"Please understand that" - Former World Heavyweight Champion defends Jon Moxley over recent criticisms

Jon Moxley set the wrestling world ablaze once again when he took a spiked bat to the spine on last week's AEW Dynamite. Amid the controversy over the dangerous spot, former WWE Superstar Nic Nemeth (fka Dolph Ziggler) has stepped up to defend the leader of The Death Riders.

Adam Copeland had threatened both Christian Cage and Mox with "Spike" - a piece of wood with long nails wrapped around it - several times, but it finally found flesh in his Street Fight with the AEW World Champion last week on Dynamite. Moxley was suplexed onto it, and the nails became deeply embedded in his back.

Many have criticized the spot as excessively brutal and unnecessarily dangerous, but Nic Nemeth defended Jon Moxley. On a recent episode of Busted Open Radio, the former World Heavyweight Champion claimed that Mox would do anything for AEW, and even his gruesome spots create memories and talking points for fans:

"He’s one of those guys that would do anything [for AEW]. He’s always gone a little bit more hardcore in the last couple of years than the WWE years, obviously, because it’s a different product. When you see something like this, where every couple of weeks or months, he’s doing something a little bit crazier… Please focus on the part where he goes, ‘I want to make people happy, I want people to say that they had the greatest time of their life at this show,’ and then you see something extra disgusting like this, [it] is a huge positive, I think."

Nemeth further defended AEW as an alternative product to WWE, reminding fans why the promotion exists in the first place:

"One, it is a totally different product than you’re used to. Please understand that. The reason the AEW exists is because people were tired of a crappy WWE product at the time. You got a total alternative." [H/T - WrestlingInc.]

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Bully Ray addresses Jon Moxley's "Spike" spot, notes Dynamite's momentum

While many have called Jon Moxley crazy for taking Cope's "Spike" to the back, Bully Ray is okay with just about any spot "as long as it makes sense."

The veteran recently opened up on Moxley's Street Fight with Cope on Busted Open Radio:

"Everybody's in an uproar because the spikes stuck in his back... As far as this spot is concerned, I have said since day one on this show, I don't care what you do... as long as it makes sense. Don't do it just for the sake of doing it."

Bully Ray also noted Dynamite's upward ratings trend over the last few weeks and claimed that the company must be doing something right. Whether Jon Moxley will make an appearance on this week's episode after the brutality of last week remains to be seen.