Jon Moxley thought AEW fans wouldn't take him seriously because of WWE run
On AEW's new podcast - AEW Unrestricted - Jon Moxley opened up about leaving WWE and debuting for AEW, discussing how he was worried that All Elite Wrestling fans wouldn't take him seriously as his "reputation had been tarnished so bad" after getting "popped in the a** with a syringe on TV and dressed up like a teddy bear" in WWE.
Speaking with the hosts of the podcast, referee Aubrey Edwards and announcer Tony Schiavone, Moxley would reveal how his WWE run left such a sour taste that he thought the Dean Ambrose character would take a lot of work to be forgotten and for Moxley to be forgiven.
"I was scared that I was so synonymous with WWE c**p that I'd walk out and they'd be like, 'Oh, God, the idiot from WWE. Oh, God, what are you going to do, hit somebody with a hot dog? Jesus Christ! This company has gone to hell, I can't believe they've brought the hot dog guy.'"
Moxley was pleasantly surprised, though, and said it felt like he completely switched out of Dean Ambrose and into Jon Moxley when he wrestled Juice Robinson in Japan, and then joining AEW.
"I thought it was going to be this long rehabilitation process. I was like, 'Do I even remember how to wrestle anymore?' But it all came back so quickly. It was almost like I'd been asleep for years and I woke up out of a nap. It was like a totally different guy who was in jail, like "Cool, Jon's out of jail. Sweet, he's back."
AEW: Unrestricted is a new weekly podcast from AEW and TNT, dropping every Thursday via Apple Music, Spotify, TuneIn, Google Podcasts, the TNT app and YouTube.