Truth Behind Jon Moxley Secretly Working Without AEW Contract

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Remember when it was revealed Jon Moxley was working for AEW without an actual contract, and that no-one realised at the time? That was fun.

Details regarding his lack of contract have been few and far between, but Dave Meltzer has now explained the situation fully in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Dave revealed the fact his contract had expired was kept as a complete secret, in case WWE found out and tried to poach him with a big money offer.

He wrote:

The contract extended due to the time he had off going to rehab in late 2021, and expired in mid-July. This was kept secretive and he had verbally agreed to money terms and that he was going to stay. Legally, he could have probably gotten in excess of $4.5 million annually from WWE and caused the biggest bidding war up to this point in wrestling history, because taking Moxley, who literally could start on television immediately, would be the biggest coup Paul Levesque could make in the wrestling war, even bigger than the signing of Cody Rhodes as far as helping WWE and hurting AEW.

The company had built its top program around Moxley as interim champion facing Punk, which ended up being at All Out in Chicago. Moxley, while being a free agent, did win the championship in the unification match from Punk on 8/24 in Cleveland, before losing it back to Punk on 9/4 at All Out. Moxley had pushed heavily for the idea of being the actual champion, hating the interim term, and to become the first two-time champion in company history. It was done on television rather than PPV because Tony Khan had planned Punk vs. MJF to headline Full Gear in November.

Moxley had actually signed the deal prior to winning the tournament on 9/21 at Arthur Ashe Stadium over Bryan Danielson in the finals.

Regarding the announcement, at one point there was going to be an angle where Moxley left after All Out and was to return on the 10/18 show in Cincinnati at which point it would be announced he had signed the new deal.

The announcement was moved up 11 days for two reasons. One is that they wanted it out that he had signed the five-year deal prior to his dropping the GCW title to Nick Gage on 10/8 in Atlantic City. In addition, with AEW having negative news due to the situation with Sammy Guevara and Andrade, that day made sense to make what would come across as a positive announcement for the company.

Moxley is the current AEW World Champion, and with several other names currently suspended, is almost certainly AEW’s biggest star, so to have him around for several more years must be very comforting.

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