Post Punk Should Not Be Mox

 

 

 

CM Punk's title reign is coming to a pause due to an injury, just days after ending former AEW champion Adam Page's run.

Punk came out on Rampage, AEW's B show and told the assembled crowd that he was hurt, needed surgery and was going to be away for a while. However, he's not dropping the belt, which will create an interim title in his absence. 

The hours-old champion said he was going to come back, bigger, stronger and faster. Until the company needs a champion and so enters the madness that is the booking mind of owner Tony Khan. 

Khan has announced that Moxley, the number one contender will face the winner of a contender's battle royal this Wednesday. The show will open with the battle royal and will fight Moxley in the main event. 

The winner of that bout will go on to their next PPV Forbidden Door and face the winner of Hiroshi Tanahashi and Hirooki Goto who are fighting at New Japan's Dominion. 

The winner will be crowned the interim champion and face Punk later on down the road. 

Given how Punk hours earlier learned he was going to be facing Tanahashi, I am not to sure why we need to be fooled that a match between him and Goto will actually decide who'll be going to Forbidden Door. Does Khan expect that we have forgotten he came out and challenged Punk? His Jedi mind trick did not work on me. 

The more puzzling question is how and why Moxley is the AEW number one contender. 

When you think of a number one contender for the singles title, really two people should come to mind: MJF and Wardlow. 

Who else has Tony booked on Daymite, their prime show, to be a singles star, it is certainly not Moxley. 

Per AEW, Moxley is 7-0 in singles action this year with wins over Daniel Garcia, Wheeler YUTA (two wins), Jay Lethal, Bryan Danielson, Anthony Bowens and Ethan Page. Oddly enough the opponent's win percentage is 71% pretty damn impressive, considering the impression of the competitors he's faced has been poor among the audience of the main show. On that list Danielson is the only wrestler who you could say was a "good win" whatever that means in wrestlingmath.

While MJF is AEW's, biggest star, in 2022, his record sits at 1-4, with two losses to Shawn Dean. 

Crazy right? 

Moxley is undefeated yet it doesn't feel like it. MJF has done nothing but job this year and is the biggest star in maybe all of wrestling.

Khan responded to negative comments with this tweet "@JonMoxley is the only AEW wrestler with 7+ 2022 singles bouts undefeated on TV (Dynamite/Rampage/Battle of the Belts) + PPV (Revolution/Double or Nothing). (7-0. Moxley + @AnthonyOgogo only undefeated 7-0 records in AEW in 2022, Moxley ranked higher based on opponents quality"

What Khan doesn't understand and I guess he never will because he works in analytics on the Jaguars his father's NFL team. 

Stats don't mean everything. Who is the biggest star in your company not named Punk, it's not Moxley. 

Ok, MJF doesn't have enough wins and shouldn't be the number one contender, sure, understandable. 

However, what about Warlow, AEW's other massive star who is 12-2 in singles matches. Wardlow has absolutely destroyed people this year. In his two losses, he has been screwed over. 

Wardlow's 12 wins have meant way more than Moxley's seven right?

Hell Scorpio Sky is 8-1 in singles action in 2022. 

There are plenty of people AEW can choose to carry the company while Punk is out, and it's not the time for Moxley to be the promotions first double-champ, no matter how alluring that might be.

People are still buzzing about MJF's promo where he lists what's wrong with AEW and ex WWE guys were one of his top complaints. What exactly is Khan building, a company to rival WWE or one that is a poor man's version? It's time to push "homegrown talent" with the mic skills that can carry them through until Punk is healthy again, and that person's name is Maxwell Jacob Friedman.