During the latest Busted Open Radio, All Elite Wrestling Champion Jon Moxley talked about how joining that company rekindled his passion for pro wrestling, and explained that one of the best things for him is that he's no longer being forced to go out in the ring and deliver scripted, often nonsense, promos.
"It’s a lot of things but the simplest thing is they don’t give me a script," the man formerly known as Dean Ambrose started. "If I had to boil it down to one thing that drove me crazier than anything, it was the fact that I got handed a script and told what to say. The first time that ever happened we were in the Shield and they handed us a script. Even in developmental, we are down there with Dusty. That was one of the best times I had in the business in FCW cutting promos. I heard the term scripted promos. That blew my mind."
"The first time they handed me a script, it was like Roman says this, Seth says this, Dean says this. I thought it was a suggestion and they were filling in words on the run sheet. I was like, ok, to the writer, I got some cool ideas. We can say this or that and they were like, no, this is the way you’re going to say it. I was like, yeah, but this is my idea, and it was made very clear to us that this is what you are going to say. I remember having this feeling in the pit of my stomach, like, oh my God, I made a terrible mistake."
"I’ll tell you what pressure is," Moxley continued. "Pressure is having a two-page script written by a 74-year-old madman that makes no sense to you that’s going to make you look stupid, and you're on worldwide TV live and you have to memorize every single line and somehow try to pull it off and not look like a total jackass. That’s pressure. A lot of times I did pull that off. A lot of times I didn’t. But, I’ll never have to be in that situation again. Now I just get to be me and it’s a nice feeling."
It's no great surprise that Moxley feels the way he does, as he's never shied away from making it clear he hated scripted promos, and there is a very obvious difference between those we hear in WWE and AEW. You can check out his comments in full below: