Jon Moxley

Jon Moxley was not about to allow The Shield become the Nexus.

Moxley wrote in his new book that The Shield was originally supposed to lose to John Cena, Ryback and Sheamus at the 2013 Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, but the group approached Vince McMahon to squash the idea. 

“If [we] went out there with Cena and took the f--kin’ schmootz and got pinned like everybody else, we would then become everybody else,” wrote Moxley. “It would kill us. I remember…being in the car with an uneasy feeling in my stomach. ‘I ain’t f--king doing it,’ I said. ‘Whether they fire us or we get Cena’d and killed off…we’re dead either way.'"

Moxley's book, which came out this week, is littered with his grievances from his time in WWE—ranging from booking, to scripted promos, to his general unhappiness with how the company viewed professional wrestling. 

The Shield was one of the hottest acts in the company heading into the 2013 Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, with Moxley, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns positioned as future stars.

However, the same could have been said about members of The Nexus three years prior before a run-in with Cena essentially stripped them of their momentum. Cena's burial of The Nexus isn't some wrestling folklore, either; the 16-time world champion has essentially admitted to picking up the shovel.

Losing to Cena—and becoming the latest in a long line of rising stars to drop a feud to Cena in that era—would have ruined The Shield's momentum. Moxley was luckily able to talk McMahon into having The Shield go over in that match, but it's clear Mox's issues with booking weren't a new thing by the time he departed. 

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Jon Moxley will be entering an inpatient alcohol treatment program.

AEW President and CEO Tony Khan announced Moxley's decision Tuesday:

Moxley received many well-wishes following the news:

Moxley debuted in AEW in May 2019. He held the AEW World Championship for 277 days from Feb. 9 to Dec. 2, 2020.

Moxley also worked on the WWE's main roster from 2012 to 2019, winning the WWE Championship and United States Championship once apiece and the Intercontinental Championship three times. He also won the WWE Raw Tag Team Championships twice with Seth Rollins.

The 35-year-old is married to Renee Paquette, who worked as a backstage interviewer and on-air personality for WWE from 2012 to 2020. They welcomed their first child, Nora, in June.

His autobiography, Mox, was released Tuesday.

It's no secret Jon Moxley was miserable in the latter part of his tenure in WWE.

His autobiography, Mox, is making it abundantly clear just how miserable. Moxley writes that he was "in a living hell" with WWE and categorized himself as depressed and angry, according to an excerpt from the book: 

"I had nothing even close to heat. I was once one of the most popular performers in all of WWE, and now I was lost in the ring in front of confused or apathetic audiences. I was Fn dead in the water, irreconcilable, a dog to be taken out back and shot … and I knew it. I was fully aware of it through every slow and excruciating second, yet my objections went ignored or refuted, like that movie where the guy is still awake but paralyzed during open-heart surgery. If you sat through any of my segments on TV during this timeframe, you know what I’m talking about … unless you blocked it from your memory. If you thought you were confused, imagine what it was like being me? S--t, at least you had a remote control. I couldn’t just turn the channel on my own life. I was in a living hell. Gee, it’s fun reminiscing.

"I wasn’t just depressed, I was angry. It’s not like I don’t like money. I don’t WANT things to be this way. Why do they have to make it impossible? Why does everything have to be so Fn stupid? They’re really gonna make me walk away from all this money, aren’t they? They can’t just write one good angle, let me cut one good Fn promo? F--k! I can’t believe it’s come to this. There was a time I thought I’d be a lifer with WWE, but this whole place has gone Fn MAD, and I feel like I’m the only one who can see it … buncha MFers just playing violins while the ship sinks and Vince continues to lose his mind. 'F--k ’em, I’m just gonna go to Japan or something,' I tell Renee, while sipping on my third stiff drink. 'I’m telling you, April thirtieth, I’m Fn done.' I had been talking about leaving for months and my mind was long made up, but when I was in a bad mood or three drinks in, I would feel the need to reaffirm it for some reason, as if I suspected she didn’t believe me."

Moxley spent eight years in WWE before leaving in 2019. He signed with AEW later that year and became the promotion's second champion, defeating Chris Jericho at the 2020 Revolution pay-per-view.

AEW has also allowed Moxley to wrestle for several other promotions, including New Japan and GCW. He is currently GCW's world champion.

It's clear that Moxley basks in the freedom afforded to him by AEW, both in his on-screen persona with the company and in terms of being allowed to work in other companies that interest him. 

WWE barely acknowledges the outside wrestling world, preferring its own style of scripted promos and a universe unto itself. Some wrestlers thrive in that environment. Moxley, it seems, hated pretty much every second of being told what to say and when to say it. 

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Now would be a good time for All Elite Wrestling to put a soft rule in place for the rest of 2021: no more former WWE stars. 

It might seem like a silly stance to take, especially after stunning AEW debuts for CM Punk, Daniel Bryan and Adam Cole. Why not keep adding more and more talent to what is already one of the best pro wrestling rosters of all time? 

Because AEW—and fans—need time to breathe. 

It's impossible to find fault with AEW for the acquisitions so far, of course. Acquiring can't-miss talent is a no-brainer for a fast-rising company with a near-unlimited ceiling. This sort of "soft" rule goes out the window if, say, a Brock Lesnar or Charlotte Flair somehow slips their way to the free-agent market (and never say never given, well, Punk, Bryan and Cole). 

But AEW does run the risk of oversaturating the roster with former WWE stars who want a slice of the main-event scene, and even the mid-card scene. Other promotions—who we won't name—quickly established reputations as realms for WWE castoffs, and it cost them dearly in the long run. 

AEW isn't anywhere close to having that sort of reputation, obviously. The company is very, very good at getting deserving faces screentime and noteworthy feuds. 

But even a company with a stellar track record isn't immune to stumbles. The last thing AEW needs to do is feel like a mini-WWE in the way it lets Superstars who deserve so much more toil in mid-card purgatory. Think about some of the guys who helped get things off the ground, like Joey Janela or the Dark Order. 

At some point, this is just the natural growth of things after AEW elbowed its way into the space, created a must-see alternative and attracted major Superstars. But the balance is a delicate, precious thing to find—and to the company's credit, establishing a Friday show like Rampage helps with these potential long-term issues. 

Temptation on AEW's part is understandable, though. Names like Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt are still out there. Somebody like Kevin Owens could be soon, too. We could spend hours and hundreds, maybe thousands of words on fun fantasy debuts and booking scenarios with those three names alone. 

But we could spend even more on the current crop of talent. Punk just had his first mini-feud. Bryan and Cole are only just starting. The Hangman Page thing continues to cook in the background. Jon Moxley is going international. We want to see can't-miss things like Punk and MJF squaring off on the mic. The list is almost endless.

This hasn't mentioned a ton of other talent for the sake of time and space. AEW will never match the sheer quantity and star level of WWE's current roster (WWE hoarded talent and needed to make so many cuts recently for good reason), but it's a stunningly great roster with a superb main-event scene, the best tag scene on the planet and a fast-rising women's division with critical storytelling elements not necessarily found elsewhere. There's only so much airtime per week to make it all work. 

A rule like this would serve doubly in another critical way—shock value. Letting some of the big-name WWE castoffs toil on the market for a while will only make an eventual debut that much better—like the waiting game with Punk, but on a much smaller scale.

Fans have almost come to expect former WWE guys to show up in AEW right away once news about a contract expiration comes out. AEW can leverage that in brutally smart ways to create unforgettable moments that kick off dream-match storylines. 

With that theme in mind, the period of leveraging major former WWE names to gain headlines and shock value is over. AEW has the big names now and the fans responded, and the viewing numbers are huge and will likely stay that way. Now it's time to let things breathe. Show those new fans how the recently acquired, beloved talent will get used, not hamfist more former names into the company for the sake of it. 

Again, we wouldn't suggest this if, say, Punk was still out there or a can't-miss name hits the market. But those are exceptionally rare circumstances at this point. And to AEW's credit, the way it has handled 95 percent of things, learned from mistakes (early Dark Order, for example) and treated legends tactfully only inspires confidence that this is already an idea making the rounds at the promotion. 

Still, other promotions struggled with this. Behavior and habits from the big kid on the block keeps fans cautiously optimistic, but they are not just blindly throwing faith into pretty much anything. With some smart maneuvering on this front, AEW can reassure fans that things really are different now. 

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Priest Teased HHH About WrestleMania Match

Damian Priest is the United States champion and among WWE's fastest-rising stars, and he has aspirations of mixing it up with some of the company's top legends.

In an interview with Alistair McGeorge of Metro, Priest mentioned teasing Triple H about facing him at WrestleMania 37 earlier this year:

"I make jokes from time to time. Like, hey, Mania–Hunter didn't have a match, and that was the first time all these legends, none of them [were on the show].

"I was like, 'I mean, did you bring your gear? Because you can have a match, I’m right here!' He started laughing and said, 'You're on a list of people that have asked me that.' I was like, I bet, I can imagine–he gets it all the time by guys being like, 'Hey you wanna work? You wanna wrestle?'"

Priest vs. Triple H didn't happen, but The Archer of Infamy did take part in a key match at WrestleMania, teaming with award-winning musician Bad Bunny against The Miz and John Morrison.

Bad Bunny was the talk of the wrestling and entertainment world thanks to his better-than-expected performance, but Priest helped get him prepared, and he has reaped the benefits with strong booking ever since.

Now that Priest is getting pushed to the top, he is hopeful that a match against a legend like Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Edge or Kane could happen in the future:

"I mean, I wish [I get to face them all]. I still hold out hope, you know? Especially in this business, never say never! I think the closest one that I know that there’s a chance–and we've already kind of had an interaction at the Rumble–is Edge.

"Obviously Kane, we had a little bit of an interaction. But I'm not satisfied, I need a lot more of that! Those feelings, just standing across from those guys–super cool, super, super cool."

Priest has been positioned as a big-time player on Raw recently, scoring wins over the likes of Drew McIntyre and Sheamus.

If there are plans in place for him to potentially vie for the WWE Championship in the near future, perhaps matches against all-time greats like Triple H, Edge and others aren't out of the question.

Moxley Thrilled with AEW's Success

More than two years after making his All Elite Wrestling debut at Double or Nothing 2019, Jon Moxley is enjoying the company's success.

Appearing Tuesday on Cincy 360 with Rick Ucchino and Tony Pike (h/t Subhojeet Mukherjee of Ringside News), Mox explained his mindset when he signed with AEW compared to now:

"Yeah, it's crazy to see when all of this was all just like an idea. It's like, really? Like, wow, it seemed almost unrealistic, but to take the gamble to come here and be like, 'Well you know what if you guys are doing that I want to be a part of that like so maybe we'll fall flat on our face and all look stupid and this will be a big disaster. But if it was successful, that would be really cool because that's what wrestling needs,' and just looking at now two-and-a-half years later, I don't think it could have gone any better."

Moxley was immediately one of the faces of AEW when he signed, and it didn't take him long to beat Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship.

The man formerly known as Dean Ambrose in WWE then went on to hold the title for 277 days before dropping it to Kenny Omega.

While he has faded out of the title scene, Mox has still been an important part of AEW programming, teaming with Eddie Kingston and more recently feuding with New Japan Pro-Wrestling stars like Satoshi Kojima and Minoru Suzuki.

Over the past two-plus years, AEW has carved out a big piece of the professional wrestling pie for itself.

In terms of interest, television ratings and essentially every other measure, AEW is the clear No. 2 wrestling company in existence behind only the deeply entrenched WWE.

AEW continues to make inroads as well by adding to a stacked talent roster. In the past few weeks alone, AEW has signed former WWE stars CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole.

Even if AEW doesn't chase down WWE any time soon or ever, it has achieved a major level of success and proved that there is plenty of room for more than one company to thrive in the pro wrestling space.

Undertaker and New Day to Star in Netflix Movie

WWE and Netflix announced Wednesday that a new movie starring WWE Superstars The Undertaker and New Day will debut on Netflix on Oct. 5.

According to Polygon's Petrana Radulovic, Netflix described the movie, entitled Escape The Undertaker, as an interactive film in which New Day must attempt to escape The Undertaker's mansion.

The Undertaker has set up "supernatural challenges" to trip them up, and it is up to the viewer to help guide Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods and Big E to freedom.

Given how entertaining the members of New Day are, they seem like the perfect fit for a movie that should be fun for the entire family.

It is also a unique way to utilize The Undertaker, who is one of the most recognizable legends in WWE history.

Taker officially retired from in-ring competition last year, but his role in the movie proves WWE still sees value in him through other endeavors.

Although it wasn't interactive, WWE tried something similar in 2018 with the House Hardy Halloween special on WWE Network, featuring The Hardy Boyz.

While it was a one-off and wasn't interactive, it was well-received and considered a fun departure from the usual content, which should be the same vein Escape The Undertaker occupies.

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