Jimmy Jacobs Faces Jon Moxley in the Mirror
This match doesn't need a microphone.
Watching it back now in 2026, one can't help but draw parallels between this and the other times that Jon Moxley has had to deal with a smaller goth with a proclivity for blood and bound hands. Just as Moxley filled his matches with Darby Allin with a sort of relentless, hulking dominance, so too does this I Quit match with Jimmy Jacobs find itself chock full of some truly grotesque violence. Arguably, it's the crown jewel of Moxley's run on the independents--the blowoff to a months-long, deeply heated, and personal rivalry, and one that truly allowed him to showcase the burgeoning abilities that would come to define his time as the best wrestler of the 2020s.
Where the match excels most as a whole has to be in its conciseness. From the second Jimmy Jacobs leaps off the balcony onto Mox in the ring, there's very little room for the match to settle down. This isn't Necro/Joe we're talking about here, but they do so much with a fairly svelte twelve minute runtime. If nothing else, this allows each act of the match to focus on the essentials and allow those to really leave an impression. Jacobs' babyface shine kicks us off on a (literal) high note with the balcony dive, and those lashes from his leather strap are a delight. There's something real primal about a heel just getting a lashing from the good guy, and Mox's selling for it is fittingly expressive and big in a way that really fills the room.
The second stage of the match can feel a little too "pro wrestling" with these counters and maneuvers in the ring, but it does ring true to the idea of Jacobs regretting how far this has gone. If this is a feud about how Jacobs resents the dark reflection of who he used to be in Mox, it would make sense that there's some attempt to keep this something of an athletic contest. It perhaps makes less sense from Mox's side of the fence, but he does at least serve to escalate the violence in the match, first by introducing the spike, and second by hitting that running powerbomb into the guardrail.
Mox really gets into his bag here once the weapon work gets going. Once he's able to get going with that spike, we get a clear vision of how talented his pantomime with sharp objects really is. It's not just that he stabs with the spike--something we'll see repeatedly throughout--but also the way he scrapes the point across Jacobs' bloody forehead. One really gets the impression he's trying to slash open Jacobs' flesh, an illusion entirely helped but the horrific reality of Jacobs' bladejob here.
And really, as great as Mox is here, as fantastic as his spike work and selling is, the magic of the match really is Jimmy Jacobs.
It's probably easy to forget that before he transformed into the prototypical edgelord sad boy carving up people with railroad spikes, Jimmy Jacobs spent much of his early time on the indies as a rather charming undersized babyface. And he utilizes those abilities to staggering effect here. His selling of the blood loss combined with these really subtle appeals to the crowd during Mox's heat and to kick off his own comebacks are so wonderful. I forgot how easy it was to root for the guy here but by the time he's got his hands tied behind his back and still finding ways to lock in the End Time, it became truly imperative that Jacobs overcome the past here.
Jacobs' greatness here really helps elevate what Mox brings to the table as well. With Jacobs finding himself at his most sympathetic, Mox ratchets up the violence as high up as it can go. Those grounded punches leading into the truly evil repeated stabbing with the spike rule so much. There's a wildness to Mox's performance there that really embodies what made this first run of his great, a volatile darkness that felt unlike anything anyone else in wrestling was delivering. It's such a vicious attack--on an opponent that can't defend himself no less--that it makes sense for the referee to intervene here.
Jacobs' final comeback here is so thrilling as well. Put into a do or die situation, Jacobs shows Mox the ways of the scumbag. A low blow, some chair shots, and if you're going to work with the spike then go all the fucking way with it. The spike right to the nuts is gruesome, it's gritty, and it's about as close as we can get to if Magnum had actually just poked Tully's eye out. Together, Mox and Jacobs escape the trap of getting bogged down in gimmickry and weapon work--which we've had enough of in their rivalry to this point anyway--and instead stick with something simple but truly indelible on the memory.
Jacobs defeats the past by harnessing it against a newer, younger threat, and in turn, perhaps giving Mox the humbling he needed to transform into what would yet come.
IS IT BETTER THAN 6/3/94? If Kawada had stabbed Misawa in the ear, it'd be better, but that's not the world we live in. This tight, heated piece of indie drama has its place in my heart over the King's Road classic.
Rating: ****1/2