Why Some AEW Fans Want The Death Riders To End

Death Riders and Jon Moxley evoke strong emotional responses. Detractors, as well as AEW fans alike, post-Dynasty posted a range of feelings on social media. A trend of dissatisfaction appears to have grown since Revolution.

At its worst, most unacceptable, and heinous were death and sexual assault threats made toward Tony Khan. At the other end of the spectrum were apathy and disinterest. Plenty in between shared their anger and frustration that Swerve Strickland is not the AEW World Champion again.

In response, numerous AEW fans countered with their disappointment at others’ outrage. The sentiment is that fans complaining are fickle, impatient, cannot cope with long-term storytelling and/or hate that their fantasy booking remained fiction. Yet, steamrolling the outrage doesn’t flatten why some fans feel disconnected from the title picture.

Two things can be true at once. Death Riders is a success in some respects and a failure in others, depending on your perspective. As a fan and writer who is deeply passionate about AEW, I’m enthralled by everything else in AEW right now. AEW is turning a corner as I’ve written about here.

Yet, Death Riders remains a wrench that, for some fans like me, remains stuck in the machine. It’s halting meaningful progression. This is what many are frustrated with.

I’m apathetic. I’m waiting for the endgame, optimistically ready for AEW and its wrestlers to move on from its past trauma.

Skewering Success for Death Riders

Outrage is a currency online, available to everyone. Not just the grifters and prophets of AEW’s doom. Death Riders, from a metrics standpoint, aren’t killing (metaphorically or literally) AEW.

Strangely, the skewering of opinions and facts is more frequent than when Moxley bleeds or lets opponents pierce his skin. Rather, like the Spike spot during the street fight, this technique of misdirection tells a narrative while obscuring the bigger picture.

We still view the company’s success as interconnected to the World Champion. Ratings stability, MAX numbers, UK viewership figures, and DVR numbers are disregarded by some. Yet, an increase in attendance figures at shows and PPVs, plus two successive strong PPV buy rates, demonstrate improvement.

In terms of weekly ratings, there are some noticeable spikes related to Death Rider segments. Speaking of Spike, that gruesome spot was touted as a DVR draw, according to Fightful Select.

In the past, Tony Khan has emphasised how data impacts his booking. Given that Khan owns a sports data analytics company, it would be naïve to suggest Khan doesn’t consider the numbers. The issue isn’t the numbers or business for many.

The disconnect doesn’t relate to the numbers. It’s more personal and subjective.

What works for some isn’t for everyone. Especially some AEW sickos and lapsed fans who find Moxley and crew’s characters, matches and motives creatively boring or grating. Especially when compared to the rest of the product.

Creative Disinterest

As an online wrestling fan, I know mine and others’ perceptions are skewed by our knowledge, deep love of the sport, and subjective tastes in wrestling and storytelling. All these elements impact how we often think beyond the match. We’re emotionally invested in the product, but some take or communicate this passion in unhealthy and unacceptable ways.

There’s a fear that opportunities are being missed. This isn’t just something that started at Dynasty or Revolution. It’s been present since World’s End.

The criticism of fans wanting their fantasy booking to materialize overlooks that such collective feelings reveal just as much about some fans’ perception of a promotion and its direction as their hopes. In December, I wrote a what-if article exploring what could happen if Moxley lost the AEW World Championship. This was based on observing and interacting with fans actively discussing a change of direction for AEW.

I concluded that some fans wanted something different. Each opponent, Hangman Page, Jay White, and Orange Cassidy, offered something fresh.

We want something new. Something that I believe will come. However, Khan is perhaps staying the course with a foreshadowed title change after All In.

Over time, building tension and desire for an inevitable colossal payoff is textbook. What’s halting that emotional investment is history.

AEW has allowed some sparks to burn out instead of encouraging raging fires by refusing to change direction. We’ve had repetitive booking tropes. See Chris Jericho’s inability to elevate up-and-comers.

Post-chase failures to develop main event characters in satisfying ways, like with Hangman Adam Page and MJF. With so many potential top stars elsewhere on the card, the fear is that promising/rehabilitated wrestlers and acts will be victims of stagnation or sacrificed in favor of this overused AEW main event trope.

Stuck – Historic Bulldog Choke

Repeating a key point from my match point for Strickland vs. Moxley at Dynasty, The Death Riders’ mission has been accomplished. In the ring, plenty of AEW wrestlers across the card have stepped up. AEW in 2025 feels united on camera and with less backstage drama for many online fans.

All of this has happened around and beneath Death Riders, not because of them. Some believe Page, Strickland, or Will Ospreay should beat Moxley because, creatively, they are more interesting characters. Characters who can steer into a future rather than wallowing in AEW’s past.

I love Jon Moxley, even though I’m numb to his current character and mission statement. The problem is that this is the fourth time Moxley has been relied upon as a transitional champion.

Moxley has become a construct rather than a character to bridge the gap between crises in AEW. Pandemic, injury, and drama involving CM Punk.

I stand by my previous writing that Moxley is more than the greatest transitional champion of the modern age. Moxley embodies the alternative. Yet, Moxley’s character, through repetition, has become diminished. This paradigm shift is old hat.

The crisis Moxley now leads AEW through is artificial and self-inflicted. With Strickland or Bryan Danielson, things were moving past September 2022. Moxley and Death Rider’s mission statement keeps us in a bulldog choke fixed in that spot again.

AEW Still Hasn’t Moved On

Moxley’s character reopened freshly healed scar tissue. The Death Rider’s rhetoric, that AEW wrestlers are complacent inmates running the asylum, mixes persistent criticism of the company with kayfabe for a third time. Following The Blackpool Combat battling The Elite to determine AEW’s future, last summer’s Elite Corporate Takeover is now being reinserted into proceedings.

The words of critics and CM Punk from his Ariel Helwani interview turned into a narrative. It demonstrates the double-edged sword of how AEW is “under attack”. Acknowledging criticism makes it legitimate, even when it’s false.

Since September 2022, AEW’s battle to find an identity for its heart and soul remains artificial. AEW’s identity was never lost.

AEW is “where the best wrestle” week in and out. Where characters act like flawed, realistic humans rather than WWE superheroes and villains. Moxley’s caricature of a post-Attitude Era WWE top heel is bland compared with the nuanced layers of a Strickland or a Page or a Storm.

Beyond ignoring the reality, AEW is acting like the WWE of the past by insisting that its initials and history take centre stage over its wrestlers. That’s why some sickos are fed up. AEW needs to heal and move on.

Don’t waste what we have.

More From LWOS Pro Wrestling