All Elite Wrestling Superstar Jon Moxley recently sat down with Screengeek to discuss creative freedom in AEW, how AEW will prevent staleness, and more.
Here are some highlights:
Moxley Talks Creative Freedom:
“For years, I’ve been saying all this violent stuff that I’m gonna do. (in a mocking Vince McMahon voice) ‘I’m gonna rip your head off in Hell in a Cell!’ And I’m like, no I’m not. Not at all. There’s gonna be no blood, whatsoever. There’s no intensity or violence whatsoever! It’s just the same hokey crap you see, you know. You can make a horror movie looking trailer, (mocking McMahon’s voice) ‘Hell in a Cell!’ all you want, but it’s not gonna be that. In that scenario [the Janela fight], I was like, ‘Welp, we’re going balls-out because I’m not gonna be in the business of disappointing the fans’. I’m gonna push the physicality level for my part in AEW, you know.
“And when I say violence, it doesn’t necessarily mean chairs, tables, and barbed wire. It means that I’m trying to hit you so hard and put my fist through your head. I’m not here to do some gimmicky song and dance or play around or do some cartwheels before I do a little spinney thing. I’m not trying to do any of that. There’s plenty of guys who are gonna do plenty of flashy stuff. I really can’t, so I’m not even gonna try. I’m coming right at you, I’m trying to hurt you. I wanna bring that physicality and that intensity and that violence and that aggression to my matches, whether they be 3-minute hailstorms of fists and boots or 15 minutes or whatever. That’s the way I like to wrestle. That’s just the way I naturally am in the ring. And I wasn’t allowed to be that.”
Moxley On AEW Preventing Superstar Staleness:
“I think that’s important. To see guys fight every single night for 8 weeks, 8 weeks later you’re kinda sick of them fighting. I think we gotta – One thing we have to make sure we have like the ‘Big Fight’ feel. Because we’re gonna have just four big PPV’s a year. The big fight’s are gonna have to have the big fight feel. Like the first time, you [have] seen them square off in the ring. Like, we got through all the press, we got into town, and when the bell rings it’s like ‘Woah okay!’”
Moxley On If He Regrets Leaving WWE:
“That’s an interesting question. I’ve often thought, and wondered, what would have happened if I left in September of 2015, which was when I signed my last contract with WWE. But, at that point, I was still kinda like, still trying to do things their way and I just kinda like… It never occurred to me to leave really back then. It felt like I wasn’t like I hadn’t completely… I never really bought into their bullshit kind of thing, but I like was trying to be optimistic. Like, be grateful for the opportunity and try to make the most of it and, you know, save money and so forth.”
