On October 29, Jon Moxley filed for the trademark for “Death Riders” with the United States Trademark and Patent Office. Moxley has used the Death Rider moniker in New Japan Pro Wrestling, and the first time we saw it in plural was the jacket owned by Shota Umino.
It’s my hope that the Blackpool Combat Club name can be put to rest and Jon Moxley, Wheeler Yuta, Claudio Castagnoli, PAC, and Marina Shafir can instead go by the Death Riders. None of them are from Blackpool, England. William Regal is no longer in the company. They destroyed the man who was a co-founder and ended his full-time wrestling career. The BCC is dead. Long live The Death Riders.
I will still refer to this as Jon Moxley’s Crusade because that’s exactly what this is all about. Every Dynamite (with exception to this past week since Orange Cassidy cut it off) Jon Moxley has been giving his state of the union to the AEW roster. He has laid out exactly what is going on. The AEW roster? They work for him now. You either accept the new reality or get destroyed in the process. He has a vision for AEW, a vision he has had since the beginning, and this is the way to get it done.
As I said in The Liberation of AEW by Jon Moxley this is about starting a war against the perceived weaker of the roster. This isn’t targeting the Chris Jericho’s and Young Buck’s of the roster. Jericho is a pro wrestling legend and should be trying to prove himself against the best in the company and instead he’s slipping down to Ring of Honor to be their world champion. The Young Bucks lost their tag championship and instead of looking into rematches or looking to fight to take the company back from Moxley? They slipped out, leaving Brandon Cutler to get his hand busted by a hammer.
Essentially the fattest of the land don’t need to be fought because they will run up to their towers and be impenetrable. Moxley knows this. Moxley knows attacking their bailey will just lead to them running to the motte. It’s a long fight, a fight he’s had with both. Unnecessary for his current goal.
It’s also why he avoids fighting the Hangman Page’s and House of Black’s and LFI’s as he knows how tough they can be. This isn’t about spirit of competition. This is about breaking the spirit of All Elite Wrestling.
One would think a primary target would Will Ospreay, since it’s Ospreay’s debut in AEW that helped bring the Dream Match Era we’ve experienced in 2024. Ospreay is currently occupied by the betrayal of his best friend Kyle Fletcher, so there’s no need in fighting him until that’s taken care of. Ospreay is also again a much longer, harder fight. It’s likely inevitable, but it doesn’t need to come right now.
The Death Riders are not about taking land and sitting to wait for someone to usurp them. They know they are outnumbered every night. It’s why they continue to sneak attack. It’s why they run off in a truck. The Death Riders might proclaim themselves the Kings of the land but they are not here to sit on a throne and give orders. They are only here to destroy. They are only here to create chaos.
That chaos they’ve created has already paid dividends. MVP, Shelton Benjamin, and Bobby Lashley have walked through the gate the Death Riders have left open and made things easier for the Riders by focusing on Swerve Strickland. Strickland is absolutely someone who could be a problem for the Death Riders, someone who isn’t an example of complacency at all. Strickland has proven himself one of the most capable and self motivated wrestlers AEW has ever seen, which is why he rose to become AEW Men’s World Champion. Moxley doesn’t need a man like that coming at him, which is why the gate was left open. It’s why he isn’t concerned with the Hurt Syndicate. Their fight isn’t his fight, but it absolutely makes his fight easier.
Two factions going around destroying AEW’s heroes feels like one too many, but those quick to point out the similarities to the New World Order in World Championship Wrestling forget that the invasion of WCW wasn’t WCW versus nWo only. It was WCW versus the New World Order, versus The Dungeon of Doom, versus The Flock, and eventually versus two versions of the nWo plus a Latino World Order. Gang warfare leads to new gangs.
It’s forgotten that the greatest promo cut in the nWo era was cut early on, and it was one gang attacking someone in WCW to send a message to the New World Order. None other than the original gang: The Four Horsemen.
“They send one of yours to the hospital? You send one of theirs to the morgue.”
Arn Anderson cut that promo after the Four Horsemen decided to jump Booty Man Ed Leslie. Leslie tried to join the nWo and got turned down, but the Horsemen knew he was still a close friend of Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Destroying him sent a message to Hogan: we know who your friends are. That was the last time WCW fans saw The Booty Man. He later returned as The Disciple, the right hand man of Hollywood Hogan.
With the return of Darby Allin, it’s high time for All Elite Wrestling to start thinking about what it took for WCW to turn the tide against the New World Order and other powerful factions. It was honestly a war of attrition, and waiting on the nWo to basically destroy itself from the inside. Egos out of control, Hogan versus Savage, Hogan versus Nash, they couldn’t keep a good thing together.
I don’t know if that will be the same for the Death Riders. They certainly resemble the Four Horsemen more, from the name (Death Rider is basically a synonym for Horsemen of the Apocalypse) to the fact that even if this is Jon Moxley’s ego out of control? The Riders agree with him. Even PAC, a man who usually moves to the beat of his own drum.
The decision to use Wheeler Yuta as bait for Orange Cassidy was so convincing I thought they were turning on Yuta right then and there. He’s tried to show a brave face for the Crusade but from his sit down interview with Nigel McGuinness you could tell there was an inauthenticity to everything he said. It was only when he said he had no choice did it feel like Yuta speaking. And whether he knew he was being used as bait or not doesn’t matter. The only power he has right now is being a Death Rider.
The hardest thing about stopping the Death Riders is the only way to fight them is to go to war. Going to war is what they want. Jon Moxley knows he can survive in an AEW constantly at war, constantly in conflict, fighting for everything and leaving nothing to chance. That’s what the Death Riders want as well, save for Yuta (maybe), so unless you can find a way to push even Jon Moxley too far for them? It really doesn’t matter if one day you beat them. It just means the next day is another war to wage.
If AEW wants to take the power back? They are going to need to get people involved who don’t want to get involved. People the Death Riders have been intentionally avoiding so they don’t get involved. It’s going to take becoming allies with those who might backstab you the second you turn your back. You’re going to have to play dirty at times, and you’re going to have to be willing to fight on the days you don’t have much fight left in you.
Orange Cassidy is getting the first crack at Full Gear. There’s something interesting that Jon Moxley said.
"You will not fight me on the mountain top. You will fight me in the valley."
— GrapPro – Aaron Wrotkowski (@AaronWrotkowski) October 31, 2024
Mox said that because the mountain top is for Darby. #AEWDynamite
The mountain top is for Darby and we haven’t even begun the ascent.
Strap in. This is going to be a long ride.
