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(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are of author's own and do not reflect Sportskeeda's position on the same.)
After setting the wrestling world on fire with his shock debut at Double or Nothing last Saturday, Jon Moxley did it again on Wednesday on Talk is Jericho, which can be found here. On an episode aptly entitled "The Emancipation of Jon Moxley," the former Dean Ambrose dropped a number of bombs on his previous employer, in what must surely be the most explosive wrestling podcast since CM Punk's infamous appearance on Colt Cabana's Art of Wrestling in 2014.
Corroborating many of the allegations made on that particular podcast, Moxley ripped into the WWE creative process. For ages, we saw the discordant content on television week to week, and heard rumors from the reports and dirt sheets, but now, we heard straight from the horse's mouth that many of our suspicions about the toxic backstage culture and creative process at WWE are indeed accurate.
For a company already reeling from rapidly declining ratings and bad press, this was unwelcome. Here are the most damaging quotes, timestamped from the interview, which confirm many of our suspicions about how backward the system is.
#1 "Trying not to make ourselves look like idiots. (19:52)"
If we didn't have to trying to not make ourselves look like idiots and get rid of pooper scooper lines, we could actually sit down and tell a story. We're all just in self-preservation mode trying to not look like idiots instead of creating good things.
Sadly, this sort of thing is all over WWE programming. Perhaps it's the origin of "Dumb Babyface Syndrome." Dean Ambrose doing a talk show with "Mitch the potted plant" is a good example of this in action.
How many times have we seen characters acting like idiots and being embarrassed on television instead of playing to their strengths and creating truly memorable matches, rivalries, and moments?
Jon Moxley's lament about this explains much of what we see on television. It wasn't the first time Vince McMahon's odd sense of humor reared its head in the interview.
#2 "Why do I work here?" (20:50)
Why do I work here? I'm a professional wrestler who can tell stories and come up with promos, and I believe I have the ability to talk to people in the building, and I learned those skills years ago and wanted to bring them here to WWE, and you just want me to say your stupid lines. If you want somebody to read your stupid lines, hire an actor, because they'll probably do a better job of it than me. I'm not interested in doing it.
Look at these promos beneath the surface and you can see just how little the former Dean Ambrose cared at this point. He's just going through the motions, because that's the only thing he can do. Vince McMahon himself said he needed to read his lines verbatim.
Later on in the podcast, both Jon Moxley and Chris Jericho would hit on this theme in even more damaging ways.
There is indeed something behind the common criticism of WWE's promos. How many times have we heard that they don't sound like anything real people would say? How many times have we heard that they're robotic? Because they are. The wrestlers basically are programmed like robots.
#3 "Six years of exhaustion." (24:50)
"I remember physically leaning on a road case and just feeling actual exhaustion, just emotional, physical, mental exhaustion, and not so much because of that day, but because of six years of this...six years of having to go into this man's office - this old man - and try to explain to him why wearing a surgical mask is a stupid idea, why carrying a little red wagon to the ring is a stupid idea, why maiming a mannequin in the ring is a stupid idea. I was just done."
Jon Moxley's issues go back way further than what he had been doing in 2018. His "goofy prop comedy" segments seemed to come immediately after the original breakup of the Shield.
Vince McMahon is often labeled as being stubborn. The former Shield member seemingly spent years and years trying to convince the boss that his ideas were silly, but made no headway. It's a familiar trope. Everyone but Vince seems to understand that his ideas are usually nonsense, but he never listens.
#4 "It burns you out." (26:37)
I will say this, one of the reasons why I left WWE in May of '17 and went on tour with Fozzy, but there's a lot of people like 'why would you leave right now? Your character's so hot.' To me, I was mentally exhausted. Like you just said, because every week, I had to do the same thing that you had to do. Go wait in front of his office, which takes forever, maybe it's an hour, maybe it's 45 minutes, go in there, then you gotta put on a show for the boss, and convince him why your idea is the right way to go. It burns you out! The match is the easy part!
That was where Chris Jericho decided to chime in and talk about his own experiences dealing with Vince McMahon. It sounds like it isn't easy. Before even attempting to convince the legendarily stubborn man, you apparently have to wait outside his office for around an hour. Not even longtime veterans and legends like Jericho are immune.
How many good ideas haven't even seen the light of day because many a superstar just doesn't want to even bother? How many times have things been so discordant on Vince McMahon's shows because not even his own wrestlers can get in touch with him?
#5 "It's such good stuff!" (30:56)
So they hand me this sheet and it's as bad as you imagine. Then I got herded into this sexual harassment meeting that we all had to do. So I'm just sitting in this meeting while they're talking and just staring at this promo and just seething, and I'm like 'as soon as this meeting's over I'm just gonna bolt right to Vince's office.' As soon as I get out of the door of the meeting, the writer's already in front of me and he's like 'hey, Vince wants to talk to you about this promo, he wants to make sure you know this is not comedy.' So Vince anticipated that I was gonna come storming in there and go 'why am I doing all this prop comedy all the time?' Because I've been having the same argument with him for like a year now. So anyway I go into Vince's office and he's like 'hey pal! So this promo...I want you to know this is not comedy.' And he's pointing at it and he's like 'this...is such good stuff, it's so well-written, and it's gonna get you a ton of heat.' That's exactly what he said.
This was only one horrendous segment on the now legendarily bad November 26th, 2018 edition of Monday Night Raw. This segment was universally panned among WWE's audience as soon as it came out. Apparently, that sentiment extended into the bizarro world of the company itself.
In the latest WWE NEWS, Dean Ambrose hated it as soon as he heard about it. He wanted to convince Vince McMahon how horrible it is, but he was dead set on airing it, believing it was "so well-written."
Vince McMahon has often been labeled as being out of touch. There is no clearer evidence than this. He was the only one in the world that thought this was good.
#6 "They have to get their hands on it." (39:00)
And then they're like 'whoa, he got over!' And then I started selling a bunch of merchandise. And then they were like, now they have to get their hands on it, and try to turn you into what they think you should be.
They apparently had no plans for Dean Ambrose after the original breakup of the Shield, so he needed to make the most of his feud with Seth Rollins. He did and became the most over babyface in the company for a while.
It's notable that when he got over, his character became goofier. The prop comedy started to ramp up. Why the sudden change? He explains it above.
When we look at Braun Strowman in 2017 and Becky Lynch now, the characters started to take a turn for the worse after they got red hot. We've long suspected that Vince McMahon feels like he has to put his personal stamp on things. The now emancipated Jon Moxley confirms it here. It always takes a turn for the worse.
#7 "They overproduce everything!" (48:32)
Here's another example. This is not a big deal, it's a tiny little example though about how they screw everything up. So you're on the shelf for nine months or so. Something keeps you going, you're imagining like, your pop. You're waiting for that. You can't wait for it, right? So they have this promo segment going on, and I didn't realize that...the way they wrote this...I'm waiting there and waiting there, standing behind the curtain, waiting for that pop. I'm like: 'OK, this is all gonna be worth it. Nine months, it's all gonna be worth this pop. And the way it's written...Seth goes, it's not his fault, he's just reading the line: 'If you're gonna have a Scottish Psychopath in your corner...I'm gonna have a lunatic in mine!' So it muddled the pop into like four different reactions, and by the time I came out there, they were going nuts, but it's a small example of...they ruin everything! How do you screw that up?! Hit the button play the mu- but it's like they have to get their hands in it. They have to justify their jobs or something. It's a great example of overproducing everything. How do you screw that up, you know? Unbelievable!
Sadly, this also rears its head seemingly anytime something good or big happens. Look at Brock Lesnar's Money in the Bank boombox thing just this week. People thought it was funny, and what happens? They immediately change the briefcase to make it look like a real boombox, and now, no doubt in a desperate bid for ratings, it appears the McMahons are getting involved in it.
Fans have often criticized the WWE for either burying something or overexposing it and making it lame, with no in-between. Jon Moxley will no doubt hit the nail on the head when it comes to those who make these criticisms.
#8 "He has to justify it to himself in his mind." (58:05)
So we sit down in his [Vince's] office and he starts babyfacing me, he's like 'I understand you gave your notice...you know...thank you so much for everything.' So we have our talk, and by this point, he's trying to justify it in his mind. Because I told [one of the writers] 'yeah, I think the day I knew I was gone was that day I got the shot.' So I think he told Vince that, because Vince goes 'I mean I heard you were unhappy about something about the shot thing we did...I wish you'd have told me. I didn't know you had all these...' And I'm like thinking in my head I'm like 'why the f--- was I in your office then?! I went storming in there and said what the hell is this?! Like I do all the time! How could you not know?! Of course you know!' But he's gotta make everything OK in his mind!
This was another damning indictment not only of Vince's legendary stubbornness, but of his being out of touch with his own "independent contractors." This kind of cognitive dissonance is natural, but it shows Vince as being unwilling to listen as well as his weird priorities that no one else seems to agree with.
It perhaps shouldn't be surprising that we often get the adage about WWE being made for an audience of one.
#9 "Vince pays Brock billions of dollars to ruin his company." (1:03:42)
They want to control the narrative. That's the thing that Vince hated about this whole situation, why it was so bizarre and there were so many ups and downs. Because he has no control. Because I told him 'I don't care how many zeroes you want to write on a piece of paper. I'm gone.' And he's got the million dollar man complex. He has to be able to buy everything. That's why he pays Brock billions of dollars to come in and ruin his company. Because he wants to own Brock. He wants to be like 'Brock's my attraction!' A guy he has no power over, me, he didn't know how to handle it.
This was especially relevant after Brock Lesnar's unpopular Money in the Bank victory, and we now might have the answer as to why Vince McMahon keeps pushing Brock Lesnar, despite his purported "drawing power" actually being rather minimal compared to all the hype.
Perhaps because of Lesnar's legendary negotiating prowess, Vince McMahon is afraid he'll go back to UFC, and Dana White will be able to promote "his attraction." Vince McMahon wants to keep Brock his, that's why he pushes him.
Perhaps it's also why he has that habit of trying to get his hands on anything that gets over, or bury people for getting over without him. It seems like it really is all about control.
