Jon Moxley was interviewed during a panel at Starrcast IV and here are the highlights courtesy of WrestlingInc.com:
Jim Ross makes his way to the stage. He greets the fans and says that there’s lots to talk about with Jon Moxley. Ross says the Moxley is Brian Pillman Sr., Terry Funk and Stone Cold morphed into one person. Without further ado, Jon Moxley!
Moxley begins by thanking the fans for coming out to his panel.
Moxley begins by talking about his time in FCW. The first story he tells is when Ross and Dusty Rhodes were on commentary and he had his last match at FCW before it became NXT. He goes on to talk about how he, Seth Rollins, Juice Robinson and Corey Graves were anti-office during their time in FCW. Looking back now, he says that was the greatest time in his career.
He says he was confident that he was going to make it to the main roster in the WWE. When he did sign with the WWE, he was going through a rough patch in his personal life. He spent a lot of time honing his craft.
Moxley says that The Shield was something brought up to them. He had no creative input at first. Says CM Punk needed a group to “shield” his title. After they were introduced to the fans, they had more input on their entrance, gear, etc.
Says that their unit was strong that they didn’t have many competitors that were in their league at first. He says people were getting upset with their style of fighting, but at the same time, wrestlers were intrigued with how big they were that they wanted matches with them.
Moxley doesn’t understand why people say he’s “a different type of cat.” He goes on about how he wasn’t a school person. It was wrestling that made sense to him.
Moxley mentions that it’s easy to get brainwashed working for certain promotions. He doesn’t want to see wrestling as a “job.” He sees it as something he’s passionate about.
He tells a story of when he was a kid and how doctors diagnosed him and tried to put him on different types of medications because of how he was. He says that doing meet-and-greets in the WWE was hard for him because he didn’t know how to interact with the fans. He continues the story and says after he won the US Championship, he yells at the referee “give me my f**king belt.” He heads backstage and everyone is looking at him oddly. Road Dogg says did you just drop the F-bomb. Moxley says he couldn’t recall. The next day, he had to apologize to everyone in the production truck for dropping the F-bomb. They played him the clip. He didn’t realize how much the camera could pick up that much. Later that day, the person who pulled him aside earlier to apologize thought his apology was not sincere enough. He believes that was a pivotal moment when the WWE higher-ups didn’t like him.
He knew he was one of WWE’s best employees because he never missed a day of work. However, he started seeing it as a job instead of seeing it as something he loved. He didn’t like his goofball segments. In his mind, the thought him turning heel was going to be his career-high. He started realizing that his injuries were catching up with him, which caused him to feel drained.
During his recovery period, specifically in July, he wasn’t looking forward to go back to WWE. He wanted to wrestle again, but not for them. He knew then he wanted to leave, but didn’t want to break his contract.
Moxley says that Tony Khan played a role in his decision to go to AEW.
Says that debuting at Double or Nothing was indescribable. He couldn’t believe that fans were chanting his name.
He isn’t going to spoil who he wants matches with. He is still finding his footing character-wise. From what he understands, his character is going to have shades of grey (between a face and heel). Right now, he wants to be the guy who “hurts people.”
Moxley says that he’s proud of Renee Young for how well she handled herself on commentary. He doesn’t know how she did it.
He goes on to say that he and Young talk about a lot of stuff. He gets to hear all the dirt since so many people confide in her.
Moxley says that his match against Robinson back in June was one of his favorites to do after leaving the WWE. He says it was a big night for him. He compares it to the fight he’s going to have with Kenny Omega tomorrow night. In the sense that he can be his violent self.
