10 Wrestlers Who Couldn’t Hide Their Anger At Bad Creative
4. Jon Moxley Wants Out
Just after debuting for All Elite Wrestling, Jon Moxley unleashed his frustrations with the WWE creative process on Talk Is Jericho.
‘The Emancipation of Jon Moxley’ was one of the most infamous podcasts in the short history of the medium. It was the Frye/Takayama of audio: Mox, not one to speak candidly or much at all, unleashed an unexpected barrage of pure verbal violence. He had to get all of it - the toxic atmosphere, the humiliating creative, the instruction to mock Roman Reigns when his close friend faced another battle with leukaemia - out of his system.
He was frustrated, to a profound extent, and this was actually apparent before Jericho pressed record. On an episode of ‘Chronicle’, as Dean Ambrose - or Jonathan Good, frankly - Mox, in a low mood throughout, couldn’t hide his anger at the way in which his grand return had been handled.
It was thick with subtext. In the opening scenes, spliced between training footage, Mox opined “I just want to grapple”.
He didn’t say - but might as well have - “...not the dumb crap they make me do”.
Performing in pseudo-kayfabe, towards the end of the documentary, Mox almost completely dropped the facade, saying - and how ironic this would become - “I’m not going to read some script and play out some happy little fantasy”.