AEW World Champion Jon Moxley was interviewed by Dave Meltzer and Garrett Gonzalez on today’s Wrestling Observer Radio.
The 90-minute interview covers some of Moxley’s time in WWE, more on why he left the company, what he was planning on doing with his wrestling career if AEW did not come around, what he did to keep his AEW debut a secret, New Japan Pro Wrestling, Renee Young and so much more.
Here are a few highlights from the interview:
Jon Moxley talked about the timing of his AEW debut: “It was the most crazy timing. I knew I was leaving WWE in July before any of that (AEW) was even a thing. I had however many months left on my contract. It would have ended in September 2018 but they tacked on like 9 months because I was out with an injury. It ended up expiring on April 30th which was three weeks before Double or Nothing which was seven minutes from my house. I knew I was going in July but I was going to finish it out. I didn’t want anybody to say that I did any bad business. I didn’t want anybody to have anything to say about the way I did things. I finished it out to the very last day. They worked me like a dog to the very last day and it’s all good.”
Regarding his New Japan gig: “I don’t have a contract. I guess we are on a non-specific verbal agreement because they know I like going there and they like having me there. As far as the U.S. Title in New Japan, we’re working on it. I don’t know exactly when or where I will meet the winner of this tournament that is going on.”
Moxley told us details of Renee Young’s bout with COVID: “She came back from Orlando. Apparently somebody there had it. Everybody had to get tested. She was negative. She flew home. Then five or six days later, she starts feeling sick. I’m thinking nothing of it. Next morning, she said she hopes she doesn’t have COVID. The next day I went to train in the morning. I came back and she was still in bed. She said she felt like sh*t. I figured we would get her tested. The tests came back in an email. I looked at mine and it said negative. I figured hers would be the same because we have been in super close contact for six days. At this point, I had already pulled out of the next day’s TV because all I was going to do was a promo and it wasn’t worth the risk. I see it was negative, so for 30 seconds, I figured I could catch the 6 AM flight and still make TV. Not 30 seconds later, she gets hers back and it’s positive. I didn’t expect us to have different results. I went and slept on the couch. I didn’t know what to do so I got tested again as soon as I could. She was bad for a couple days. She was coughing a bunch. I was sleeping on the couch hearing her cough all night. I didn’t sleep for two days because I was scared. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was scared because we know so little about this disease and it affects everybody differently. Her case was average at best. She was sick for a couple days. It lingered a bit and now she’s fine.”
Moxley was asked if he feels different holding the AEW championship as opposed to other championships: “It does feel a little bit different. You have to keep some perspective. This isn’t a real fight. We are not really beating people for these belts. It’s a storytelling device but at the same time, it does mean something. This one feels like you’re the world champion. To me it felt like the culmination of John Moxley getting out of jail and he’s back and he’s better than he’s ever been. It felt like this is my spot and this is where I should be. I was WWE Champion. That was a different situation because that was indicative of my run there. It was an emergency situation and they needed a guy to main event all the shows and carry the championship for the summer in a bad situation. Who’s always the guy that’s there? It’s me. It was cool that I got to run around with that thing all summer. But, it felt very hollow. It was a short run thing. When I was WWE Champion, I couldn’t even get a new T-Shirt. I was talking to the merch guy and I didn’t have a new T-Shirt in forever. They just kept retreading out old shirts with different colors. They said we have given 20 designs to Hunter and he is not approving any of them. I was like, I’m the WWE Champion. Give me a fu*king T-Shirt. So I felt like I was just holding on to this thing. This one feels totally different. I love this company. I’m proud of this company. It’s a totally different thing.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Wrestling Observer Radio with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. A WrestlingObserver.com subscription includes the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and daily audio shows in addition to thousands of hours of archived audio shows.
