Jon Moxley Is The "Centerpiece" Of AEW & NJPW's Working Relationship

New Japan Pro Wrestling's Rocky Romero has called Jon Moxley the "centerpiece" of the working relationship between his home promotion and AEW, doing so in a new interview with Wrestling Perspective.

Last week saw the Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer claim that gaining access to Moxley motivated NJPW into reopening talks with AEW. Here, Romero confirms this (h/t Fightful for the transcriptions):-

"The idea of the whole thing, it really goes down to KENTA and Moxley, and how Moxley is basically the centrepiece of all this. He really is. As much as you want to say Kenny [Omega] is, but I really feel like Mox is because IMPACT even coming to AEW was to work with Moxley. Obviously, alongside Kenny. Then KENTA coming to AEW, showing up on Dynamite, really for one reason and one reason only, and that because Moxley is the IWGP US Heavyweight Champion."

Romero, who works as both a wrestler and front office staff member for NJPW, also spoke on the deal's shock factor:-

"This thing kind of got put together, you know, we got the okay from Moxley to come to New Japan Strong which is every Friday night… That’s kinda where it all started, not knowing that KENTA was going to be on AEW. That came kind of later and quickly got put together. Everybody seemed to be excited to work together because they knew it was going to be, promotion wise, it’s going to be f***ing mega huge because nobody was expecting it."

The working agreement exploded onto television screens at AEW Beach Break last week, as NJPW's KENTA attacked Moxley ahead of their IWGP United States Championship match at the end of the month. Mox has held that belt since 4 January 2020 but hasn't been able to defend it since February thanks to the ongoing global health crisis. Now, finally, NJPW is able to solve that problem, through pandemic-related travel restrictions mean further collaborations will be somewhat limited at first.