During an appearance on Wrestling Observer Radio at F4WOnline.com, Jon Moxley talked about signing with AEW after leaving WWE:
“Dude, I didn’t know if AEW existed. I was already out the door. The crazy thing about it is it was just timing. A big thing people probably don’t know or understand is that it wasn’t a super easy decision to go to AEW. It was not easy at all. It was actually very scary to go to AEW. But the timing of it was so crazy, that it was almost like I didn’t choose this. The universe chose me. I would be a pu**y if I didn’t take this opportunity. Of all people at this exact moment in time, at this crazy crossroads of professional wrestling where some fu**ing sh*t is going down, there’s a chance for one person to step in and do this, and you got picked. Like, you were the guy that the universe picked. It wasn’t as easy a decision to just sign with AEW.
A lot of people probably think, ‘He just left WWE and went to work for another millionaire. It wasn’t a risk.’ It was down to the wire. Before that original Double or Nothing, I was going to go back out here and I was going to figure out who the f**ck I even was as a professional wrestler anymore. The AEW thing was scary because I’m like, ‘I don’t know who these people are. I don’t want this to be another WWE. I don’t want to sign this contract.’ It was like I just got out of a divorce and I’m jumping into another marriage and I don’t even barely know this person. I didn’t know Tony. I met Tony a few weeks before Double or Nothing. Jericho was a big help. He was the first guy I talked to about it because honestly, I heard a little bit about this AEW thing. There’s all these like Impact, AEW, PWG, Ring of Honor, all these three letter companies.”
So AEW, whatever, I didn’t think it was a big deal. I just thought it was like an indie, like ok, that’s another place I could work on the weekend one of these days, Maybe I can go work there. I don’t know where they run. Maybe they do a bingo hall in California. It didn’t hit my radar at all. It was when I talked to Jericho on the phone, and he was like, ‘No dude. This is like a real thing. I signed here and they have real money. It’s a real thing.’ I’m like, really? I literally had no idea because I was in such a bad state and just trying to get through this contract. It was a bad deal. I was not in a good mental space. I had no clue what was going on outside the world.”
