Viktor Was Relieved About His WWE Release, Shares Story of Jon Moxley Being Frustrated Backstage

Speaking with Lewis Nicholls, Viktor of the Ascension revealed his reaction to his WWE release and shared a story about Jon Moxley’s being frustrated backstage. Viktor noted that he was relieved when he and Konor released because of his burnout at the time and how difficult it was backstage with everyone trying to fight for TV time and more. You can check out highlights and the full video below:

On his immediate reaction to his release: “Oh, huge relief. Huge relief, really. Like, it was — the situation we were in just kind of wasn’t fun. I know mentally at the time, like before that I actually had to admit, I was just like, ‘I am burned out right now.’ Like, ‘I’m not happy whatsoever,’ kind of anywhere in life at the time. It was just a lot of stuff that I think stemmed from just like how I dealt with everything. Just with the way our career went up there, like WWE was my dream. And you know, I always knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I think I just took it to heart because I saw, just a lot of really good people that I spent a lot of time with just go through a lot of stuff. And so to me, it’s really hard to sit there and complain when I see a lot of other people who are justified to complain as well who aren’t. Or who are just able to do it in better ways, but still see it not working out.”

On recalling Jon Moxley reacting to a difficult situation: “One of the best things I can ever actually remember from seeing somebody in a locker room do was, it was supposed to be [Jon] Moxley and [Baron] Corbin at a PPV. And it was the last TV before it. And something happened to where their whole match got cut, and they only had so much time to do something. And I remember the writer coming in to Mox and telling him this. And Mox goes, ‘What the f**k!’ And he’s about to say something like, ‘I can’t believe it,’ and I see him like, look around the locker room. And that was one of the locker rooms where its jam-packed of a bunch of 205 Live that aren’t doing anything at the time, and a bunch of other guys who are struggling. And he just goes [sigh] ‘F**k it.’ You know what I mean? So it’s hard. Everybody there is fighting, and [it] just never stops. So it’s — yeah. It was like a hard thing to deal with.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Lewis Nicholls show with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.