Tony Khan Reveals Why He Put The Interim AEW World Title On Jon Moxley After CM Punk's Injury

Jon Moxley is at the top of All Elite Wrestling again and The Purveyor Of Violence defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi on June 26 at Forbidden Door to become the Interim AEW World Champion. 

The opportunity to crown a new champion arose after CM Punk suffered a broken foot, with the AEW World Champion announcing he would need to go undergo surgery.

AEW had plenty of wrestlers they could have booked to win the interim title, including the likes of Chris Jericho, Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole, Malakai Black, Hangman Page, and Christian Cage but Tony Khan ultimately opted to go with Jon Moxley.

The AEW President revealed why he came to that decision on My Mom's Basement, saying: 

"Well he's [Jon Moxley] been a great champion for AEW in the past and he's absolutely one of our biggest stars. One thing that the fans in the arena really never got to see... and Jon Moxley defended the title on Dynamite many, many times in a closed-arena situation on closed sets and then during the COVID era, we really started to let fans back in and so he would have 1,100, 1,200 to 1,250 maybe fans at some of his defences, maybe 1,300. The way we worked it was we had 25 percent capacity so we were creative about how we got fans into Daily's Place.

"Jon was a great champion throughout that era and really, he got robbed of the title and the way Kenny Omega won it from him at Winter Is Coming in 2020, it was not becoming of a champion and Jon really deserved better and I always thought the fans really deserved to see Jon out defending the title on the road.

"I just thought Jon would step up and do a great job so as soon as I heard that [CM] Punk was down, I called Jon. We were in Ontario, California and Jon was at an Airbnb with Renee [Paquette] and I told him about it and he was very excited about it but he also asked, he's like, 'So you don't need me to drive to Ontario right now?' [Khan laughed] And I said, 'No, no, it's okay.' He said, 'Alright, great. Well, I'll see you soon.' So that was cool and since then, he hasn't had a day off and we really appreciate Jon Moxley."

Since winning the gold, Moxley has successfully defended the Interim AEW World Championship on one occasion, defeating Brody King on the July 6 episode of Dynamite.

H/T to POST Wrestling