Last night on AEW Collision, Cope did a promo officially challenging Jon Moxley for the AEW Men’s World Championship at Revolution on March 9.
I heard about people enjoying the promo and feeling like this was a good way to express the frustrations people had with Death Riders and look to try to fight Jon Moxley.
I felt very differently.
Straight Edge Rated R Superstar
I want to first be clear of how I feel about Cope. As I said in Wake Up Call that I felt like Cope had become a discount CM Punk. He’s a WWE veteran, coming with significant history from that promotion, and entered AEW talking all the right things. The roster. The youth. The energy. Wanted to help everyone in the back. Wanted to be a part of this.
Cope has wrestled 27 matches in AEW. His only loss since coming to the company in 2023 was against his former tag partner, best friend in real life, in Christian Cage. Technically he lost to him twice.
I’m sure Cope had plans to drop the TNT Championship to someone like Daniel Garcia. By the way, did you remember that Cope used to be TNT Champion? Cope sure hasn’t. Hasn’t tried to get a title shot again or acknowledge that Garcia is the new champion. Nothing of that sort. I’ll get back to that.
Cope, much like CM Punk, worked several young guys in matches as a way to give them a little rub by working with a legend like him. He beat them all. He hasn’t shown any sign of giving back to them anything. Just a rub. It’s funny that his first promo against Jon Moxley was calling him a kid. He did it again last night. It made me think Cope called him that so when he inevitably loses to Moxley at Revolution he can say he lost to a young star on his way up.
I have these negative feelings about Cope but trust me, it didn’t start that way. I thought he was doing the right things in All Elite Wrestling. He wasn’t trying to go for the World Championship. He was building a story with Christian Cage. And his win against Cage to eventually become TNT Champion I also welcomed. It allowed Cope to be a secondary main event for AEW Collision. He did the Cope Open similar to when Cody Rhodes was champion and I enjoyed that. Saw it live in London, Ontario against Matt Cardona.
It was the right place for him to be a midcard act who had some star power to his name so he could help people who needed it. It was the right place for what AEW needed. To help AEW by helping rehabilitate the TNT Championship and stay out of the main event in 2024 so the focus could be the likes of Swerve Strickland and his contenders.
Then he gets injured, which was unfortunate. I really do believe he wanted to drop the championship to Daniel Garcia.
In his return at World’s End he didn’t come out alone. He came out with FTR. It was Rated FTR. Everything about that makes you think the program he’s actually planning isn’t about himself. It’s about Rated FTR, and it’s about getting the Trios Championship. Yes, he’s confronting Jon Moxley in the main event, but it’s about creating a new threat for the Death Riders.
I thought okay, they do have this Grand Slam: Australia coming up. It would make sense if Cope fought Jon Moxley at this event and lost. That loss would help Cope realize that Jon Moxley is a beast he wasn’t prepared for. And so Cope, with FTR, make their goal in liberating the Trios Championship from Claudio Castagnoli, PAC, and Wheeler Yuta. It’s about the Trios Championship. It’s about helping the AEW midcard instead of taking a spot from a superstar in their prime.
But no. Cope is challenging Jon Moxley for Revolution. Moxley has yet to accept, but it feels like that’s absolutely the plan. What’s FTR going to be doing? What’s the Trios Championship doing? Who knows. AEW doesn’t care, why should we? Cope is jumping the line to face Mox.
“But they refuse to look in the mirror”
Let me explain my issue with this promo.
Cope could have come on here and said hey. I am a former TNT Champion. I could be going after the TNT Championship, that I rightfully was never pinned for, and demand a match against Daniel Garcia. But I like Danny, and while him and I will have our moment down the road, I felt I’m needed elsewhere. And I don’t have that much time left in my wrestling career, but I’ve proven I can be TNT Champion. It’s time to fight the biggest lion in the jungle, and that’s Jon Moxley.
And I’m not happy with how The Death Riders are trying to destroy the AEW that I chose to come to. I could have stayed where I was, but I came here because it was special. And the Death Riders trying to destroy that? Trying to take that away? Try to turn it into whatever twisted image you think you are? I can’t allow that to happen. I can’t allow FTR to have their careers destroyed. I can’t have Daniel Garcia’s career to be destroyed. I can’t let Death Riders get their way. It’s time for a veteran like me to step up, and I’m stepping up to you Jon Moxley.
By saying that, he’s making it about his AEW career. By saying that, he’s using his age and experience as an advantage and a way to help. He’s expressing why he wants to fight the Death Riders, who gets hurt if the Death Riders get their way, and justifying his title shot by saying I’m not going to demand a title shot for the TNT Championship and instead going for something bigger. It makes it about the youth. It makes it about FTR. It makes it about AEW.
What did Cope do instead?
“So what’s your plan Moxley? I don’t know.”
He claims he doesn’t know what the heels are doing despite them repeating themselves time and time again since September.
“You took the AEW World Heavyweight Championship and you hid it in a briefcase while we started streaming on a new network. Rocket science pal. Great idea.”
Why is the top babyface (which Cope is now) shooting on the booking of the company as a build up to the main event program?
“Guys like Harley, Piper, the Rock and Roll’s”
Even though Rock and Roll Express have made appearances, he isn’t talking about AEW talent. He’s talking about wrestlers of the past. He’s making it about a past he, a 51 year old man, was a child for. He isn’t making it about the AEW present or future. This program is supposed to be about the soul of AEW and the top babyface is making it about an ideology fight on respecting your elders. God damn it’s Punk and Hangman over again.
“While I was wrestling 200 times every year”
This was in WWE. That wasn’t in AEW. It’s never about AEW.
“My generation did that! Guaranteed contracts less dates, that’s us!”
What does this have to do with the Death Riders? What does this have to do with AEW? What does this have to do with Cope deserving an AEW Men’s World Championship title shot at the next pay per view? Nothing.
“When you’re a relic unable to get out of bed at 65.”
That’s 14 years away for Cope and 26 years away for Jon Moxley.
All Elder Wrestling
I don’t like ragging on Cope. I don’t like ragging on older wrestlers trying to get their last years in the show. I respect it. I respect Chris Jericho trying to work every week at his age. I respect how much Christian Cage has transformed himself in AEW to stay relevant. I think Hurt Syndicate coming together in AEW to get the respect they never got in another company admirable. I think the way Jeff Jarrett and Dustin Rhodes have found ways to keep going in the ring nothing short of a miracle.
All of them at the same time on two shows every week is too much.
But I also look to Christopher Daniels, who could have had his world title shots and swan song on pay per view and instead he saw his way out to mean something, to last forever, to truly make its mark? It needed to be Hangman Adam Page proving Daniels didn’t have it anymore and destroying him in his final match. He went out on his shield, and he did it for Hangman Adam Page. He already accomplished so much in his career. It wasn’t about him anymore. It was about giving back.
These veterans in AEW, the over 50 crowd in AEW? They are not doing this to give back. They are not doing this to make someone else. They are not doing this to make AEW better. They are not giving back. They are taking what they can in the short-term, because the short term is all they have left. Come 2030, I don’t think Christian Cage, Cope, Chris Jericho, Jeff Jarrett, Dustin Rhodes, or the Hurt Syndicate will be in AEW wrestling every week. They are taking what they can now, and AEW Owner Tony Khan is giving it to them because he respects what they’ve done in this business.
So when I see Cope, a guy who in his 50s works his ass off, is still a good wrestler, is still a good promo, and is still someone who can do good in this industry, slip the line and move to the main event of the next AEW pay per view, even if it’s to lose? It only benefits one person. It benefits Cope. It doesn’t benefit AEW. It doesn’t benefit Jon Moxley. It just makes one man feel like he still has it.
It means the AEW men’s roster, compiled with quite possibly the greatest roster of wrestlers in their 30s I have ever seen, and maybe the industry has ever seen? Everyone has to wait until these men in their 50s get their short term AEW run so they can say, “I Still Got It” and maybe when that’s over, maybe, they’ll be able to get a run. Unless there’s another wrestler from WWE who isn’t feeling appreciated enough and wants one more spotlight in the show.
Cope was well on his way to being something better in AEW. He could have been the veteran that actually helps. He could have been the veteran who uses his industry clout to elevate everyone around him. Instead, he saw CM Punk flame out and decided to take his spot. And with the AEW fans shouting at Tony Khan to pivot? Much like CM Punk in 2022, he’s likely going to try to take advantage of that too. You want a pivot? Pick me. Cope’s Still Got It.
Cope named Piper in his promo. When Piper wrestled Hollywood Hogan at Halloween Havoc in 1997, it was dubbed Age in the Cage. It was bashed by WWF on air and criticized by wrestling journalists as old men fighting beyond their prime to hold their spots over more deserving younger talent. Piper at the time was 43. Four years older than Jon Moxley, and eight years younger than Cope today.
I guess he did learn something from the previous generation.
