OTT Wrestling Owner Joe Cabray Discusses Jon Moxley ScrapperMania Withdrawal Controversy
European Wrestling Powerhouse Over The Top Wrestling, has had a tumultuous relationship with booking top All Elite Wrestling talent. In March 2020, AEW’s leading man Jon Moxley, was due to headline the promotions flagship show ‘ ScrapperMania’. Unfortunately, due to circumstances out of either side’s control, both the Irish-based promotion OTT, and American-based were plunged into nationwide lockdowns due to the emergence of the COVID-19 virus.
OTT owner Joe Cabray maintained an open dialogue with both AEW and Jon Moxley throughout the pandemic, and a plan was put in place for Moxley to fulfill his previous booking at the March 2023 iteration of the tent pole ScrapperMania event. The National Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, and the Hangar in Wolverhampton, England were booked, events promoted, and arena tickets sold out on the promise of Moxley performing live for the OTT faithful.
Unfortunately, due to an internal, and external communications issue within AEW, Moxley was removed from the event and asked to appear at the first-ever AEW ‘House Rules’ show, in his home state of Ohio. No communications were issued to OTT staff in regards to this availability change, for its top star. On the recent issue of the OTT podcast, Joe Cabray discussed how he found out about this sudden change of plans for his marquee event:
‘I woke up that morning and had 20, 25 screenshots of the poster, and people saying have you seen this? I reached out to Moxley and he was like, you know we’re gonna sort this out, and from that time it just seemed to take forever. When it became apparent that he was gonna have to pull, it just again dragged on and dragged on for replacements’.
The former NXT star would then mention the impact this change of plans had on the promotion financially, as well as the word situation he suddenly found himself in:
‘We’re an independent company with a business class flight of €9,000 booked. We have, booked already hotels, paid internal flights, paid hotels, and work visas. You’re kind of looking at it as an advertisement saying, we’re pretty deep in this’.
An outlay of €9,000.00 purely on flights alone, is a huge outlay for any independent promotion, but to factor in seats sold, arenas booked, accommodations, and work permits being secured, this is a huge undertaking for a standalone entity. Thankfully ‘ScrapperMania’ was a roaring success, and the talent in attendance for all three nights were able to step up and deliver a weekend for the ages.
