30 Best AEW Matches Ever (So Far...)

21. Chris Jericho Vs. Jon Moxley (AEW Dynamite Quake By The Lake)

This was the best possible version of this pairing. They’d wrestled before, headlining Revolution 2020 in a witty and dramatic schmoz-heavy brawl, which did the job of crowning Mox without troubling Match of the Year lists.

But where on earth did this come from?

Jericho entered the match under his Lionheart persona. It's all gone wrong for him since, but this was one of his last great ideas.

People were nostalgic for his old tights, even if they’d never seen him work in CMLL, and his secret knowledge of llave, a technical sub-genre of lucha libre, was a great stylistic fit for - and strategy against - his opponent.

Mox had entered his artistic peak, having perfected his violent take on a grappling heavy style he’d taken to calling ‘Death Jitsu’. This informed an unusual and complex opening phase that demanded your focus to follow. The spell was never broken.

In the most famous spot of the match, Jericho applied the Liontamer to Mox throughout the entire commercial break. Mox’s selling was incredible. Always fond of playing the hard bastard, this was Mox at his zenith. The people believed in him like he was a folk hero.

So stiff you could feel the headaches a continent away, the match was amazing for its very apparent level of motivation. They very clearly wanted to have a blow-away awesome match, but it never felt desperate. They didn’t miss the dramatic peak.

For the first time ever - and he earned it - Mox kicked out of the Judas Effect. This generated one of the biggest pops of the year, and underscored that the mythology of a move is far more important than the execution.

The finish verged on revolting; Mox applied the match-winning Bulldog choke with such grip that Jericho’s face turned zit-red and ready to pop. Before the bell sounded, it looked like a glory kill was seconds away.