Jon Moxley Captures United States Championship On Awesome NJPW Debut

Jon Moxley > Dean Ambrose.

by Michael Sidgwick
Jon Moxley Mox
NJPW

Jon Moxley has dethroned New Japan Pro Wrestling United States Champion Juice Moxley on his debut at the 2019 Best Of The Super Juniors Final.

That debut match, incidentally, was such good sh*t: wearing trunks in a bid to reinvent himself from sports entertainer to pro wrestler, Mox brutalised the deposed Champion in an unhinged, brutal brawl loaded with a sick strain of drama. Moxley pulverised Juice, smashed him through tables, and slurped hardway blood from his forehead in a disgusting/beautiful mission statement of a match. The Death Rider - what a badass name that is - also subverted the Japanese custom of bowing to generate the heat in an expressive, character-driven performance.

Robinson proved a superb babyface foil for the debuting star. His catatonic, jelly-legged selling put Moxley over as a real killer.

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Moxley acquitted himself to Japan by introducing an AJPW-style super-finisher. Really, this was among the best and most purposeful near-falls in recent memory. He struck Robinson with the WWE version of Dirty Deeds, only for Juice to kick out. This protected Robinson's fighting spirit, and framed Moxley as something far more formidable than Dean Ambrose. It took a new, psycho, spiked DDT variation to get the job done.

Moxley drummed up the hype to a ludicrous degree following his WWE exit.

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He delivered.

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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!