Wardlow: “The AEW World Championship Is In Shambles”
The AEW TNT Champion Wardlow has opened up about the recent AEW World Title situation and what it would be like in the company if he was holding that title.
Back in May at AEW Double Or Nothing, CM Punk won the AEW World Championship. When that happened, wrestling fans believed that we were on the way to a third “Summer of Punk.” Quite the contrary, especially if you ask types such as Jon Moxley and Wardlow.
After Double Or Nothing, Punk would jump into the crowd on the following show, and would end up breaking his foot that would force him to get surgery. As a result, owner Tony Khan crowned an interim AEW World Champion.
That interim champion ended up being Moxley, which set the stage for a “Summer of Mox,” and that it was.
With the belt on his shoulder, Moxley would roll all over his competition, all the way up to the point where Punk would make his AEW return at Quake by the Lake. Two weeks later, Moxley and Punk would then face off in the AEW World Championship Unification match. The “Summer of Mox” would continue, with Moxley smashing Punk in just minutes to take both of the straps.
If all of that wasn’t chaotic enough, it got even more ratcheted up.
On AEW All Out, just 11 days after their AEW Dynamite match that saw the titles unified, Punk would reclaim the title after defeating Moxley in a pay-per-view rematch. However, Punk’s reign as AEW World Champion would only last three days, this because of the backstage brawl that was sparked up by Punk’s media scrum comments after the show.
With Khan vacating the championship, AEW then held a tournament to determine who would be the new champion. Continuing his chaotic “Summer of Mox,” Moxley would win the tournament to again claim the AEW World Championship, becoming the first three-time champion in company history.
Recently appearing on the Dynamite Download podcast for an interview, current AEW TNT Champion Wardlow spoke about the insanity going on with his promotion’s top title, saying that the state of the belt is “in shambles.” Wardlow would go on to say that if he had the strap, things would go over much more smoothly.
“The state of the Heavyweight Title has been in shambles for months. And the only thing I’ll say about it, is if Wardlow was the AEW World Heavyweight Champion, he would still be the [laughs] AEW World Heavyweight Champion. It would have been the Summer of Wardlow, and it would have been the Fall of Wardlow. And it would have been the Winter of Wardlow. And it would have been the Spring of Wardlow. And it would have been the f**king summer again. Like, I ain’t f**king going nowhere. Everybody wants to hot potato that sumbitch; hand it to me, watch me take off.”
Wardlow has quite an impressive resume despite it being so short. Earlier in the year, he would get a victory over high-profile heel MJF in a match, and then shortly after, would win the TNT Championship after taking out Scorpio Sky.
Recently, he created a powerbrand tag team with Samoa Joe called “WarJoe,” who made their debut on AEW RampageGrand Slam to get a dub over Tony Nese and Josh Woods.
H/T to 411MANIA for the above transcription.