NJPW/AEW News: Jon Moxley reveals he is headed to NJPW, first independent dates announced (w/Radican’s Analysis)

-After making his suprise debut at AEW’s Double or Nothing PPV, Jon Moxley aka Dean Ambrose in WWE is continuing to make waves and is headed to NJPW. IWGP U.S. Champion Juice Robinson has been interrupted after his matches by a video of a knife wielding man in a bar since the Wrestling Dontaku tour in May. Robinson recently stormed out of the broadcast booth during a BOSJ event and said he knew who the mystery man was.

The video said the man would debut in NJPW on May 5, which is the finals of the BOSJ Tournament. Around midnight, Jon Moxley tweeted out a video that showed him walking with a knife in a broken beer bottle. The hour glass that was on the bar runs out and a graphic says that times up. The symbol the man in the video was carving into the bar with his knife unfolds at the end of the video to reveal the word Mox.

NJPW acknowledged the video on their website and said Moxley would debut on June 5 at the BOSJ Finals with designs on getting his hands on Robinson. No match between Moxley and Robinson has formally been announced.

NJPW GM Michael Craven issued a statement to Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated saying NJPW reached a deal with Moxley independent of AEW. Craven said, “New Japan and Jon Moxley came to terms on an agreement some time ago, completely independently of All Elite. Our understanding is that he is free to wrestle in Japan. We wish AEW well, but have no working relationship as of now.”

Radican’s Analysis: Moxley’s video generated a ton of buzz online early in the am last night. It’s going to be incredible to see what he does in the NJPW environment. Of course, his involvement in NJPW brings about a lot of questions in terms of how many appearances he’s going to make going forward, although it would seems like there’s a window open for him to appear on June 5 to set up a big match against IWGP U.S. Champion Juice Robinson on June 9 at Dominion.

AEW’s press release announcing the singing of Moxley mentioned that he’s signed to a full-time contract, but it was only mentioned that he would be wrestling on their upcoming Fyter Fest event on June 29, so that leaves the door open for Moxley to possibly wrestle in G1.

AEW is allowing its many of its top wrestlers to work for NJPW event though NJPW won’t work directly with them, which makes for an interesting situation to follow going forward. Top AEW talent that wants to keep NJPW open as an option have found a way to cut out ROH as an obstacle and AEW is allowing some members of their roster to work with NJPW on their own terms. NJPW didn’t want a working relationship with AEW and the main reason for not wanting a working relationship with AEW was because of their relationship with ROH. 

Moxley completed this deal with NJPW before he completed his AEW and it looked like his NJPW debut was set in motion before his WWE contract expired given that his teaser videos began while he was still making appearances for WWE. Moxley joins Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega as wrestlers that are allowed to work in NJPW while under full-time AEW contracts. Omega doesn’t have any dates announced yet, but Jericho will challenge IWGP Hvt. Champion Kazuchika Okada at Dominion on June 9. 

You can watch Moxley’s NJPW debut announcement video below:

.@njpw1972 pic.twitter.com/ooLD0aIXA4

— Jon Moxley (@JonMoxley) May 27, 2019

-Jon Moxley’s first independent dates have been confirmed. NEW announced several matches and dates for Moxley yesterday on Twitter.  He will face Darby Allin on June 14 in Waterbury, Conn. and on August 16  he will wrestle against Pentagon Jr. in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Moxley was also announced for NEW’s events on June 15 in Jackson, N.J., August 17 in Norwich, Conn. and Aug. 18 in Scranton, PA.

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