Jon Moxley still has no plans to take the vacation he postponed over a year ago when he was called into action after 2022’s ‘Brawl Out’ incident.
Moxley spoke at length to Liam Crowley of ComicBook.com about his nonstop schedule, the AEW Continental Classic tournament, death matches, and mentoring younger talent.
He also commented briefly on CM Punk’s WWE Raw “I’m home” promo. He simply said: “You don’t want to know what I think. I didn’t see it. “You do not want to know what I think (laughs).”
Speaking about being called upon to deliver in situations caused by injuries or suspensions to others, he said:
I feel like I thrive in those situations. Scramble the f–king jets and get Moxley in the air. Oh f–k, we don’t have a main event. You’ve got to make people care about this and make this a main event in a week.
I just pull main events out of my ass when I’m in those situations. I feel more comfortable when I’m the guy with the ball in the fourth quarter. It’s hard to not want to grab the ball and take the shot myself.
On the never-ending delay to his vacation, he added:
I don’t even think I was going to go anywhere. I don’t know, maybe at some point [I’ll take time off]. I guess I feel that there’s always something to do. “Oh, we need a main event.” “Oh, we got this Continental Classic.” There’s always something around the corner.
Addressing AEW’s round-robin tournament, the Continental Classic, he commented:
It hasn’t really formed an identity yet. I think it’ll be the thing where all the talents involved and the human stories that play out throughout this thing and the excitement of the matches and so forth. I think that’ll just kind of have to take on a life of its own. Right now, we’ve just created this monster, this animal, and set it free. We’re waiting to see what it does.
As for comparisons to New Japan Pro Wrestling’s annual G1 Climax tournament, which Moxley has participated in, he had this to say:
It’s a completely different product, a completely different business plan, a completely different universe over there, comparing New Japan and American television. You’re not encumbered by commercial breaks. There’s more shows right in a row. You’re not at the mercy of a television schedule or anything. It is a little bit more of a challenge to do it on the television format as opposed to just once the G1 is going, it’s just going and you’re in.
In the wake of the critically acclaimed but bloody Texas Death Match between ‘Hangman’ Adam Page and Swerve Strickland, Moxley commented on death matches in AEW:
When it comes to matches like that, that’s one small thing that we can do differently than anybody else in this shit. That was one thing I remember, telling Tony [Khan] that when I first came in. “If you’re going to put me in one of these matches, be careful what you wish for because I am not in the business of under-delivering.”
AEW has been able to consistently deliver on that. I think it’s very important for us to always remember where this started in the first place, which was the need in the industry for an alternative. We should always be different. We should always be thinking about what we can deliver that nobody else can. Otherwise, we’re just another wrestling company, of which there have been a million.
Finally, he spoke about setting an example for younger and up-and-coming talent:
When you’re at this level in the major leagues, you set an example for people, for the kind of person that you want to be and the kind of message you want to send and so forth.
That has to be on your mind. If I go out there and the things I say and the things I do don’t match up with who I am in real life, there’s a problem there. There’s athletes in the back and young athletes that I set an example for. There’s kids I trained with that I set an example for.
