Jon Moxley Explains Why 2024 Will Be His Year (Exclusive)

Jon Moxley believes that he’ll reach a completely different level in 2024. The AEW ace had highs and lows in 2023, as Moxley had strong feuds with Adam ‘Hangman’ Page and Orange Cassidy, but also suffered a concussion that interrupted his AEW International Championship. Moxley reminded AEW fans that he was one of the company’s top wrestlers during the Continental Classic Tournament, winning his group and facing off against longtime friend Eddie Kingston in the finals. However, Kingston emerged victorious in that match, putting Moxley at a crossroads once again. 

During an interview with ComicBook.com’s Christian Hoffer, Moxley was asked about what his goals in AEW were for 2024. “I was thinking about it lately, and I even said it in a couple of different promos, interviews – I’m like, ‘All right, 2024 is going to be my year.’ You know what I mean?” Moxley said. 

However, Moxley quickly pointed out that restricting your goals to one year might be a way of limiting your potential. “Maybe that wasn’t the right way to say it though, because the more I’m thinking about it…well, what is a manmade year on a 12-month calendar with these weeks and months?” Moxley said. “The point is, I don’t know why we focus on years. We always measure everything in years. Because then, okay, well what happens when the year ends? Are you going to stop? Are you only going to be good for this one year? I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud.”

Moxley spoke about the challenges of 2023, some of which related to his mental health and sobriety. “Yeah, 2023 was actually very tough,” Moxley said. “It’s been a tough couple of years actually. I went to rehab a couple of years ago, and there’s a lot more to that than what they tell you – the reality of actually stopping doing coke or go to rehab or stop drinking or whatever. Not drinking….that’s easy to a degree. It’s only one thing you got to do, just not drink. But, that was just a way of life for me for over 20 years and you mess up your brain chemistry over time. So, it’s the other side of getting everything back to normal and just figuring out how to live and while your brain kind of rewires itself and heals and comes back to normal. But what’s never been normal to you? It hadn’t been normal to me since I was like 14 or something like that. That part’s really hard. Everybody’s going to be different and will present challenges and stuff. So the last couple of years have been really challenging. There’s a lot of stuff outside of the ring and wrestling gets annoying, like it always does.”

While those challenges were present for Moxley in much of 2023, he mentioned having an epiphany during the last part of the year, which was partially tied to switching some medication he was on. “I got sorted out with my doctors and stuff right around December, which was right around when the [Continental Classic] was starting,” Moxley said. “I was having kind of a bad time the first couple weeks in there but things kind of switched, especially once I stopped taking this medication. I just kind of had a, I don’t know what to call it, sort of an epiphany or a splash of cold water in the face. Something just hit me.”

“I don’t know, maybe I was just accepting of getting punched in the face by circumstances over and over,” Moxley said, likening it to grappling, where someone is on top of you while on the mat. “Eventually, guys just get tired and they just get used to being on the bottom. They stop even trying to get up. At some point, I think I just got used to just taking abuse from circumstances. And then I kind of woke up out of it and I was like, ‘What the? Get your act together.’ And that flipped the switch in me. So, the second half of that whole tournament was a whole different story.”

Moxley credits that epiphany and the Continental Classic for helping to build some momentum in his career. “Now it’s a new year and stuff, and I’m like, ‘2024 is going to be my year,’” Moxley said. “I don’t know, many times in my career I feel like I got a little momentum brewing in myself. A lot of times the universe will bow to your whims if you make it so, and many times where I almost feel like exactly what I feel. I feel like I know something the rest of the world doesn’t know yet. They’re not even looking at me. They’ve completely written me off and have no idea I’m coming and I’m about to blow everybody’s world up. Like I know a secret the rest of the world doesn’t know kind of thing.”

Despite being an ace of AEW and one of the top names of the company, Moxley said he feels like he still has a lot of untapped potential he still hasn’t realized yet, and that he’s not content getting stuck in a particular box. “Even when you do good, a lot of times people get stuck where they are,” Moxley said. “I think I’m constantly boxed in and people want to categorize me and think of me in a certain way and place me at a certain level. And I’m not into that at all. And even if I’m making all that up in my head, that’s fine because then that just gives me more motivation. My entire life, usually the best motivations come from breaking out of whatever box somebody’s trying to place me in, even if it’s just all in my head.”

Ultimately, Moxley said his goal is to be at an even different level than he’s at now. “I feel like I can feel it, I can sense it, I can visualize it,” Moxley said. “I don’t think people are expecting that and are wanting to already write off my career or place me in where exactly I am. And I don’t necessarily like that. Maybe I fail miserably, but this year will be an exercise in me trying to go even further and get even better. And hopefully at the end of 2024, if you want to measure it by that is 2025, I’ll be a completely different wrestler at a completely different level.”

Be sure to read our first part of our interview with Jon Moxley, and come back tomorrow for why he doesn’t have a “dream match” on AEW and his thoughts on philosophy.”