"The Way of The Blade.” Jon Moxley vs. Tom Lawlor (30/4/2022) 

{English}

To begin with, the match between the two was originally supposed to take place months earlier, but it had to be postponed to a later date because Moxley was undergoing treatment. Moxley returned at the beginning of the year as a terrifying version of himself, but there was still one thing he never got treated for... If Moxley has an addiction that can never be cured, it’s bleeding. And in this match? Tom Lawlor made Moxley look like a rookie when it came to bleeding.

Wrestling matches can tell countless stories inside the ring, but my favorite style has always been when both wrestlers try to prove the other is a coward, exposing their flaws, breaking them down mentally, and outclassing them in their own game.

Before the match, Tom had absolutely no intention of bleeding, and he even mentioned that in his latest article about the match. At the time, he was still fighting in MMA and didn’t think it was worth bleeding in a pro wrestling match. The crowd, however, managed to provoke Lawlor, making it clear that they were there for Moxley, not him. From before the bell even rang, every chant was in Moxley’s favor, but one chant stood out the most for Lawlor:

"Moxley is gonna kill you."

The MMA background of both men played a major role in this match, The jiu-jitsu submissions were beautifully executed, giving the first few minutes of the match an exceptionally clean grappling display. But that didn’t last long, forearms and strikes started flying early, and after a brutal punch from Lawlor, the fight began.

They went outside the ring, and Mox tried to remove the floor mat to hit a suplex on the concrete, but Lawlor managed to counter Mox and suplexed him onto the mat. Lawlor still clung to his principles of keeping the fight relatively clean. Mox crashed into the corner, and that’s when he satisfied his addiction by delivering a perfect blade job. Inside the ring, Lawlor tried to widen the cut on Mox’s forehead with repeated strikes and attempted to cut off the blood flow to Mox’s brain with neck holds. And then, in his first “dirty” move of the match, Lawlor bit Mox’s forehead.

When they went back outside again, Lawlor tried to throw Mox into the same corner that had cut his forehead earlier, but Mox reversed it. That sick fuck gave Lawlor no room to recover, he IMMEDITLLY jumped on top of him and started throwing elbows to the same spot Lawlor had been hit at before. This time, Lawlor bled.

The crowd, who had been firmly on Moxley’s side, fell into a stunned silence, worried that the match had turned into a shoot fight. especially since DEFY had never presented a match with this level of violence.

Back inside the ring, Moxley made Lawlor bleed even more, cutting off the blood to his brain with a beautiful rear naked choke while landing brutal strikes to the skull. It was a masterpiece, splashes of Lawlor’s blood sprayed across the center of the ring like an artist’s brushstroke.

During Lawlor’s control phase, he focused heavily on Mox’s head. At this stage, after losing that much blood, it’s hard for anyone to think about match structure. Lawlor was trying to finish the fight as quickly as possible, but as Mox kept pushing him past his limits, Lawlor’s human instincts kicked in. He stopped thinking like a wrestler, and started fighting to survive.

The submissions got stiffer, lawlor's strikes with became useless as he lost balance and stability. Mox then hit one of the best DDTs of his career and LAWLOR KEPT FIGHTIING, Lawlor’s mindset shifted from trying to end the fight quickly to doing whatever it takes to win.

And in a perfect ending, Lawlor destroyed Moxley’s head with a vicious knee strike. But when Mox realized the state he had pushed Lawlor into, the desperation he had reached, he decided to end it with the Death Rider. Not only did he win the fight and score the pinfall, but he also succeeded in dragging Lawlor into a place he never thought he’d reach, at least not in a wrestling ring.

Mox won physically and psychologically. Lawlor didn’t just bleed, he bled horrifically and descended into total despair. And The result? One of the best performances of the decade, in one of the greatest wrestling matches ever.

Bleeding in wrestling has deep meaning, and it’s hard to use it properly. As an outsider, Lawlor delivered a lesson to every wrestler:

“If you’re gonna bleed, don’t, unless you’re gonna bleed like Tom Lawlor.”

Even though Moxley was superior both mentally and in execution as a wrestler, Lawlor was the true winner because he outperformed Moxley in the art of bleeding.

The performance of both men was mesmerizing. I’ve talked a lot about Lawlor, but I have to give Mox his flowers, the way he controlled the pacing of the match and managed to bring out this version of Lawlor was masterful. not only is this the best match of his career, this is my favorite performance from him. Few wrestlers could do what Moxley did that night.

"Outside the ring, dealing with Moxley is like talking to a domesticated animal. Inside the ring, it's like dealing with a wild animal."

— "Filthy" Tom Lawlor

5* | TOP 50 GME.