Jon Moxley Details Interesting Way The Blackpool Combat Club Was Formed

2022 has been the year of the Blackpool Combat Club, from the group's violent beginnings at AEW Revolution complete with the arrival of William Regal to Wheeler Yuta's bloody initiation to Anarchy in the Arena at AEW Double or Nothing. The group has also been strengthened due to the arrival of Claudio Castagnoli, and Jon Moxley defeating Hiroshi Tanahashi for the AEW Interim World Championship at AEWxNJPW: Forbidden Door.

Even more interesting than the BCC's success though? Their formation, at least as told by Moxley when he appeared on "The Sessions with Renee Paquette", hosted by Mox's wife.

"There was not some big plan or anything," Moxley said. "It was — I was going to wrestle Bryan because (before) I was going to wrestle Bryan, and then I went to rehab. So we needed a reason to wrestle. Bryan said something about, 'Maybe I can float the idea of us doing a team to you. But you know that I'm a bad guy and you don't trust me.' I had done something similar with Jericho where he wanted me to join the Inner Circle ... We go do a promo in the ring. I don't know what Bryan's going to say, he doesn't know what I'm going to say.

"Bryan suggests to me, in the ring on TV, that we should be a team, and he talks about how we could take young guys and mold them and, 'You don't have anybody watching you're back. We can dominate this place.' All this stuff that he said in the promo, and I was listening to it for the first time in the ring and he made such a compelling case. And the audience, you could tell the audience was going, 'Huh, you know, that actually kind of makes sense.' It wasn't like Jericho and the Inner Circle where they were total bad guy characters like, joining them would be turning to the dark side. Bryan was making a really good case. The people were actually reacting strongly to the idea, like, 'I think he's got a point.'"

After thinking about it some more, Moxley concluded that the idea had merit. And he wasn't alone in thinking it.

"I texted Bryan and I was like, 'Man, I'm not going to lie to you. I was thinking, what if we did do that?'" Moxley said. "He was like, 'I was thinking the same thing!' I can't in real life or as a character think of a good reason to say no. One of us or both of us talked to Tony ... He didn't see the whole vision at first, he was like, 'Yeah, you can do it for a few weeks, and then break up or whatever.' Me and Bryan saw the vision, I could tell we both saw the exact same thing."

Moxley later explained how Regal got involved with the group.

"Regal had just got fired," Moxley said. "I hadn't talked to him in a while, I don't know if he's actually available. I don't know if he even wants to work, I don't know what his contractual status is or if he'd even be interested. I'm just fantasy booking, but Regal's got this relationship with me, he's got this relationship with Bryan, and we're doing this story right now, and I kind of had the vision of him coming in and breaking up the ruckus (at Revolution).

"So I kind of threw that out there. And Bryan said, 'Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. He is interested and Tony already talked to him. He's available.' So everybody was already thinking the same thing, they had already talked to him and were like, 'Yeah, he was going to be at the PPV.' Perfect."

While the pairing of Danielson, Moxley, and Regal came together very naturally, Moxley revealed that other circumstances led Wheeler Yuta to the BCC.

"The thing with Wheeler was an accident," Moxley said. "... I'm supposed to wrestle Brian Kendrick. An hour before the show, that match is not happening. 'What are we going to do? We're opening the show, the show starts in an hour.' Tony's like, 'Wheeler!' I'm like, 'Perfect — Wheeler.' We go and have a little match. That was either before or after Bryan did the promo, and he's one of the guys, I think Bryan mentioned by name. It just very naturally happened, and before you know it, he's in the group. But the people so truly and naturally got behind him and bought into the story, and it was like, 'Here we go. Now, it's a thing.'"

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Sessions with Renee Paquette and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription