During an appearance on Wrestling Observer Radio at F4WOnline.com, Jon Moxley talked about his dislike for scripted promos while working for WWE:
“I will never read a script on a wrestling show for the rest of my life. I guarantee you that. Nobody will hand me a script ever again. That sh*t ate at me. Promos are my favorite part of wrestling…Literally from almost day 1, they (WWE) hand us this promo. It was the first promo The Shield ever did. They handed us a script. I was like, ‘Ok, we’ll play with this. I got some ideas of stuff I want to say.’ They said, ‘No, this is what you’re saying.’ I said, ‘Yea, but we’re thinking about this.’ Then it got awkward. People started looking at each other, like writers, and (Paul) Heyman was there because we were involved with Heyman at the time.
Hunter (Triple H) came in and it was awkward. It was made very clear to us that this is what we’re saying. We’re reading the script. I remember this feeling in my gut like, ‘Oh no. I made a terrible mistake’, because my favorite part of wrestling is coming up with promos, talking, saying the truth, and relating it to the situation. It’s so much fun and artistically pleasing. I love doing promos, but now that’s taking away? Now I just read what’s on the script, literally on day 1. But I went along with it. Over the years you can work with the writers, you can work with Vince, and you get a little more leeway sometimes. I feel like over the years, I got good at getting a shi**y script and making it good, reading it well, and changing it a little bit. I got a little leeway. There’s some scripted sh*t that was pretty good. I actually got really good at being a WWE Superstar taking a script, you got 8-10 minutes, making it perfect, nailing all the beats, and getting all the hits in. I got really good at that sh*t, but this isn’t what I want to do ultimately.”
