What's the story?
Speaking on ‘Talk Is Jericho’, Jon Moxley revealed how he felt working with Nia Jax and EC3 during his final few months as Dean Ambrose in WWE.
In case you didn't know…
After WWE announced in January 2019 that Dean Ambrose was going to leave the company in April, he was booked in a segment on Raw where Nia Jax sent him through the ropes with a forearm to his back.
It looked as though the two would go on to have a one-on-one match – WWE even advertised it for a live event at one stage – but it ended up being cancelled.
Ambrose went on to lose matches against Elias and Drew McIntyre in his last few months in WWE, while his most surprising defeat came when he lost against main-roster newcomer EC3 in a two-minute match.
The heart of the matter
Jon Moxley told Chris Jericho that he wanted to be written off television after he held a meeting with Vince McMahon about his future in January 2019. However, he believes he was kept on television in order for WWE to bury him before he left.
“I was hoping that he would write me off TV that night, but he was like, ‘We’ll just finish you up at ‘Mania.' He was like, ‘We’re not gonna bury you on the way out or anything’ and I went, ‘Well, actually, it’s funny you mention that because that’s the reason I stormed in here, because it looks to me that that’s exactly what you’re doing.’”
Moxley explained that McMahon saw a match against Jax as an “attraction” but, for reasons that the former Shield member does not know, the storyline between the two was quickly dropped.
Regarding his match with EC3, Moxley added:
“They had EC3 come in as a babyface and defeat me in two minutes… The crowd does not like this because it is transparent what’s happening [WWE burying him], and this is not good for EC3 because now he’s gonna get the backlash, so it was an unfair position for him to be put in.”
What's next?
EC3 will likely continue to be lost in the shuffle as a member of the Raw roster, while Nia Jax is currently sidelined after undergoing double knee surgery.
As for Jon Moxley, he will face Juice Robinson in NJPW on June 5 before taking on Joey Janela at AEW’s Fyter Fest event on June 29.