Jon Moxley wrestled his entire match against Rey Fenix with a concussion.
During his International Title match at Dynamite Grand Slam, Moxley appeared to suffer a serious injury. At the time it was believed the star suffered a concussion after being dropped on his head by Fenix while taking a Black Fire Driver.
After taking the move, Moxley didn’t move and despite not kicking out, the referee stopped counting at two. This caused Fenix to deliver the move again, and that time he did get the three count. Due to the injury, Moxley called an audible for Fenix to beat him, despite being scheduled to win.
However, it’s been reported that Moxley actually got injured before the bell even rang to start the match. Writing in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer explained that Moxley got concussed after Fenix did a flip onto him. Despite this, he managed to gather himself enough to wrestle the match and hide the problem.
“There were two injuries on the Dynamite Grand Slam show. Jon Moxley suffered a mild concussion when Rey Fenix did the flip dive on him off the ramp before their International Title match started. He was able to shake it off and nobody knew he was concussed, although there was a moment when he stumbled getting up that you knew there was cause for concern.
But he did the match and progressively started to get lost and then he realized that he was messed up. At that point he thought that since he was hurt and wasn’t sure how badly, he told Fenix to finish him and he was changing the finish to put him over. It’s actually something wrestlers who have titles who think they are hurt and may miss time should do because it’s better the title passes through a loss than the champion being hurt and beating the challenger.
Mercedes Mone did that for Willow Nightingale but both of these situations are the exception to what usually happens. Moxley could have just told Fenix he was hurt and told him to let him choke him out so he could win as planned, but he didn’t think it was the right thing to do, and people like he and Mone have the star power and experience to call audibles.
Fenix gave him a Fenix driver and ref Rick Knox held up the count at two, apparently not realizing the situation. Most thought watching it that it was the Fenix driver that hurt him and he had a stinger and couldn’t kick out, but the Fenix driver didn’t hurt him at all. It was noted that Fenix took heat in a lot of places for hurting him with his finisher when it was totally safe.
When Will Jon Moxley Be Back?
Meltzer went on to explain that given the nature of the injury, there’s no real word on when Moxley will be back in the ring.
Moxley was feeling better when he got to the back and they gave him tests and called it a minor concussion. As with all concussions, his return is based on passing protocol tests. It could be a week and it could be much longer. He noted that because he wasn’t knocked out and could still wrestle, Fenix and Knox didn’t realize he was hurt, nor did the doctor.
In hindsight, because of the risk of a second concussion so shortly after the first, the best thing should have been to stop the match, but since he was working seemingly fine, nobody knew that. Actually when Moxley realized he was messed up, he called right then for the finish. . .
At the time of the defeat, Moxley had only held the International Title for 17 days, although he had defended it three times during that period.