Adam Copeland recently spoke with Kenny McIntosh of Inside The Ropes and addressed the online reaction to the brutal spike spot involving Jon Moxley during their street fight on the March 19th episode of AEW Dynamite.
The match, which saw Copeland defend the AEW TNT Championship against Moxley, generated widespread attention after Moxley was dropped onto a spiked board, causing several of the spikes to become lodged in his back. The visual quickly went viral, sparking a wave of discussion across social media platforms, with fans and wrestlers weighing in on the intensity of the moment.
Reflecting on the spot, Copeland made it clear that, for him, the live crowd’s reaction is what truly matters.
“I don’t really care about the reaction, besides the live reaction. That to me is the reaction that matters and they were into it live. Hey, I get it, I do. Because I understand that it can be diminishing returns and all of those things. You also have to know your audience and you also have to understand that times have changed, for good, bad, however you want to look at it.”
Copeland went on to highlight how not just wrestling, but the world as a whole, is constantly evolving.
“I like to think I’ve always been a proponent of understanding that things do change; it’s going to be more athletic now, it’s going to be more violent now, and things just naturally tend to get ‘more’ as time goes on. I mean, you look at the internet. I remember dial-up and now there’s AI, things change, that’s just the nature of life. That’s the nature of the world. So I don’t really factor in how people react after the fact. I just know they’re into it live, that’s my job, and that’s how I gauge things.”
The match between Copeland and Moxley was widely praised for its intensity, though the spike spot became a polarizing moment among fans. Regardless, Copeland’s veteran perspective focuses on delivering for the audience in the building — a philosophy that continues to guide his career in AEW.
