Jon Moxley made his big AEW debut on Saturday night, and he also recently appeared on the Talk Is Jericho podcast where he opened up about his WWE departure.
During the podcast Moxley noted that he has nothing but gratitude toward WWE, and he’s grateful for his time there. He said when he walked in there, he was a kid, but now he’s an adult.
He went on to say that he knew he was done with WWE last year.
“I knew pretty much knew that I was gone in July of 2018. At that point I was out with an injury.”
He said even though he knew he wanted out, he wasn’t going to ask for his release, or try to get fired, he decided to just ride it out because he didn’t want to do business like that.
Throughout the podcast he opened up about his creative issues with Vince McMahon, and shared a story about when he brought a script to Vince’s office after he disagreed with the lines that were written for him.
At the time he was working as a top face on SmackDown Live, and he said that during the promo he was supposed to list off a bunch of wacky things he did on the way to the arena that day. He gave “riding a unicycle backwards” as an example of the type of things Vince McMahon and creative thought were appropriate for the Dean Ambrose character.
After voicing his concerns to creative he had to go directly to Vince McMahon, and he shared the story of Vince’s reaction.
“‘Oh, it’s such good s**t. This stuff, this is the reason people like you. It’s why they connect to you, cause you’re different. This is you,'” Vince McMahon supposedly said. “And I’ve had a million different conversations with him that are almost this exact conversation about similar promos or things. And I said, ‘So, I’m an idiot?’ And he goes, ‘No, (imitates Vince McMahon’s laugh) it’s you. You’re different.’ That’s just an example, that kind of sums up the battle I’ve been fighting for six years.”
He went on to say that he had a similar experience while going over a script for Raw that featured him in several segments. The episode of Raw took place during his heel run after he turned on Seth Rollins, and he continued to emphasize that he didn’t agree with a lot of the lines in the script.
The former WWE Champion then talked about the infamous pre-taped promo where he took shots in his behind, and he said that he was “seething” after he read that script.
After a backstage meeting at Raw one of the writers approached him and said that Vince wanted to see him in his office so he could explain that the promo wasn’t supposed to be comedy.
“I got into Vince’s office, he’s like ‘So, this promo I want you to know it’s not comedy. This is such good stuff. It’s so well written. It’s gonna get you a ton of heat.’ That’s exactly what [Vince] said, and he’s explaining to me, ‘You’ll get rabies, and of course distemper. Which people don’t know is for dogs.’ And he’s laughing. I remember saying something like, ‘It’s just more of this Carrot Top prop comedy.’ And he’s like ‘There’s no props.’ And I’m like, ‘Then what is the actor we hired to play the doctor, and the giant syringe?'”
Moxley went on to say that he considered walking out that day.
“I had a feeling in my head that this is going to be the last time I say this to him, and I had to say this to him a bunch of times. I went, ‘If this is what you want on your show I am the best man for the job. Cause like I always do when you throw me these crazy curve balls, I pull this off, If I can. So I’m gonna do what I always do, and I’m gonna give this my absolute best effort to make this good. If anybody can, it’s me.’ And I kinda had a feeling like this is the last time I’m gonna have to say this to him.”
“I got a Southwest flight, and I was able to get out that night. I couldn’t have gotten out of that building any faster. Earlier in the day I had been thinking, ‘I gotta walk out.’ I remember having a feeling of like dizziness. Like a weird pit of my stomach feeling dizziness and talking to my friend just like, ‘I can’t work here. What is this? What are we doing? It is so embarrassing.’ So I bolt out of there I go to the airport. I just sat down at the bar at the airport, and I was just like so depressed.”
He added that promos were once his favorite part of wrestling, but going through the WWE process made cutting promos his least favorite part of wrestling.
If you use any quotes from this article please credit Talk Is Jericho with a H/T to Still Real To Us for the transcription.
[…] The former WWE Champion’s frustrations with creative got so bad that he once considered walking out of the company. You can get more on that here. […]