100 Best Wrestling Moves EVER
26. Jon Moxley | Death Rider
An intelligent worker will always exploit context to their advantage. Few were as clever as Jon Moxley upon exiting WWE in 2019.
Mox, after his infamous tirade on Chris Jericho’s podcast, killed the idea of Dean Ambrose. He was humiliated and depressed by what had become of the character, and vowed to reinvent himself.
The Death Rider (or Paradigm Shift) was, through Mox’s expert self-promotion, a transgressive move all over again. Beyond WWE, wrestlers dropped one another on their heads all the time. The difference is that Mox put some heft and drive behind his underhook DDT, something that went beyond the impressive physical commitment.
Reborn as a hard bastard in 2019, Mox felt different and used his dire recent form to his advantage. Other, lesser wrestlers have tried their hand at the same bit and failed. “They wouldn’t let me be in that other place!” is easy hack material, but Mox was brilliant enough to actually play with the contrast. When he said he was going to dump guys on their head, it was as if he was picturing everybody who tried to make him look stupid when hoisting them up.
Ambrose was a joke whose threats of violence were laughable; Mox was the real deal whose delivery of violence actually felt dangerous.