Unlike in the WWE, where rematches come fast and lose on both television and house shows, AEW has been much more stingy with giving fans a second bite of a big-time bout.

Sure, some matches get replayed over and over again, with Joey Janela and Sonny Kiss going to war for months on AEW Dark and The Dark Order's long-standing feud with the Hardy/Andrade Family Office spanning multiple shows over multiple years. Heck, one could even point to the series of bouts between the Young Bucks and the Lucha Brothers, of which there have been seven, as an example of Khan riding a hot hand to keep fans engaged.

And yet, when it comes to the really big matches, typically of the championship variety, it's not too common to see multiple bouts for the same title between the same performers, or a bested former belt holder returning stronger than ever with their eyes on retaining what was once theirs.

When asked about this very question by Dazn News, Tony Khan addressed it head-on with Steven Muehlhausen a few hours before Quake by the Lake.

ā€œJon Moxley vs. Chris Jericho was the main event of the first ever Revolution pay-per-view. I think what we've seen from Jon Moxley and Chris Jericho since then, they've been two of the top wrestlers in AEW. Right now, this is the best we've seen. 2022, both of them came back. They were both out for health reasons, totally different reasons, respectively. But they both came back separately in the best condition they've been in since they joined AEW, and they're both more dangerous and better than they've been here. They're two of the top stars. They were the first two world champions in the history of the company. We have the two of them fighting for that same belt, the interim world championship. Whoever is the interim world champion when CM Punk comes back is going to be in line for a big unification match, and I'm excited about that.

But also, I don't want everything to be a rematch because sometimes, in this case, you can save them, where it really means something, a rematch from one of our big pay-per-view events. But they're not just being thrown together. They've been the guys in my opinion, for the summer that helped us get through this summer more so than anybody with Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley.ā€

Alright, that's all well and good, but for a rematch to truly live up to expectations, it needs to be set up properly, have fan interest behind it, and have the correct performers in the ring from which to properly tell the story. Fortunately, AEW struck that right balance at Quake by the Lake, as the bout between Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley lived up to two-plus years of anticipation.

Jericho-Moxley II did not disappoint the AEW Galaxy.

The first matchup between these two wrestlers, way back at Revolution 2020, saw Jon Moxley win the legit AEW World Championship from Jericho after months of excellent build-up that included Mox having to wear an eyepatch. It was an excellent ending to one of AEW's best Pay-Per-Views and earned a solid 3.75 stars from Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer.

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Jon Moxley holding the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship belt with a text bubble reading "How far are you willing to go?" with the AEW Dynamite logo as the background.

Matty Breisch Ā·

Chris Jericho with a text bubble reading ā€œSheā€™s a star!ā€ next to Mercedes Mone with the AEW logo as the background.

Matty Breisch Ā·

2024 Chris Jericho next to 2001 Chris Jericho with the AEW logo as the background.

Matty Breisch Ā·

However, if Jon Moxley was going to give Chris Jericho a second shot at the AEW World Championship ā€“ interim or otherwise ā€“ he wasn't because he wanted to test his mettle against the best ā€œSports Entertainerā€ in the business; Moxley has played that game before, was really great at it, and has firmly left that world behind bars. If Moxley was going to hand out one of his final title shots before CM Punk returned to an AEW ring ā€“ read: foreshadowing ā€“ he wanted to face off against ā€œLionheartā€ Chris Jericho, the last survivor of The Hart Dungeon.

Fortunately for Mox ā€“ but unfortunately for his ear ā€“ that is exactly who he got in the main event of Quake by the Lake, as the two former champions went to war for the better part of half an hour to decide who was the rightful holder of the gold-adorned belt. The match was swift, hard-hitting, and bloody, with both men busted open over the course of the match, and the blood split onto the mat, forever staining the canvas like a grizzly Rorschach test. Jericho hit all of his signature moves, from the Walls of Jericho to the Code Red, and even his usual finisher, the Judas Effect, but in the end, his final attempt to close out the bout, using a Lion Tamer while blood poured down his face, proved futile, as Moxley rolled the move into a rear naked choke and ultimately submitted the man he defeated all those years ago with the Paradigm Shift to retain his championshipā€¦ at least for now, as, *spoiler alert* CM Punk is back and might just feel like two belts are too many even for a company as expansive as AEW.