Jon Moxley: Violence fits me like a glove [Exclusive]
Jon Moxley is your new AEW World Heavyweight Champion and he went through several members of the Inner Circle and lost a lot of blood in the process. Which suits Moxley just fine. His matches more often than not, manifest themselves in aggressive, high-tempo violence. His match against Chris Jericho this past Saturday at AEW Revolution was no different.
Early on in the contest, Moxley was thrown into the ring post and suffered a deep gash over his right eye. The blood was flowing from his forehead for most of the contest. There was even a spot where Jericho took Mox's blood and rubbed on himself as if it were war paint. The imagery was incredible.
Of course in the end, against all the odds, Jon Moxley was standing tall and holding the gold. That's what Mox personifies - pure determination.
"I learned this in like, you know like, 5th grade amateur wrestling - for what you lack in talent, you can make up for with just pure aggression and effort. For me, that manifests itself in pro wrestling as like - well, you might be able to beat me, but it's going to take all day long. You know, you're going to have to physically kill me."
The amount of damage that Moxley's body has suffered over the years just to entertain the audience is truly commendable. Look no further than his Lights Outs Match with Kenny Omega at Full Gear. I had a chance to talk with Mox on my radio show ahead of Revolution, and I had to ask him about that match. In not so many words, I had to ask, why he would put himself through that.
Mox says his propensity for the extreme did not originate during his training in the Heartland Wrestling Association based out of Cincinnati, OH. He was taught by legendary trainer Les Thatcher that the death match style of wrestling was for "idiots" (Mox's words) who didn't actually know how to wrestle. Or as Thatcher would were refer to them, 'Those guys down in Louisville who hit themselves with light tubes.'
Soon though, the future World Champion would get a taste for the extreme, and he liked it.
"As I kind of matured and kind of grew into just being myself as a character and just dipping my toe into that more and more - I realized how much it suited me. That style just fits me like a glove."
Moxley says, as a fan, he likes his wrestling to be intense and that's how he likes to carry himself in the ring. When Jon Moxley is there, he's there for one reason, and that's to try and injure his opponent. By the time the closing bell rings, win, lose or draw, Moxley's opponent is going to know they were just in one hell of a fight.
The AEW World Champion says he'll never dive all the way back into some of the crazier things he did while on the Indy circuit, but there's a certain thrill to the hardcore style of wrestling that's so addicting he can't fully leave it in the past.
"There's so much stuff that I would never do again, that my wife wouldn't let me do again, that I wouldn't want to do again. But like, when you're seconds before like, 'Oh My God I'm about to fall of this thing through this glass structure... this could go really really bad.' The thrill is like, the same as like sky diving or anything like that. It's a living on the edge kind of thing. And when you survive it, it makes you feel indestructible."
You can hear my full conversation with the new AEW World Heavyweight Champion below:
This article was written exclusively for Sportskeeda. Please credit Sportskeeda and the writer if you use quotes from this interview. Follow Rick on Twitter for more exclusive content.