Jon Moxley discusses the issues with most modern WWE promos
No matter where he’s wrestled, Jon Moxley has always carried the reputation for being a deft storyteller with a microphone in his hand. This was even true during his time in WWE, where he worked under the name Dean Ambrose.
While much of the material Moxley received in WWE often ranged between silly and preposterous, he mostly found a way to make what he was given work.
Still, reciting WWE dialogue comes at the cost of authenticity for most wrestlers, and as Moxley’s work in All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling — among other places — has shown, that element is the difference between a solid promo and a great one.
Jon Moxley discusses the problems with many promos in WWE.
Moxley took part in a Q&A segment while guest-hosting Renee Paquette’s Oral Sessions podcast, and while answering a question about how storytelling in pro wrestling translates to writing a book — which Moxley will be doing — he talked about WWE idiosyncrasies when it comes to giving wrestlers things to say (h/t to Fightful’s Robert DeFelice for the transcription):
"“It’s like a, kinda like a wrestling match or a promo. That’s why WWE promos f—–g suck, cause they jammed 5,000 fucking words in there that aren’t necessary. Say what you want to say, mean what you want to say, get your point across. ‘I’m going to beat your a– on Saturday night because I don’t like you,’ boom, done. Sometimes in a match, it’s like, okay, we planned on all these f—–g spots, but what is this story? What are we trying to get at? You’re the good guy, you’re the bad guy. You’re big, you’re small, you’re tall, you’re short. Whatever the contrast of styles or the story we’re telling is, why do we have all this? Sometimes you just look at it and go, you know what? We don’t need all that extra s—.”"
Moxley did have plenty of success in WWE, winning the Raw Tag Team, United States, Intercontinental, and WWE Championships in his seven years there, not to mention being one-third of one of the company’s most successful factions, The Shield.
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That said, Moxley has proven himself as a top star since leaving the company in 2019. He kicked off his run in NJPW with some stellar performances in the 2019 G1 Climax and is a two-time and current IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion. In AEW, he quickly became the promotion’s top babyface, holding the AEW World Championship for 277 days before losing the title to Kenny Omega.