Jon Moxley received a fair share of backlash from several fans for allowing himself to be suplexed onto a spiked bat in the recent AEW Dynamite episode. However, there is an alternate view which applauds this brutal scene.
In an episode of “Busted Open Radio” podcast, Nic Nemeth showed his support for Moxley, lauding his readiness to push the limits and provide AEW’s audience with a unique experience.
Nemeth stated, “He’s one of those guys that would do anything [for AEW]. He’s always gone a little bit more hardcore in the last couple of years than the WWE years, obviously, because it’s a different product. When you see something like this, where every couple of weeks or months he’s doing something a little bit crazier … please focus on the part where he goes, ‘I want to make people happy, I want people to say that they had the greatest time of their life at this show,’ and then you see something extra disgusting like this, [it] is a huge positive, I think. One, it is a totally different product than you’re used to. Please understand that. The reason the AEW exists is because people were tired of a crappy WWE product at the time. You got a total alternative.”
He further added, “[The spot] It’s been used a few times by Cope, and you’re like, ‘Yeah, okay, it looks the part,’ looks like there’s six-inch nails coming out of a wood bat, whatever it is. Something like this makes people like me go, ‘Well, are those sharp nails?’ It gives a little street cred to a weapon like that because you’ve seen it swung, you’ve heard it hit — you know it hurts, you know it’s crazy that it’s happening — but when something like this goes above and beyond and digs into the body, you’re now letting everybody know, ‘This is something really big.’ The next time you see Cope hold it up in the air, they’re going to be like, ‘Ooh, there’s that thing that almost ripped the organs around the sides of Moxley’s back,’ and it’s good for the business to give a little street cred to those weapons.”
There were numerous instances of interference during the match, with the likes of Wheeler Yuta, PAC, and Claudio Castagnoli supporting Moxley, enabling him to regain the advantage after being suplexed onto a spike by Cope. The spike ended up lodging in his back during the confrontation.