AEW‘s second annual Grand Slam event was live from Arthur Ashe stadium (Queens, NY) tonight and a number of new champions were crowned throughout the show. In the opening match of the night, Chris Jericho overcame Claudio Castagnoli to capture the Ring of Honor World Championship – becoming the title’s oldest ever holder in the process. Within the tag team division, there was another big change as The Acclaimed (Max Caster & Anthony Bowens) defeated Swerve in Our Glory (Swerve Strickland & Keith Lee) to become AEW World Tag Team Champions for the first time. In the biggest advertised match on the card – and also one of the biggest matches in the history of the promotion, given the circumstances of how and why it came to be – AEW veteran and icon, Jon Moxley, took on wrestling legend, Bryan Danielson, in a match to crown the next holder of the vacant, coveted prize that is the AEW World Championship.
Jon Moxley Recaptures the AEW World Championship
When Jon Moxley dropped the AEW World Championship to Kenny Omega on December 2, 2020, on the Winter is Coming edition of AEW Dynamite, he was right to claim he was cheated out of the AEW World Championship – a title he never again received a fair shot for until his most recent match with CM Punk at AEW All Out. Tonight was an opportunity to recapture a championship he never truly lost, and he succeeded in that goal. Given what has occurred in recent weeks between The Elite (Kenny Omega, Adam Page and The Young Bucks) and CM Punk, it only made sense that Tony Khan would want to pin the hopes of All Elite Wrestling onto one of the more trustworthy, most reliable and most respected veterans not only in AEW, but in all of professional wrestling. To AEW, Moxley symbolizes stability – he is to AEW what Sting was to WCW in the 1990s. No matter all the drama that occurs within the company, the one certainty is that Moxley shows up for work and does his job – why not reward this man with the AEW World Championship? However, with MJF lurking in the shadows, waiting to cash in his title opportunity at any given moment, Moxley is going to have his work cut out for him.
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world. As well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can catch AEW Dynamite Wednesday nights at 8 PM ET on TBS and AEW Dark: Elevation (Monday nights) and AEW: Dark (Tuesday nights) at 7 PM ET on YouTube. AEW Rampage airs on TNT at 10 PM EST every Friday night.
