Jon Moxley was this week’s guest on Talk Is Jericho and the former Dean Ambrose talked about his exit from WWE. In this part Moxley details his actual conversation with Vince McMahon about leaving the company and getting hot beforehand about Vince potentially burying him on the way out. Quotes are below:
On if he had plans like CZW and Japan in his head before AEW came along:
“My leaving WWE exists outside of that. Whether AEW exists or not, I was still leaving WWE. It was good to know the wrestling business was doing so well outside of WWE, but even if it wasn’t I still would have left. If there was no other promotions to work for in the world, I still would have left WWE. If there were no other wrestlers, I would have just started my own promotion, started my own training school and trained my own opponents.”
On telling Mark Carrano at the Royal Rumble that he wasn’t resigning with WWE:
“This is what I told Vince too and Hunter, ‘This is not a decision that I came too fast or lightly. This has been a long time coming. I’m not going to change my mind. This is not about any one particular thing. This is not an emotional decision. This is happening. I am leaving and it’s okay.’
So we get to RAW the next day and I’m also secretly hoping that I’ll just work with Seth, he’ll curb stomp me into oblivion and I’ll get to go home. Cause I’m thinking there’s no way way they’re going to keep me on TV.
About an hour before the show, producer comes running up to me. He’s like, “Uh, there’s been some additions.” I’m like, ‘What?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, so anyway you stay out there after the commercial break, Nia’s music hits, she comes out, yada yada, you take a bump for her.’ I’m like, ‘You serious?’”
Dean then goes and talks to Vince after John Lauranitis reiterates the producer’s claim about facing Nia Jax:
“Now I’m getting hot. I’m totally cool with taking a bump for Nia. I did it. It’s 2019. She’s a very powerful woman, she did great in the Royal Rumble the night before. If this existed outside of me leaving, that’s totally different conversation. I knew, because here’s the thing: the production meeting whittles down as it goes along. They get rid of some people, they get rid of the writers, and then an hour before the show it’s down to the super secret meeting, where it’s only like Vince, Hunter and maybe like Koskey. Those are the only people that knew that I was leaving. So it was like once it gets down to the super secret meeting, where like only the people know that I was leaving, that’s when this mysterious new addition comes in? And it really felt like just a middle finger so like my skin was hot. I was like, ‘Let’s go talk to Vince.’ So I go like storming towards the production meeting room, Johnny’s like following me behind, like, papers flailing everywhere and I come storming right up to like the middle of the production meeting room and he immediately just gets up, ‘Oh, my office, my office, my office.’ I’m like, ‘Yes! Let’s go to your office.’ So we’re sitting in his office and he starts babyfacing me and he’s like, ‘Oh, I understand you gave your notice and you know, thank you so much for everything.’ I’m like, ‘I guess we’re doing this now.’ So we have our talk or whatever. By this point he’s trying to justify it in his mind.
But I’m still trying to babyface him, be as nice as possible. Show him my gratitude. Got a little emotional, you know what I mean? On both sides. I took the opportunity to say everything I wanted to say cause I’ve been having this conversation in my head for months. So I was like I’m getting everything off my chest. And I told him I was like, ‘every Monday, I get a physical sick feeling on my chest.’ It happens every Monday. On the dot. A writer will come up to me, ‘Hey, Dean! We got you for seg 6, whatever!’ And he’s got a script in his hand and I don’t know what kind of goofy nonsense, what kind of embarrassing stuff is on that script and what kind of challenges will lay ahead to try to just not look like an idiot today. And I get a physical sick feeling in my stomach.
He’s like ‘Yeah, we’ll just finish up at Mania, you know? Whatever. We’re not going to bury you on the way out or anything like that.’ I went, ‘Actually, it’s funny that you mention that, cause that’s the reason I stormed in here, um, cause it looks to me like that’s exactly what the fuck you’re doing.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, no no no no no!’ And he proceeds to tell me this whole thing, idea he got for me and Nia, and all I hear is like, ‘We’re burying the fuck out of you, blah, blah, blah, we’re burying the fuck out of you.’ ‘It’s an attraction!’ And I was like, ‘Okay.’ And I looked at Johnny, I’m like, ‘Okay. Alright.’ You know? ‘Let’s do it.’ You know? We actually had a good time. We were doing the rehearsal, we just were trying not to laugh. I like was just saying funny things to her, you know? Whatever. It was over! They were like, ‘Let them fight!’ It was cool, whatever.”
(Transcription credit to Dominic DeAngelo for Wrestlezone.com)
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