Jon Moxley, Formerly Dean Ambrose, Highlights Frustrations With Vince And WWE In New Interview

The debut of Jon Moxley at the end of AEW’s debut show, “Double or Nothing,” has dominated the wrestling world since Saturday night. It was the latest acquisition in what has been a series of signings that has built the buzz around AEW as the fledgling promotion begins its path towards its TV debut in the fall on TNT.

And now that the former Dean Ambrose is forging a new path, he hasn’t been coy about sharing his frustrations that led to leaving WWE.

Moxley spoke about his frustrations in the latest episode of Chris Jericho’s podcast, “Talk is Jericho,” which further highlights the problems backstage at WWE that have been rumored for months. One of the most notable pieces was the Mox knew he wanted to leave WWE in July of 2018. At the time he was recovering from a tricep injury and prepping for his return but was gripping for a miserable time when he returned.

While he had returned as a face, he was pushing backstage to make his return as an outright heel, though his efforts fell on deaf ears. And despite turning heel the night of Roman Reigns revealing his battle with leukemia, things didn’t get any better.

He was frustrated with the germaphobe promos and had to push back against walking out with a pooper scooper on top of the gas mask. He says that he even approached Vince McMahon about changing a promo that had him getting an inoculation in his butt, highlighting the bad comedy. However, according to Mox, McMahon saw it as completely serious and didn’t understand Jon’s problem with the promos.

McMahon took things further, though, with Moxley’s promos when he started adding in lines targeted at Roman’s battle with leukemia. Moxley made it clear that he thought it was distasteful and tried to get it changed, to little avail. He even said that some of the lines, supplied or pushed for by Vince, could have cost them sponsorships.

Things just went on from there, as the feud between Moxley and Seth Rollins petered out. Around this time, he wasn’t hiding his frustrations either and made it clear he wanted changes or was gone. It was also around this time he was booked in segments with Nia Jax that, at the time, was believed to be building to an intergender match between the pair. However, this only caused further frustration as Mox felt WWE was now playing games with him since he hadn’t been shy about how he felt. And while Vince pleaded ignorance about Moxley’s frustrations, Mox claims that it was simply booking games.

After reaching his final straw, Mox decided to tell Vince and Triple H directly that he was done once his contract was up. Mox claims that, while Triple H took it reasonably well, Vince broke down into tears from his decision to depart WWE. He also said that, once again, Vince played dumb about how unhappy Mox was. And despite receiving a new contract offer, Mox left it in the envelope and never even looked at it.

If true, Moxley is the poster for the apparent dysfunction and disconnect that exists behind the scenes at WWE between the roster and creative, specifically Vince. And with dwindling ratings as of late and pressure from Fox and USA networks to get them back up, Moxley’s interview will only add fuel to the fire.