Jack-Hammer
06-05-2019, 08:04 AM
It's been reported that, just a little bit ago, Jon Moxley, FKA Dean Ambrose, defeated Juice Robinson at the show set up to feature the Best of the Super Juniors tournament finals and became the new IWGP United States Champion. The match was said to be really physical and included a table spot where Moxley was powerbombed through it. Moxley ultimately won the match via his new finisher the Death Rider, which is similar to Dirty Deeds in that it's a double underhook DDT but also contains the impaler aspect we've seen used over the years by people like Edge and Bobby Roode.
I might be wrong, but this is also the first solid indicator of New Japan being open to a working relationship with AEW, which adds yet another element to the fledgling promotion that's a potential gamechanger in some ways. We've seen stars from other companies wrestle each other before, we've seen it in Impact from time to time and Ring of Honor, but I've never really seen it on a platform as big as the TNT network since the days of the Attitude Era when top ECW names popped up on Raw. Of course, that only happened at the time as Vince essentially owned ECW. At any rate, this might mean good things for both companies, especially New Japan as you know the formation of AEW has all but halted its expansion into the United States; New Japan could gain more exposure than ever with some of its top stars appearing on AEW on TNT while AEW gains further access to some of the top wrestling talent in the world. So yeah, potentially a win-win situation here. Of course, it's still a while until AEW debuts on TNT and it's possible Moxley might lose the title before then but, in my opinion, it'd be a mistake as there's hardly anyone outside of WWE right now that's bigger or hotter than Jon Moxley.
Putting the IWGP United States Championship on Moxley is a smart move because, let's face it, there's a ton of buzz about him, you know he's going to be among THE top guys in AEW and he's a far, far, far bigger star than Juice Robinson. Since Kenny Omega's inaugural run ended, the title has been kind of a flop in my eyes. Jay White, Robinson and even Cody are all good wrestlers but it just seemed like nobody cared; White won the title and I barely heard boo about it, the only time I really heard anybody talking about Robinson as the champ came a few weeks after he won the title when stories were going around that WWE was interested in re-signing him and Cody ultimately just came off as more of a vanity run than anything else as it was basically 'oh, yay, the Elite win yet another title."
I might be wrong, but this is also the first solid indicator of New Japan being open to a working relationship with AEW, which adds yet another element to the fledgling promotion that's a potential gamechanger in some ways. We've seen stars from other companies wrestle each other before, we've seen it in Impact from time to time and Ring of Honor, but I've never really seen it on a platform as big as the TNT network since the days of the Attitude Era when top ECW names popped up on Raw. Of course, that only happened at the time as Vince essentially owned ECW. At any rate, this might mean good things for both companies, especially New Japan as you know the formation of AEW has all but halted its expansion into the United States; New Japan could gain more exposure than ever with some of its top stars appearing on AEW on TNT while AEW gains further access to some of the top wrestling talent in the world. So yeah, potentially a win-win situation here. Of course, it's still a while until AEW debuts on TNT and it's possible Moxley might lose the title before then but, in my opinion, it'd be a mistake as there's hardly anyone outside of WWE right now that's bigger or hotter than Jon Moxley.
Putting the IWGP United States Championship on Moxley is a smart move because, let's face it, there's a ton of buzz about him, you know he's going to be among THE top guys in AEW and he's a far, far, far bigger star than Juice Robinson. Since Kenny Omega's inaugural run ended, the title has been kind of a flop in my eyes. Jay White, Robinson and even Cody are all good wrestlers but it just seemed like nobody cared; White won the title and I barely heard boo about it, the only time I really heard anybody talking about Robinson as the champ came a few weeks after he won the title when stories were going around that WWE was interested in re-signing him and Cody ultimately just came off as more of a vanity run than anything else as it was basically 'oh, yay, the Elite win yet another title."