Jon Moxley issues challenge to Yuji Nagata

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Originally published at Jon Moxley issues challenge to Yuji Nagata

Jon Moxley has reigned as IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Champion dating back to January of 2020. Moxley’s last defense of the title occurred during a February episode of NJPW Strong during which Moxley defeated KENTA.

A video was posted to NJPW’s digital channels and it featured Moxley issuing a challenge a challenge to G1 Climax winner and former IWGP Heavyweight Champion Yuji Nagata.

As far as the IWGP United States Championship is concerned, the way the world aside, one thing has never changed, I call my own shots. Just like I said January 4th, last year at the Tokyo Dome when I won that belt, I am big game hunting in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. I’m taking scalps from the hardest hitters in the game. Now I have a deep respect for the legends of this sport and I feel things should be done a certain way. I’m not one for ego trips and grandstanding, I’m not one for talking trash on Twitter so I’m going to make this real simple. Nagata-san, grab your six shooter, meet me outside the saloon at dawn, and we’ll see who can get a shot off first. That is if you’re up to it?

 

Moxley was in action on last week’s episode of AEW Dynamite and this week, he’ll be teaming with AEW World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks to take on Doc Gallows, Karl Anderson and AEW World Champion Kenny Omega.

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Yup, don’t need much else to already be excited about this one.

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Is Nagata planning on traveling to the US soon? He is one of NJPWs main trainers, so perhaps he’s going to be at the dojo in LA for a few weeks.

Moxley traveling to Japan would require him to quarantine for a couple of weeks, and I can’t see AEW willing to be without him for the better part of a month.

OTOH, it’s be kind of neat if he wrestled in Japan and AEW aired the match(es).

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I would think AEW letting him go would be dependent on how they write him off. I mean once he gets done with this match with Kenny and the Bucks unless they continue Kenny vs Mox there isn’t anything specific line up for him, so he could take time away from AEW

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I don’t see Mox going to Japan anytime soon, especially with Renee pregnant. Likely this will be on strong ang this will be awesome!

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At this point (or the near future), they can probably start having limited crowds at tapings in California and it’s a hell of a lot easier to get Nagata to the US than the reverse, so I assume this is Strong programming again. Adding their own Openweight title suggests this is a long term project for them and while traveling is so limited, there is less of an opportunity cost of using Moxley on an event like that than when things are open and the money can be spent filling houses in Japan.