Jon Moxley Says He Would Be Watching WWE Backstage Thinking That It "Sucked"

While AEW has promised to bring something fresh to pro wrestling, their smaller roster size compared to WWE can bring about some staleness in terms of seeing the same matches over and over again.

Jon Moxley was asked about that and what AEW will do to prevent it when he was interviewed by Screen Geek.

"I think that's important. To see guys fight every single night for eight weeks, eight 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 PPVs a year," said Moxley. "The big fights are gonna have to have the big fight feel like the first time you 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!'

"I think a lot of wrestling on TV over the last few years is everybody is fighting everybody all the time and everybody is pinning everybody ? champions are getting pinned every night. You get a title match because you beat the champion. Well, then he's not the champion anymore, is he? I think we need to preserve the old school, big fight feel. It will be easier for us with only four PPVs a year, we may end up doing more, but I think that'll be easier on us to do that because we won't need so much content."

Moxley's first AEW match was a non-sanctioned fight with Joey Janela that featured barbed wire and thumbtacks. He was asked if fans can expect more hardcore stuff like that going forward.

"As far as hardcore stuff, some of the stuff like you saw me do with Joey Janela, you know that was a certain situation on a certain night. You put our two names together and? the expectations are such that we got to take it all the way to the edge, otherwise people are going to be disappointed. And I'm not willing to disappoint the fans," stated Moxley.

"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 voice] 'Hell in a Cell!' all you want, but its 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 cart wheels 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 three 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 then detailed what he was told by higher-ups in WWE including Vince McMahon when he asked to do more hardcore stuff.

"Literally, like 'No!' I mean [WWE] is literally telling me what to do, barking orders at me. [McMahon voice] 'Sell! 'Lay down!' It really, truly feels like I was asleep, mentally checked out, for like years. Like, I became a lapsed fan," admitted Moxley. "I'd be watching the product that I'm a part of in the locker room and going, 'This show sucks.' I became a lapsed fan, so I know they exist and it really was like there was this completely separate guy that existed who got outta prison and it's just like I woke up and it was crazy. I just feel like a better person all around – just back to being me, in and out of the ring, not necessarily just the character."

As he stated, his busting out of prison video had a deeper meaning and was more than just a viral clip. He was asked if his feeling of being in prison in WWE led to the creation of that video.

"That part I didn't even expect. The metaphor of leaving that place, that was obvious. It was just, 'I wanna get outta here, cause this place sucks.' But I didn't really realize how much better I would feel. I didn't know what was gonna happen," said Moxley. "I thought I was gonna have to? When I was looking at what was gonna happen, it was before all this AEW stuff was in existence or anything. I didn't know if fans outside of [WWE] would? I didn't even know what would happen if I showed up in a Ring of Honor or something and fans would go 'Boo! WWE guy!' I didn't know if my indy cred was gone, you know?

"But I was like, 'I may just have to build myself completely from the ground up.' My thought was like, 'Alright, I am gonna go to Japan or go to indies? or maybe try to find a new character. I might even get a new name. I'm just gonna completely start from scratch.' I almost thought of it like taking myself off Broadway, so to speak. I would just completely disappear and when I kinda thought that, 'Ok, I got a new thing going on,' then bring it back to, like, the national exposure. That didn't happen at all!"

Moxley's first post-WWE match came in New Japan and he admitted that he had to change his entire wrestling style from what he was accustomed to in WWE.

"I just basically walked right into AEW, you know, right in to the G1. The thing is, I didn't really need any time to figure anything out, cause almost as soon as I had my first match in Japan, and just kinda emptied my brain of all preconceived notions. I was like, 'Just rely on instincts and see what happens.' I felt like I forgot how to wrestle, then two minutes later I'm beating the holy ever loving sh*t outta Juice Robinson, just beating the f**k outta him, and I was like, 'Oh yeah, this is what I used to do all the time! This is what feels natural!' Just being a mean, aggressive, antagonist. That version of me was something WWE was never interested in so they missed out. But, who cares? Timing is everything," stated Moxley.

"This is the most exciting time in the business, I think, since I've been in the business – the most exciting times since I was like 12. And to be at the forefront of it, it feels so good. I'm addicted to this weekly TV now. At the end, when we hit 9:59, 10 o'clock, and we got our first two hours in, and we're sitting in gorilla, and it was high fives all around? well, I guess it's not 'gorilla'? it was like we just won a football game and it was instantly like, 'Oh, I can't wait til next week!'"