Jon Moxley Beats Satoshi Kojima at AEW All Out, Gets Confronted by Minoru Suzuki

Moxley finished Kojima off with the Paradigm Shift. After the match, Minoru Suzuki appeared with his sights set on Moxley:

Bryan Alvarez of Figure Four Online/Wrestling Observer set the scene from Now Arena in Hoffman Estates, Illinois:

Suzuki soon hit the Gotch Piledriver on Moxley:

In recent months, Moxley’s AEW storylines have largely focused on New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship, which is why it came as little surprise when a New Japan star was announced as his All Out opponent.

After successful U.S. title defenses against Yuji Nagata and Karl Anderson, Moxley dropped the championship to Lance Archer on the July 21 episode of AEW Dynamite.

Archer lost the title to Hiroshi Tanahashi less than one month later at NJPW Resurgence, which seemed to set the table for a Mox vs. Tanahashi dream match at All Out.

Moxley specifically called out Tanahashi by name during a promo, but his promos got a bit more general in the weeks that followed and were directed at New Japan as a whole.

The former AEW World champion said he sent a contract to New Japan for a match at All Out, and the implication was that he expected Tanahashi to sign it. Instead, the contract was signed by Kojima.

While Kojima isn’t as big of a star as Tanahashi, the 50-year-old veteran is among the most accomplished Japanese wrestlers of all time.

The master of the lariat is a two-time IWGP Heavyweight champion, a seven-time IWGP Tag Team champion, a two-time NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team champion and a one-time winner of the G1 Climax tournament.

Kojima has even experienced success in the United States, holding the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and MLW World Heavyweight Championship one time each.

While he posed a fairly significant challenge to Moxley, the much-younger Mox was a significant favorite heading into the match, and he made good on that status with a win.

Now, the focus will shift toward Tanahashi and when the highly anticipated bout between him and Moxley will finally take place.