10 Times The Competition Totally Embarrassed WWE
6. The Presentation Of Jon Moxley
Hell, even Combat Zone Wrestling - a promotion meme'd to death for its hysterical macho bullsh*t - gave Moxley his shot. CZW was better and more versatile than the JAYSUS memes, of course, but that's not part of the narrative.
The narrative is that CZW was no-selling mud show garbage wrestling.
And yet, Mox emerged from it as the wrestling headliner so cool, and so admirable as a human being, that he rescued 2020 for fans mired in a pandemic and disenchanted with the worst sleazes of an historically disgusting industry.
But not before WWE almost ruined him entirely.
He was great in the Shield. The Shield were great. Not great was the Mountie cosplaying, condiment-spraying prankster who had to be wacky because he had great comedic timing. As is so often the case, the comedian became the punchline.
In NJPW and AEW, Mox was reborn as an hilarious hard-case who swaggered his way through the brutal rhythms of strong style and got over as the whip-smart one-man wrecking machine overcoming the odds of a gang of bastards. He is the best John Carpenter lead this side of Kurt Russell.
He got all the way over by bringing back a level of danger and selling it with a promo game as witty as it is incendiary.
On the subject of which...