wrestling / News

Jon Moxley Responds To CM Punk’s Instagram Post, Reveals He Was Working Without a Contract, Says AEW Has So Much Drama

March 28, 2023 | Posted by Jonathan Hunter
CM Punk Jon Moxley AEW Dynamite Image Credit: AEW

On a recent edition of The Sessions with Renee Paquette, three-time AEW World Champion Jon Moxley responded to a controversial Instagram post by CM Punk. Punk had written “I sat and listened to Moxley’s Rocky three idea. I explained how I’d never seen a Rocky movie and thought the idea sucked but if the boss wanted to do it whatever. He said he wouldn’t lose to me. I’d never experienced someone refusing to lose to me. I just laughed.” Moxley had some choice words for the Straight-Edge Superstar. Read on for the highlights.

On if Jon wants to address the drama that has unfolded: “No. Cause nothing has unfolded. It’s fucking annoying! Just cause somebody says some stupid shit on social media, that’s not *news*. But it is, and it ends up being a thing. I don’t want to get dragged into this dumb shit. I could fuckin’ unload on a lot of fuckin’ people right now. I start getting dragged into this shit, it tempts me to do that, but I’m not gonna fuckin’ sink to that level.”

On working AEW in 2022 without a contract: “I will say this. I’m just gonna give you a tidbit of information from my point of view. The entire summer I was not under contract. No contract. Free agent. I was at SummerSlam weekend, wrestling fuckin’ Desperado and shit, the day of SummerSlam. Fuckin’ suplexed him on a bunch of aluminum cans and shit, cut in half, it was fuckin’ dope. I coulda walked into SummerSlam that night, with the AEW fuckin’ belt, if I had been so inclined. Nobody knew that, cause I don’t put my shit out there in the world and let everybody know every fuckin’ thing about my business.”

Jon on why he was not in a hurry to sign a new contract: “I was not under contract. The reason being, if you’re curious, cause I got outta rehab and my contract was comin’ up. They extended it for the time that I missed, cool. I’m glad they did, actually, cause I didn’t wanna feel like I owed them anything. They extended it a little bit, it was coming up, they were talking to me about it. The *last* thing I wanted to do when I first got outta rehab, cos all they were telling me was like, basically. Logic would tell you ‘don’t go back to wrestling, cause you’re just gonna fall into the same old habits.’ So I just wanted to ease back into it and see what life was like on the other side. The last thing I wanted to do was just hurry up and sign a big long-term commitment cause, I don’t know, what if shit started to go off the rails?”

On having so much fun sober and working with his friends: “Pretty quickly, I was like, man, being sober’s awesome. This is fantastic! I’m having so much fun. I was working with my friends, Blackpool Combat Club, me and Bryan [Danielson] and shit, fuckin’ [William] Regal. This is great. They’re talking to me about signing a new thing, and I was like, if everything just stays exactly as it is, right now? I’ll be here forever. You can pay me in cash in an envelope at the end of the night, I don’t give a fuck. But I can’t tell you what I’m gonna feel like in six months. Especially not in three years, or five years. And once I make a *commitment*, then I will push through injuries, and I will push myself too hard, and I will do all these things that add up, and it leads you down the road or whatever. I was not in a hurry to make any kind of grand commitments, at first.”

Jon on his POV the night CM Punk returned from injury: “That being said, during this time period, the night fuckin’ what’s-his-dick’s talking about was in Minneapolis, was the night he came back and was hopping around on one fight, bumping around [Jericho Appreciation Society] after me and [Chris] Jericho wrestled, badass match by the way. So we’re talking later about stuff. Now keep in mind, at this time, this is my whole point, I basically don’t *work there*. For all intents and purposes, I don’t even work here. Tony is not my boss. I don’t even have to be in this room. I don’t have to do shit. So even me being in this room, and offering and agreeing to a storyline that puts you over at the pay-per-view, if anything, I’m bending over backwards for Tony [Khan] and for this dude. And for the company and everybody. But I didn’t have to! I didn’t have to do *shit*! If anything, I was bending over backwards. So, that’s it. It’s not even controversial. I’m just tellin’ you.”

On being ready for opportunities: “That’s what a big part of my career has been. You gotta be ready to seize opportunities when they arise. I think last time we did this was right before Forbidden Door, when I got slotted into wrestling [Hiroshi] Tanahashi, which turned out amazing. So that was just an opportunity. Gotta be ready for that stuff. For young wrestlers listening, you never know what’s around the corner, y’know, so be ready. At all times. It’s never been like ‘the plan’ to build everything around me. The only time when it was kind like that, the pandemic happened and the whole world shut down (laughs).”

On having so much fun in wrestling right now: “Does it get like annoying, sometimes, to be like, y’know… if you’d just gone with me in the first place, then we wouldn’t be fuckin’ going through this AGAIN? Yeah, it kind of does, but also like, nah it’s all good. I don’t complain. I see the good in everything, and I’m just still having so much fucking fun. I mean, life is so fuckin’ good right now. I don’t want any negative bullshit. What’s to fucking complain about, y’know?”

On AEW having more drama than anywhere he has worked: “I will say this. And I hate to say, I don’t think I’ve ever said anything remotely negative about AEW. But I will say this. As an observer, seems like… y’know, I spent eight years in the indies, then a couple years in WWE developmental. Spent like eight years in WWE. I’ve never seen so much bullshit drama in one place, in my entire fuckin’ life. I hate to say that, but it’s like… I don’t know if it’s because of the age of social media, shit gets blown out of proportion? Like one person types one stupid drunk tweet and all of a sudden, it’s all anybody wants to talk about?”

On the drama taking away from the good stuff going on: “We’re sitting up here, doing a podcast. Y’know what we’re not talking about? We’re not talking about the fuckin’ stellar match [El Hijo de] Vikingo and Kenny Omega just had. We’re not talking about all the cool stuff in AEW, cool shows happening. We’re not talking about this *great* pay-per-view we just had. We’re not talking about anything, we’re talking about some bullshit. Let me be clear, the vast majority of people there don’t cause any fucking trouble. But they’re getting sucked down into the shit, like everybody else. There’s plenty of people who just want to get better, and perform, and fuckin’ just do this job, man. It’s the best job in the world! There’s a lot of that.”

If using any of the above quotations, please credit The Sessions h/t 411mania for the transcription.

article topics :

CM Punk, Jon Moxley, Jonathan Hunter