Jon Moxley Reflects On Best Three Years Of His Career In AEW
Jon Moxley has been All Elite since 2019 and the AEW World Champion has recently said that this has been the best three-year run of his wrestling career.
It was announced earlier this month that Moxley signed a new five-year contract extension that will keep the current and three-time AEW World Champion in the company until at least 2027.
Prior to his run in AEW, Moxley was known as Dean Ambrose from the time when he debuted at Survivor Series 2012 with The Shield until he let his WWE contract expire in early 2019. That run in WWE had plenty of highs, but a lot of lows with Moxley talking about how he didn’t like the lack of freedom in WWE or the scripted promos, among other things. In AEW, he has more freedom and it’s also a less grueling schedule since AEW doesn’t have regular non-televised events like WWE does.
During an interview with Cincy 360, the 36-year-old Moxley talked about how his three-plus years in AEW have been the best run of his wrestling career.
“It’s really cool to be on the ground floor and I guess I bet on myself to a degree, that’s a good way to put it, when I left WWE. The last three years have been the best three years of my career, for sure. A lot of that mindset is like…I don’t know if selfish is the right word, but self-interested. Where am I going to have the best matches? Where can I do this, that, and the other? Now, looking forward to the next five years, I think a lot of that has shifted to, how can I give back to wrestling? How can I perpetuate wrestling going forward? Wrestling gave me everything I have in life. I would be, the cliche is ‘You’d be dead or in jail,’ I can’t think of another way to put it.”
“I would have nothing without wrestling. It’s the thing that brought me life and gave me purpose and is a thing that’s mine. It brought me everything I have in life from my wife to my family to my house, my truck, my friends, my life experiences. It’s my entire life. If there are other people out there who come from where I come from or the place I come from, it could be the same thing for them. Even just being a fan or being inspired by some wrestlers or even if I can just perpetuate the joy of the inspiration that wrestling provides or perpetuate everything wrestling has given to me and pay it forward and back to the universe, it’ll come back to me in spades. I’ve had plenty of success, and I want to continue having that success, I’m not nearly done, but I’m already looking forward to the future of giving back over the next however many years. Being in AEW is the perfect place to do that.”
On the October 18th episode of AEW Dynamite in Moxley’s hometown of Cincinnati, Moxley kept the AEW World Title after hitting “Hangman” Adam Page with a lariat that led to a rough landing for Hangman, who went crashing onto the mat and suffered a concussion.
Moxley will have his next tough test as the AEW World Champion when he defends the title against Maxwell Jacob Friedman at AEW Full Gear on November 12th.