Why Jon Moxley Beat Swerve Strickland At Dynasty 2025 & When The Decision Was Made (AEW News)
Backstages notes on Jon Moxley, Swerve Strickland, AEW Dynasty 2025, The Young Bucks, and more.
AEW is currently booking through the fallout of Jon Moxley's controversial win over Swerve Strickland at Dynasty 2025, but as divisive as that pay-per-view main event was, Fightful had never heard of plans for Strickland, the babyface, to unseat Mox as AEW World Champion.
Additionally, the outlet writes that Moxley had been set for a long World Championship reign before winning AEW's top prize. The Death Riders leader had held the gold for 180 days at the time of writing.
Fightful report that internally, AEW has touted the success of the entire Death Riders storyline and Moxley winning the World Title. The promotion believes there is a disconnect with online fans, claiming that its live and DVR quarter-hour viewing figures have increased throughout 2025 with Moxley atop the promotion. This peaked with Jon's Street Fight vs. Cope on Dynamite's 19 March episode.
The writeup also clarifies a rumour that Bryan Danielson, who was backstage at Dynasty, played a role in the main event's booking. Fightful states that this wasn't the case. Tony Khan is responsible for making every final decision in AEW when it comes to on-screen stuff.
Moxley vs. Swerve featured interferences from the Death Riders, the Opps, 'Hangman' Adam Page, and the returning Young Bucks, whose EVP Trigger on Strickland enabled Moxley's victory. Fightful's AEW sources weren't sure how long Matthew and Nicholas Jackson were going to be out, noting that they'd been backstage at a show in California but left before it began, and were present for Christopher Daniels' final match on 16 January.