Jon Moxley recently appeared as a guest on the latest episode of Close Up with Renee Paquette for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
The following are some of the highlights.
On Marina Shafir: “Marina has become my lieutenant, my head of security, the heart and soul of the entire operation. If every wrestler in this sport worked as hard every single day as Marina Shafir, everybody would be a thousand times better. The work ethic that she has, the approach to this game, living the life, not just talking about it but living it. Living the life of a professional athlete, a professional wrestler. If she has a big match one night and I wake up in the morning, and it’s the afternoon because I sleep in, and I look out the window and she’s down at the pool doing exercises, shadow boxing, and then I pull up at the building an hour later and she’s outside the building jumping rope. Looking like a pitbull, then that night, goes out there and goes to war. She never turns it off.”
On Konosuke Takeshita: “He’s very, very good. Takeshita is goddamn good. They say that, at least I hear this all the time, that I’m a hard guy to impress. I don’t think that’s true. I think that a lot of people are totally delusional about what should be impressive. Takeshita, especially over the last year or two, has impressed me a great deal. I think probably Takeshita might be the best guy in AEW. If there was one guy that I wouldn’t totally bet the farm that I’m 100% sure I can take him out, it’s Takeshita, and I feel like I don’t know this guy at all. I haven’t hung out with this guy. We don’t even speak the same language. I know nothing about this guy, but I know everything about him. There’s an understanding between us that we have that only the kinds of wrestlers who seek out, challenge and seek out competition and just want to be out there, who are willing to put themselves through a Continental Classic, through a G1, to go to every indie show in the country, around the world, wherever they set up a ring, just to be out there, just to play our instruments because we’re very good at them, because we like to experiment, because we’re chasing mastery of what we’re doing. There’s an unspoken, unsaid thing between us that, that we have in common, but guys like us are very, very, very, very competitive. I was not willing to walk away with a 20-minute draw. I would rather choke on my own vomit and die than be satisfied with a 20-minute draw with Takeshi. I would rather just lose. I would rather just lose.”
On Wheeler Yuta getting his head shaved: “You’re only as good as your word, and him and Marina and Tony and Orange, they really put it on the line. They took a big risk. You know, a lot of people would not want to risk the humiliation of being shaven in the middle of the ring on live TV, beamed across the entire world in an arena full of people. That takes guts. So I think it’s a big win for everybody. I think it shows Wheeler’s character, that he took the risk and he stepped up and he took it on the chin and every day he looks in the mirror, he can know that he took it on the chin and he stayed true to his word. I think that’s a victory.”
On The Death Riders: “I don’t think there’s anything I’ve ever done that I’m more proud of in my career than what we’ve built with the Death Riders. This culture, this attitude, this does not represent me. I do not represent it. I’m not gonna get pulled in this direction. You can’t change people, but you can build. So I just decided I would build a culture of my own, and it started with just me. I don’t care who’s next to me. Claudio’s next to me. who I would trust with my life, who’s been my right-hand man for years. Wheeler, who is Wheeler who’s basically an adopted child of mine at this point. PAC, who’s a professional through and through. You know, these are the kinds of people that I start with.”
Watch the complete Jon Moxley interview via the YouTube player embedded below.
