At the start of this week’s “The Sessions” podcast, Jon Moxley was asked by Renee Paquette if he would like to address anything that has unfolded in the last several days on the internet (CM Punk’s Instagram post):
“No, because nothing has unfolded. It’s f**king annoying. Just because somebody said some stupid sh*t on social media, like that’s not news, but it is and it ends up being a thing. I don’t want to get dragged into this dumb sh*t. I could fu**ing unload on a lot of fu**ing people right now.”
“If I start getting dragged into this sh*t, it tempts me to do that, but I’m not gonna fu**ing sink to that level. But I will say this. I’m just gonna give you like a tidbit of information from my point of view. The entire summer, I was not under contract. No contract, free agent. I was at SummerSlam weekend wrestling Desperado the day of SummerSlam. I fu**ing suplexed him on a bunch of aluminum cans and sh*t cut in half. It was fu**ing dope. I could have walked into SummerSlam that night with the AEW fu**ing belt if I had been so inclined. Nobody knew that because I don’t put my sh*t out there in the world and let everybody know every fu**ing thing about my business.”
“I was not under contract. The reason being if you’re curious is because I got to rehab and my contract was coming up. They extended it for the time that I missed. Cool. I’m glad they did, actually, because I didn’t want to feel like I owed them anything. So they extended it a little bit. It was coming up. They’re talking to me about it. The last thing I wanted to do when I first got out of rehab, because all they were telling me is like, basically, logic would tell you, don’t go back to wrestling because you’re just gonna fall into the same old habits, right? So I wanted to just like, ease back into it and see what life was like on the other side, and the last thing I wanted to do was just hurry up and sign a big, long term commitment because what if, I don’t know, what if should start to go off the rails?”
“Pretty quickly, I was like, man, actually being selfish is awesome. This is fantastic. I’m having so much fun. I was working with my friends, Blackpool Combat Club, me, Claudio, Bryan and Regal. This is great. They’re talking to me about signing a new thing, and I was like, if everything just stays exactly as it is right now, I’ll be here forever. You can pay me in cash in an envelope at the end of the night. I don’t give a f**k. But I can’t tell you what I’m going to feel like It’s six months, especially not in three years or five years. Once I make a commitment, then I will push through injuries and I will push myself too hard and I will do all these things that add up and it leads you down the road or whatever. So I was not in a hurry to make any kind of grand commitments at first.”
“That being said, during this time period, the night in fu**ing, what’s this di*k is talking about? It was in Indianapolis. Not Indianapolis. Minneapolis. It was the night he came back and was hopping around on one foot, bumping around Inner Circle or whatever after me and Jericho wrestled in a badass match, by the way. So we’re talking later about stuff.”
“Now keep in mind at this time, this is my whole point, I basically don’t work there. For all intents and purposes, I don’t even work here. Tony is not my boss. I don’t even have to be in this room. I don’t have to do sh*t. So even me being in this room and offering and agreeing to a storyline that puts you over at the pay-per-view, if anything, I’m bending over backwards for Tony, and for this dude, and for the company, and everybody, because I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to do sh*t. If anything, I was bending over backwards. So, that’s it. It’s not even controversial.”
On the chaos that has been going on with AEW talent:
“I will say this, and I hate to say it. I don’t think I’ve ever said anything even remotely negative about AEW, but I will say this. As an observer, it seems like, you know, I spent eight years on the Indies. I spent a couple of years in WWE developmental. I spent like eight years in WWE. I have never seen so much bullsh*t drama in one place in my entire fu**ing life. I hate to say that, but it’s like, and I don’t know if it’s because of the age of social media that sh*t gets blown out of proportion. Like one person types one stupid fu**ing drunk tweet and all of a sudden, it’s all anybody wants to talk about.”
“We’re sitting up here doing a podcast. You know what we’re not talking about? We’re not talking about the fu**ing stellar match by Vikingo and Kenny Omega and all the cool stuff going on going on in AEW. We’re not talking about this great pay-per-view we just had. We’re not talking about any of that. We’re talking about bullsh*t. Like, let me be clear. The vast majority of people there don’t cause any fu**ing trouble or any bullsh*t, but they’re getting sucked down into this sh*t like everybody else through the muck. There’s plenty of people who just want to get better and perform and fu**ing ust do this job, man. It’s the best job in the world.”
“I’m not an official coach. I definitely don’t ever want to be a producer, so to speak. I don’t want to be an official producer. I don’t want to wear the headset. I don’t want to have to write stuff down and talk to them. I like being a coach, but I’m not in any kind of official capacity as a coach, but I’ve coached people that I think are worth it. I’ll give time to anybody.”
On the house show in Troy, OH:
“It was a big success for the people that were there and the fans and everything. I don’t think it could have gone any better. We worked with Cass and Lee Moriarty, another two guys with immense potential. It just takes experience to find those extra little things that make you.”
“We’ll do more of those and the whole point of that, you know, I think people probably gonna compare, you know, it’s not the same thing as like, we’re running in a big market with all our stars like WWE would do. The whole point of this is to just have a place where guys can get reps. The idea that I heard initially was it would be kind of like the FCW/NXT Coconut loop. In FCW, we wrestled in Fort Myers and Crystal Creek and these little Florida towns on the weekends. Some guys need that.”
“Another idea that I had been trying to do is just working with other Indie companies and sending guys on their days off, you know, Defy or Revolver and these places. That will help the guys too just to give them more reps. You know, wrestling on TV is totally different than not being on a TV show. I don’t do Indies because they pay me much money or anything. I do them because I want that extra practice, to stay sharp, to try things out. There’s stuff I do on an Indie show, that I made up on the spot on an Indie show, that I did on TV and pay-per-view. I like being out there. It’s kind of like a jam session if you’re a musician. Just pick up a guitar, start picking, and see what happens. I need that. That’s been kind of successful. It’s something I’ve been trying to implement, and with the house shows, if we start doing more of those, that’d be a good thing too.”
Moxley said he gets his ideas for matches from MMA fights:
What I get from it, more so than anything, is storytelling because they do a really great job. I’m not talking about like, oh, somebody broke into somebody’s house and threw their belt in the river or whatever. Storytelling is striker versus grappler, veteran versus rookie, simple stuff, and see how those stories play out because every fight has a story. So and so got to the ground and dominated on the ground, or so and so was doing really good for four rounds, and then he, Leon Edwards, you know, last minute, Hail Mary head kick and it’s over. That was the story. Like if you asked, ‘What happened in that?’ Well, I’ll tell you a story. He was winning for four rounds and then right at the last second, head kick.”
“It’s not specific to MMA or even just combat sports. Every football game has a story. I’m not a football expert or anything, but, ‘Hey, what happened in the Bengals game last night?’ ‘Well, they got out to a really big lead, then the other team chipped away at it, and then they lost in the fourth quarter.’ That was the story. Or it was a defensive struggle, a very low scoring game, or it was a very high scoring game. Every match has a story. Story can be whatever you want it to be, There are no rules.”
“You know, people talk about psychology and storytelling and stuff. Sometimes they don’t even know what the f**k they’re talking about. You know, the story can be anything. You know, wrestling can be anything.”
“People talk about style, right? When I’m talking about styles, I’m not talking about moves, because in 2023, everybody does modern moves influenced from all over the world. Every single WWE match will have Lucha Libre moves and stuff, you know, like, head scissors and all this. Everybody knows modern moves. When I think of style, I think more of like pacing and psychology and timing and so forth. Japanese style, or, like WWE has a very specific style of match no matter who’s in the ring. I like to just kind of not really have a big game plan sometimes and just like, see what happens.”
On why he doesn’t do a lot of media interviews:
“I generally don’t like to talk too much about how the sausage is made because it’s not like, protecting secrets so much as it is like, once you know how the trick is done, it’s not as fun to watch it. It kind of feels like I’m kind of ruining the stuff a little bit. But also, fans love appreciating and understanding the art of what we do.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit The Sessions with Renée Paquette with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
