AEW Star Admits They Didn’t Understand Major Storyline
A top AEW star struggled to make sense of one of the company’s biggest storylines.
At Revolution on March 9, Jon Moxley will defend the AEW World Championship against Cope.
For months, the Death Riders, led by Moxley, have caused chaos in AEW, destroying everyone who happened to get in their way. However, since setting his sights on Moxley, Cope has taken a strategic approach to taking out the group, picking them off one by one.
Pac was the first to be taken out of action, followed by Claudio Castagnoli and Marina Shafir.
On the March 5 episode of Dynamite, Cope pinned Wheeler Yuta after a competitive match before shaking his hand. The veteran then got on the mic and told Yuta that this is what respect looks like.
This brought out a frantic Moxley, who ranted and yelled at his young charge before Yuta shoved him in the face and left.
Cope Looked To Make Sense Of AEW’s Death Riders
While speaking with Jon Alba of Sports Illustrated ahead of Revolution, Cope broke down his approach to storytelling and how he tried to develop the Death Riders storyline. He even admitted to being confused by the angle initially, echoing the thoughts of many fans online.
“Well, for me, it was just, it was confusing at first. Like, I didn’t fully understand what was happening. So I wanted to try and figure that out along with the audience, I think, and then go ‘Alright, what can be the story here?
The story can be you take them out, because it’s always the numbers that they have the advantage with. Okay, let’s do something about that. Let’s tell a story there.’ And more than anything, the beginning of the thing is, ‘Okay, you attacked all of my friends on television, right? Okay. So, yeah, I’m coming back. Time to step in and give this a shot.
Anything I’m involved in, I try to at least add some layers to it. And when putting the things together, going, ‘Okay, here’s the package for the match.’ You got to build in beats for that package to sum everything up, so if you watch that two minutes right before the match, you’re caught up. You got it, and know, ‘Alright, and now I’m looking forward to this thing.’
I think more than anything, that’s my mentality, is just trying to craft something or be a part of helping craft something where you get those beats, those tentpoles throughout that you can just insert in a package and get everybody caught up, before, you know, they watch the actual match. But still, that to me is what hooks me.”
Should Cope beat Moxley at Revolution, it will be the first time he’s held World Championship gold since 2011.