WWE News: Jon Moxley explains Brock Lesnar heat and reveals four WrestleMania 32 pitches that were rejected

What's the story?

Jon Moxley, formerly known as Dean Ambrose, has made several revelations about his time in WWE since he debuted with AEW at the Double or Nothing pay-per-view on May 25.

In his latest interview with PW Torch’s Wade Keller, Moxley explained why he was so frustrated with Brock Lesnar following their match at WrestleMania 32 in 2016.

In case you didn't know…

WWE originally planned to have Brock Lesnar vs. Bray Wyatt and Dean Ambrose vs. Chris Jericho at WrestleMania 32. However, for reasons that have not been fully explained, the company went in a different direction and booked Lesnar vs. Ambrose in a No Holds Barred Street Fight instead.

At the time, Moxley's Ambrose character was arguably the most popular good guy on the WWE roster, while Lesnar had just started to transition into the heel persona that we have seen on WWE television over the last three years.

Fans had high expectations for the match, especially after the No Holds Barred Street Fight stipulation was added, but it turned out to be hugely underwhelming, with Lesnar picking up the victory in 13 minutes after he hit an F5 on his opponent onto a stack of steel chairs.

Speaking on The Stone Cold Podcast on the WWE Network in August 2016, Moxley said he was “met with laziness” from Lesnar when he attempted to put together ideas for their match.

The heart of the matter

Jon Moxley elaborated on the Dean Ambrose vs. Brock Lesnar match with Wade Keller, telling him that “The Beast” only arrived at WrestleMania 32 three hours before the show and the two men did not discuss their match face-to-face for the first time until the second match of the night was taking place.

Moxley said:

“I think he truly thought he was just doing me a favor. [Lesnar thought] me being in the ring with him was enough to do awesome things for me. I think that’s what he thought. He didn’t want to be there.”

The former Shield member pitched the following ideas for the storyline build-up and the match itself, but all of them were rejected or ignored:

- One of Moxley’s ideas was for him to flip off Lesnar whilst being choked after being thrown into thumb tacks. When he sent the idea to Vince McMahon, the WWE chairman simply replied, “Maybe :)”

- Moxley pitched a finish where he would lose in a similar way to how Randy Orton was defeated by Lesnar at SummerSlam 2016, via several elbows to the head, but the idea was shot down.

- Moxley suggested that he could spray Lesnar in his eyes with pepper spray at the start of the match before attacking him with weapons. Although Lesnar was willing to go ahead with the idea, he only agreed to it on the day of the match and there was not enough time to get the spot to work.

- Moxley wanted to start using a heel hook/ankle lock submission before WrestleMania 32 and train at a gym owned by Lesnar’s former UFC rival Frank Mir, but that idea was also ignored.

What's next?

Brock Lesnar has promised to cash in his Money In The Bank contract on Universal champion Seth Rollins on the next episode of Raw, while Jon Moxley is currently preparing to face Juice Robinson in NJPW on June 5 and Joey Janela in AEW on June 29.