WWE

Report: Jon Moxley’s Injury Caused AEW to Change WrestleDream Plans

Jon Moxley’s injury seems to have scrapped plans for Sunday’s AEW pay-per-view…
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Jon Moxley suffered a (reportedly) mild concussion last week at the AEW Grand Slam event, forcing him to call an audible during his match with Rey Fenix and have the luchador beat him for the AEW International Championship. The loss brought an abrupt end to Moxley’s title run, which wasn’t even three weeks old by that point. According to Fightful Select‘s Sean Ross Sapp, the audible call caused a domino effect on AEW’s plans that will directly affect this Sunday’s WrestleDream pay-per-view. You might have noticed that for all the title matches featured on the card, the International Championship isn’t planned for the show.ย 

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Sapp wrote on Wednesday that AEW was initially going to have Moxley retain at Grand Slam and face a non-AEW wrestler appear on this week’s AEW Dynamite to throw down a challenge for Moxley at WrestleDream. There’s no word on who that would’ve been, but given that the show is a tribute to New Japan Pro-Wrestling founder Antonio Inoki and NJPW stars Will Ospreay and Zack Sabre Jr. are already booked for the show, it’s safe to guess it was somebody on the New Japan roster.

“Fightful has learned the originally, a non- AEW wrestler was supposed to come out on AEW Dynamite and challenge Jon Moxley for WrestleDream. However, when the match result changed, so did the plan to come out and make a challenge. We haven’t learned who it was,” Sapp wrote.

What do you think AEW will do now that it has an unexpected champion? Will Fenix be in action on Sunday? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!ย 

AEW WrestleDream 2023 Card

  • Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
  • AEW World Tag Team Championships:ย FTR vs. Aussie Open
  • AEW TNT Championship:ย Christian Cage vs. Darby Allin (Two Out of Three Falls Match)
  • ROH World Championship & NJPW Strong Openweight Championship:ย Eddie Kingston vs. Katsuyori Shibata
  • AEW TBS Championship:ย Kris Statlander vs. Julia Hart
  • ROH World Tag Team Championships:ย MJF & Adam Cole vs. The Righteous
  • “Hangman” Adam Page vs. Swerve Strickland
  • Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega & Kotia Ibushi vs. Will Ospreay, Konosuke Takeshita & Sammy Guevara
  • The Young Bucks vs. The Gunns vs. The Lucha Brothers vs. Orange Cassidy & Hook (AEW World Tag Team Championship No. 1 Contender Match)

Tony Khan Addresses the “Buying New Japan” Rumors

Tonyย Khan was asked about the rumors of buying New Japan during a media conference call on Tuesday.ย He admitted he was confused by where that rumor started but stopped short of outright denying it. He also declined to clarify what he meant by bringing AEW into a “new era.”

“I think it’s really good that we created a lot of speculation around WrestleDream, but I’m a little surprised as to how that speculation picked up. Specifically, the transactional nature of it because we have such a great partnership right now and we’re doing such great things with New Japan Pro-Wrestling. So I was a little, I was a little surprised to see that,” Khan said.