When news broke that Dean Ambrose's contract with WWE was coming to an end in 2019, fans were incredibly interested to see what the man once and currently known as Jon Moxley would do next.
Sure, AEW was just starting up, with the promotion adding a few former WWE stars like Pac and Chris Jericho to the brand's ranks, but would Moxley, a founding member of one of the most popular factions of the century, The Shield, leave a borderline guaranteed spot in the WWE Hall of Fame for a chance to wrestle for a promotion no one knew would last another year?
Well, according to Mox himself in a wide-spanning interview with The Messenger, he would have left WWE regardless of whether or not AEW existed, he just would have been forced to split up his time across multiple different promotions.
“The timing of it was crazy. I was gone one way or another. I was going to give it all up. I didn't give a f**k if I was never on TV again. I'd go wrestle in a f**king mask in Mexico in a parking lot if it means having fun again,” Jon Moxley told Messenger. “I hate speaking in the third person because it feels so f**king pretentious, but speaking from a character standpoint, it just makes it easier. But it was like as Jon Moxley was getting his release date from jail and walking into the world again, it just happened to be when AEW was starting. If there was no AEW, I think I’d be doing the exact same thing, just in a bunch of other places. You'd probably see me in f**kin' Japan or Revolver, places like that. It probably wouldn't be that much different.”
Before AEW launched, there wasn't a true alternative to WWE, with smaller promotions like Impact, Evolve, and even New Japan Pro Wrestling effectively serving as layovers for Superstars looking to make it to or make it back to the “Big Show” – though not that Big Show – where they can wrestle for and in big money matches. Then again, after accomplishing basically everything one could in WWE, it's clear Moxley wasn't looking for those paydays so much as to genuinely enjoy professional wrestling again, with AEW and beyond helping to check that box.
Jon Moxley discusses his concussion at AEW Grand Slam.
Elsewhere in his conversation with The Messenger, Jon Moxley opened up about what happened at Grand Slam, where he suffered a concussion versus Rey Fenix and ultimately dropped the International Championship mere weeks after he unseated Orange Cassidy in a barnburner of a battle at All Out.
While Moxley does remember the match, albeit under increasingly strained conditions, in his opinion, professional wrestling needs to implement a system similar to professional football, where a doctor can quickly diagnose a problem and prevent wrestlers from hurting themselves for one reason or another.
“30 seconds in f**kin' outer space for like 10 minutes. I just kept getting progressively more lost and couldn't figure out where the f— I was. Then I had this moment of clarity, ‘Oh, I’m f**ked up. I gotta get the f**k out of here,'” Moxley told The Messenger.
“In pro wrestling, it's a really touchy subject. Somebody’s gotta f**king bring it up. Pro wrestling is such a strange thing. In football, if a guy goes down and he doesn't go back to the huddle, you know he's f**ked up. In pro wrestling, a lot of times it's hard to tell what's real and what's fake. Maybe a really experienced wrestler and a really experienced doctor, who are trained to see signs of that s**t, are watching it on a separate feed. Even if they have a doctor close to ringside, what if the guy f**king spills outside the ring? He doesn't see that. The doctor and wrestler are completely untethered to the creative portion of it. They have no idea nor any interest in what the story is, who wins, who loses, or how long it's supposed to go. If a guy f**king spins around or something and the doctor goes, ‘Is he OK?' The wrestler can tell him, That's just a pro wrestling thing. Don't worry.'”
So what's Moxley's solution to the problem? Is there a way that wrestling promotions can save wrestlers from themselves and make the business safe? He does, and honestly, it's shocking it doesn't already exist.
“As soon as the doctor sees a sign of somebody being concussed, he just hits the f**king red button,” Moxley said. “Boom, this is over. No matter how much time is left. No matter if it's on live TV. It's just over, and you figure it out from there.”
Would it be inconvenient for Doc Sampson to call off the occasional match due to injury? Sure, but then again, if a booker can't work around an injury, maybe they aren't very good at their jobs, as that's just a part of the game.
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