10 Takeaways From MOX By Jon Moxley

3. People Complained About The Shield Being Stiff

A famous tale is that CM Punk told The Shield ahead of their debut that guys might be instructed to make them look weak so be stiff.

Considering it was Ryback in the ring, maybe there were some ulterior motives behind that advice.

This is confirmed and elaborated upon by Moxley who wrote that a number of WWE higher-ups gave The Shield their private blessing to be as physical as necessary after their debut.

However, this came with a lot of complaints amidst a series of busted lips, black eyes and bruises.

It is not specified who it was who complained about The Shield’s aggression but look through their list of opponents from their first few months and you can take a guess.

Moxley also shares a story about how The Rock began coughing up blood after a Shield beatdown with every soul present backstage clutching their pearls fearing they’d just killed Luke goddamn Hobbs.

Thankfully The Rock was fine and this had to do with cold air and blood vessels in his lungs which sounds like a much more complicated problem than a wrestling beatdown, god sort it out Dwayne, jeez.

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2. His Confidence Was Gone After WWE

After over six years on the WWE main roster the man formerly known as Dean Ambrose was spent, in body and spirit.

Moxley notes multiple times throughout the book that his confidence was completely shot after he left WWE in 2019.

Not surprising, I wouldn’t know who I was either if I was on TV getting flu shots in my ass six months prior.

Moxley was unsure about how he would be received by the New Japan fans and wrestlers when he arrived in the promotion at the Best of the Super Junior Final in June 2019, but the same is true tenfold for his AEW debut at Double or Nothing 2019.

He even goes so far as to say his fear at the time was that he had been booked into oblivion to the point that he would be blackballed from wrestling, damaged goods only to be seen as goofball Dean Ambrose with an exploding TV in hand.

During his first meeting with Tony Khan, Moxley admits to wanting to warn Khan not to sign him out of fear that he might ruin his company before it got off the ground.

Clearly, none of this happened with Moxley becoming a top star in New Japan and AEW on his first night in each promotion but it goes to show just how damaging his time in WWE was for his psyche.

Also side note the Uber driver who drove TK to Mox’s house was a wrestling fan paid $200 to stay quiet. He didn’t spoil the surprise. What a good lad.

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1. F**k Kevin Dunn

It has been quite some time since we’ve had someone take Kevin Dunn to task for his crimes against wrestling, but this book fills that void.

For those unaware, Kevin Dunn is WWE’s head of television production and the reason WWE has the worst camerawork of any form of entertainment outside of WorldStar Fight videos.

He is not considered a popular fellow and sure enough Jon Moxley did not have good things to say about him.

After winning the U.S. title at Extreme Rules 2013, Mox was told he was in trouble with the man in the truck.

Upon being shown he said “give me my f**king belt” on camera, a big no-no as far as PG WWE is concerned, Moxley gave what he says was a very sincere apology and thanked Dunn for bringing it up, thinking Dunn was looking out for him and catching an easily correctable mistake.

What a positive experience. An hour later Michael Hayes told him he didn’t give the right kind of apology and oh do I never want to work for this company for as long as I live.

On one hand, this is incredibly childish and petty but on the other Moxley points out just how damaging it is for someone with so much power over people’s careers to be acting in such a manner.

He ends this chapter by saying:

“I’ve heard all kinds of stories about that guy messing with people’s careers, but this isn’t that kind of book suffice to say that dude is a fuckbag. Maybe this is that kind of book. No! No! But for real don’t even get me started on no this is not that kind of book. Fuck Kevin Dunn.”

And if you needed a reminder that this is indeed written by Jon Moxley, that should be all the proof you need.

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• mox
• dean ambrose
• Jon Moxley
• AEW

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