Roman Reigns gives his take on Bully Ray’s comments about Jon Moxley.
Jon Moxley is back in the swing of his pro wrestling career after stepping away for three months to enter an inpatient alcohol treatment program. He made his first pro wrestling-related appearance for AEW on Dynamite in Washington DC.
Moxley’s speech to the audience was discussed by Bully Ray on Busted Open Radio and he felt that Moxley should have apologized to the audience for the time he missed. Moxley’s former ‘Shield’ group-mate Roman Reigns weighed in on the situation when asked about it on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast.
Reigns said he could possibly understand what Bully was trying to get across from a corporate perspective, but doesn’t believe that Moxley needed to or needs to apologize to anyone.
I didn’t actually see the take from Bubba [Bully Ray] but I’ve seen some of the responses to it and I look at it kind of in both perspectives. I understand what Bubba’s saying only because I’ve been in these systems and worked for, you know, a billion dollar promotion and entertainment company being WWE and Bubba has too and these are some of the mindsets of kind of the direction that you can handle some of these situations because at the end of the day, we are performers, we’re entertainers and we wanna be there for our fan base. I mean we continued through a pandemic, you know what I mean? So that — obviously it’s a business and you know, we’re all trying to make a living but that’s what makes our product special. For pretty much any promotion, there’s no season to it so we try to give our fan base as much as we can so I can see where he’s coming from but I think in this day and age, to where like there’s not too much kayfabe. I might be one of the most kayfabe performers out there now. There’s so many, you know, cracks to see through the blinds. Peak into the backstage now and so many people getting rumors and info and breaking this news and stuff like that. But I think in this day and age, especially with, you know, how much awareness there is for mental health and taking care of yourself and prioritizing you, I don’t think he owes anyone an apology. I think the fact that he was responsible enough to do what needed to be done and then also not shy away from it, to help other people because you know, you rarely talk about those people that are just 100 percent inspired and motivated by what Mox did and having that brutal honesty with himself and everyone else for that matter. I don’t think he owes anyone an apology. I see where Bubba could be coming from in a very corporate mindset of, you know, prioritizing our fans but at the end of the day man, we do so much for these fans. We don’t deliver the mail, you know what I mean? It don’t feel good to do what we do and obviously it’s a choice but, it’s not like they’re just giving their money to us and we’re not doing anything. This is a service and we’re performing that service. I think the extra stuff can be a little bit of entitlement from time to time.
Renee Paquette, Jon Moxley’s significant other, reacted to Bully’s remarks and to read what she had to say, check out POST Wrestling’s coverage of her comments.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
