If you asked us what the best Dean Ambrose matches were, we’d probably list stuff you already know about like the Roadblock match with Triple H and a bunch of Shield six-man tags, along with a couple obscure picks like his Jack Brisco 15 Championship match with Seth Rollins from FCW. Ask us what the best Jon Moxley matches are, on the other hand, you’ll get a completely different look at the same wrestler -- one with a lot more carnage and a lot less potted plants.
So let’s take a look at Jon Moxley’s best matches from both his pre-WWE days as well as his post-WWE days with AEW and NJPW. And, as a word of warning to those of you who mostly know Mox as a loveable goofball, some of these matches are going to be extremely violent! Don't say we didn't warn you.
10 Jon Moxley vs. Brodie Lee (CZW From Small Beginnings... Comes Great Things, January 1, 2011)
WWE’s Luke Harper was known as Brodie Lee on the indies (and will be known as Brodie Lee again), and once challenged Jon Moxley for the Combat Zone Wrestling World Heavyweight Title. Moxley is the smaller underdog going up against the towering Lee, who may look identical to his WWE counterpart but throws way more European Uppercuts than you’d expect.
Once Brodie Lee realizes that Moxley isn’t going to stay down from just regular wrestling, he resorts to the nasty stuff -- a table, thumbtacks, and even a straight-up pane of glass -- with awesomely disastrous results.
9 Jon Moxley vs. Robert “Ego” Anthony (CZW It's Always Bloody In Philadelphia, October 9, 2010)
This CZW match is quite a surprise! Moxley defends his championship against Robert “Ego” Anthony -- who frequently wears an awesome mask as Egotistico Fantastico -- in a match that plays like the scrappy punk versus the overconfident jock.
It’s a more traditional match than you’d expect from CZW but the ring psychology is captivating. Anthony is the show-offy, dominant heel that resorts to athletic moves to keep his opponent down -- so much that even putting Moxley in a Romero Special feels like a flex. But, eventually, Mox pulls out not only chairs but three panes of glass, which ends up having a tremendous payoff.
8 Jon Moxley vs. Shingo Takagi (NJPW G1 Climax Day 8, July 24, 2019)
Jon Moxley is a wild, unpredictable wrestler, but the men of the New Japan Pro Wrestling roster are too macho and competitive to be fazed by his antics. Not one month in NJPW and Moxley enters the G1 Climax, a round-robin tournament of singles matches, and has a pretty impressive showing with a total 10 points.
One of his best bouts in the G1 was against his former Dragon Gate USA stablemate Shingo Takagi in a fierce battle with lots of stiff strikes and the kinds of Lariats that send bursts of sweat mist exploding into the air.
7 Jon Moxley vs. Jimmy Jacobs (Dragon Gate USA Bushido: Code of the Warrior, October 29, 2010)
Watch enough of Jon Moxley’s indie matches and you’ll notice that he’s always willing to sprinkle a surprising amount of solid wrestling acumen atop his particular brand of attempted murder. The big climax of his Dragon Gate USA feud with Jimmy Jacobs is an “I Quit” match centered around attempted murder via railroad spike, but Moxley also pulls out Fujiwara Armbars and Rear Naked Chokes as well as a fierce dropkick to Jacob’s chest.
Sure, the match has the requisite gushing blood, but it also features a ridiculously clever spot where Jacobs -- wrists bound together like handcuffs -- hops up and traps Moxley in a Guillotine Choke. We’ve never seen that before!
6 Jon Moxley vs. Kenny Omega (AEW Full Gear, September 11, 2019)
As you might expect from a deathmatch produced for a mainstream wrestling audience, Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega’s non-sanctioned “Lights Out” match proved divisive. Many fans, used to the more sanitized type of hardcore match that WWE produces, found it tasteless and disgusting as the bout featured attempted murder via screwdriver, a bag of broken glass, and what can only be described as an opposite-of-safety-net made of barbed wire.
But for those that can stomach deathmatch style shenanigans, the fight is a blast -- a brutal, near-40-minute affair that may be a little too long, but there’s also a board with mousetraps glued to it, which rules.
5 Jon Moxley vs. Drake Younger vs. Nick Gage (CZW Southern Violence, August 7, 2010)
Jon Moxley defends his CZW World Heavyweight Championship against future WWE referee Drake Younger and current GCW mainstay Nick Gage in a three-way falls-count-anywhere deathmatch that’s about 80% light-tube-based violence, including one Falcon Arrow into like five light tubes bundled together by electrical tape.
This almost 20-minute brawl goes all over the place, from the ring to the back of a pickup truck to some picnic tables -- all in front of a sparse crowd of the worst looking people you’ve ever seen. It is, without irony or hyperbole, a real hoot. If you think the match could use more attempted murder via kitchen utensils, may we direct you to this match from a few months later, where Younger stabs Moxley repeatedly in the head with a fork? You’ll like it.
4 Jon Moxley vs. Bryan Danielson (Dragon Gate USA Way of the Ronin, September 26, 2010)
In 2010, a 24-year-old Jon Moxley took on Bryan Danielson -- who at this point had already been fired from WWE and made his shocking Summerslam 2010 return and won the US Championship -- in what was Danielson’s penultimate match on the indies before returning to WWE full-time.
The competing styles -- Moxley’s crazed brawling versus Danielson’s technical wizardry -- pays off in a fun way as Danielson’s underestimating of his opponent gets him baited into Moxley’s own submission holds. It’s not a bloodbath like many of Moxley’s other bouts, but he does manage to bust Danielson’s head open minutes into the match, so that’s great.
3 Jon Moxley vs. Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW G1 Climax Day 6, July 19, 2019)
Fresh to new Japan, Jon Moxley entered the G1 Climax tournament and got into an awesome fight with Tomohiro Ishii, one of the great underrated members of the NJPW roster, a stern man with no neck who lives for brutal strike exchanges.
This B Block match kicks into high gear the moment it begins, with the pair brawling out into the shrieking crowd. It’s competitive and hard-hitting, but also a showcase for Moxley’s career thus far: solid wrestling with a genetic predisposition towards grabbing foreign objects. And, of course, he bites Ishii’s head.
2 Jon Moxley vs. Brain Damage (CZW Tournament of Death VIII, June 6, 2009)
The most ridiculous Jon Moxley deathmatch you could watch -- besides the Drunken Taipei Death Match -- is this CZW outdoor match that begins with Moxley and the late Brain Damage sitting at a dinner table in the middle of the ring before the affair deteriorates into violence.
These guys smash dinner plates over one another’s heads and soon enough Moxley becomes a living voodoo doll for all of Brain Damage’s sadistic ideas including but not limited to a baseball bat with a saw blade on it, a car windshield wrapped in barbed wire, a real and functional portable reciprocating saw, and a broadsword. Just when you think it couldn’t be more wild and potentially illegal, there’s a run-in from a maniac with a chainsaw.
1 Jon Moxley vs. Minoru Suzuki (NJPW New Beginning in Osaka, February 9, 2020)
When Minoru Suzuki showed up at Wrestle Kingdom 14 to challenge Jon Moxley for his newly won IWGP US Heavyweight Championship, we knew it was going to be good, but we didn’t know it was going to be “Suzuki challenging Mox to a chair duel on the entrance ramp before the match even began” good. Suzuki’s a mean wrestler and accomplished MMA fighter who’s a bit like “what if Brock Lesnar had a sense of humor but also integrity,” so he’s the perfect opponent for the violence-hungry Moxley.
Spending barely any time inside the ring, the pair treat the rules of wrestling as a vague suggestion and just use the entire arena to inflict physical harm on one another. It’s the Ishii/Moxley match writ large and imbued with a love for violence so powerful that we can’t believe either man lived through it.