Jon Moxley is one match away from becoming the first two-time World Champion in AEW history.

Sure, there have been multiple-time champions in the promotion before, with both Kenny Omega and “Hangman” Adam Page having both won the Tag Team Championship and the World Championship, and the trio of Cody Rhodes, Sammy Guevara, and Scorpio Sky having all won the TNT Championship on multiple occasions, but in the promotion's three and a half year history, only five men have held Tony Khan's top title, and none of them have been duplicates.

Now granted, few expected to see Moxley back in the title picture again so soon; he was doing great work with the Blackpool Combat Club, and, with Blood and Guts just over the horizon, a spur-of-the-moment title win might change some plans in the middle of the card. But hey, when opportunity strikes, one would be a fool not to take it, and at this point, Moxley is the only AEW wrestler standing between Hiroshi Tanahashi and the World Championship belt, and failure isn't acceptable.

Fortunately, Moxley's been hunting for a singles match with Tanahashi for years now, so a dream match between the “Ace of New Japan” and the man once known as “The Lunatic Fringe” should remain a must-watch event.

Jon Moxley has a history with Hiroshi Tanahashi outside of AEW.

When Jon Moxley lost the AEW World Championship to Kenny Omega in February of 2020, it put his immediate future in the promotion into question.

No, not because he was going to be released or shelved indefinitely due to poor performance, Moxley remained incredibly hot coming out of his title loss and could have feuded with pretty much anyone on the card, depending on Tony Khan's preference. No, Moxley's work schedule in AEW looked destined to contract because of the Forbidden Door; the concept, not its eponymously nicknamed Pay-Per-View.

You see, after leaving WWE, Moxley made it his goal to travel the wrestling world to take on performers from all walks of life. Sure, he was an OG AEW performer who debuted for the promotion at the first Double or Nothing Pay-Per-View, the original event promoted by All Elite Wrestling, but his first match back with the Jon Moxley name was actually in New Japan Pro Wrestling, where he beat Juice Robinson in 24 minutes to become the IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion. Though Moxley only had one other singles match in NJPW outside of the G-1 before having relinquished his belt in October of 2019 due to travel issues associated with Typhoon Hagibis, he recaptured the belt from Lance Archer in a Texas Deathmatch at Wrestle Kingdom 14 and held the title for a record-setting 564 days, including his entire time as the AEW World Championship.

Still, when Moxley's title run in AEW came to an end, fittingly enough against NJPW legend Kenny Omega, it felt like just a matter of time before he returned to Japan to make a run through the roster defending his title.

And who, you may ask, did Moxley want to test his mettle against the most? Well, that would be Hiroshi Tanahashi, aka the “Ace of New Japan Pro Wrestling.”

While travel restrictions made it incredibly hard for Moxley to make it to Japan, with his first post-AEW World Championship loss title defense coming versus Kenta in NJPW Strong live from Port Hueneme, California, four days before the not-so-Exploding Barbwire Death Match, Moxley has yet to make it back to Japan for a match versus anyone, especially Tanahashi. Factor in Mox's title loss to Lance Archer on AEW TV, who then lost the belt to Tanahashi, and the prospects of a match became harder and harder to imagine, especially after he ended up in the ring at All Out 2021 with Satoshi Kojima and eventually Minoru Suzuki instead… at least until NJPW's Capital Collision Pay-Per-View on May 14th, where Moxley, Tanahashi, Will Ospreay, and Juice Robinson took the ring to compete for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Title, which was then held by Tanahashi.

Considering Mox and Tanahashi exchanged some pretty serious blows in a match that ultimately saw Robinson pin Ospreay, a singles match between the former IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion and one of the most decorated performers in all of NJPW looked likely even before CM Punk had to go on the mend with multiple injuries, but now that there's championship gold on the line, this debut single match may go down as one of the most intriguing first-time singles matches in the history of either promotion and of modern wrestling as a whole. Buckle up, folks, this is going to be a good one.