moxley, as both embedded and transcribed below for Sportskeeda.
On his favorite moment from this year's Double Or Nothing:
Jon Moxley: I saw snippets of the show, tomorrow or tonight I'm going to go back and watch the entire thing all the way through. I was getting my own mental and physical preparation and warm-up going on most of the night...
Everybody at AEW is a team. Even guys that are my rivals technically, still we're teammates and we're all here to make AEW a success and bring entertainment to wrestling fans and inject new energy into the wrestling business and bring new fans in. That's eventually all of our goals, so right now backstage, after the show it feels like we just won the [NFL] Super Bowl. We put on a hell of a pay-per-view from top to bottom, and everyone's just jacked up and hyped up and high-fiving. We feel like we just won a game as an underdog.
We're an underdog during a pandemic, where we can't have a regular crowd in the building, we're in a strange situation on the safety protocols. Kind of with our backs up against the wall, my back kinda against the wall against Brodie Lee, I felt a lot of motivation tonight. Not only the personal situation between me and Brodie Lee, but you want a World Title match to be a big thing with a clear No.1 contender and two months of build-up and a backstory and a big thing, and this was just a three-week thing.
Brodie, to his credit, stepped up on a three-week notice when he could be at home just waiting till the world goes back to normal to make his debut. But he jumped right into the fire in a dangerous match against me and he rolled the dice at Double Or Nothing and he came up short. But I don't think he has anything to be ashamed of.
That was the toughest match I've had in AEW. There were certain points I really was concerned I was going to lose, and that's the championship mindset. For the first time in AEW, I felt like I was drowning and I couldn't get out of water. I was frantically swimming for air and that's a championship mindset. You absolutely refuse to lose and thrash and kick and hold your breath until your eyeballs are popping out. You get a breath of fresh air and when you get that little opening, you take it and you win any way you can and you find ways to win and it's the only message I can give to people under these circumstances.
As World Champion I know that there are a lot of people out there having curveballs thrown at them that are going to have to dig themselves out of financial holes and adapt their businesses or their jobs or their situations to how the world has changed. When you get strange curveballs thrown at you like Brodie Lee or whatever, and you're getting powerbombed and thrown around the ring and the stage is breaking and you're crashing through, and s**t's going bad, you have to find a way to win and find a way to refuse to let anything bad win the day. You've got to find a way to succeed and get what you want out of life.
The best moment tonight for me, personally. This man disrespected me, this man stole my property... To leave him lying unconscious and bloody and take my property back and casually stroll out of the ring and show everybody in the world what happens when you cross me? That was an extremely gratifying feeling.
