Jon Moxley On The First Person He Spoke To Regarding AEW, Chris Jericho Talks Scripted Promos

During a discussion panel at the recent New York Comic Con event, Jon Moxley, Jungle Boy, Nyla Rose, and AEW World Heavyweight Champion Chris Jericho sat in to talk about all things All Elite Wrestling. Moxley spoke first, revealing that Jericho was actually the first person that advised him to come to AEW once he heard of his impending departure from WWE.

"For me it was all just crazy timing; I had been planning on leaving where I was before for a few months, and I actually started talking to – the first guy that knew besides my wife, the only other guy that knew was Chris [Jericho]," Moxley revealed. "It was on the phone and this was before any of this other stuff started happening and I said, 'Dude, I'm out of here. I'm done.' And he said, 'Dude, you need to come work with us.' And I'm like, 'What?' And then not five minutes later probably, I get call from Cody Rhodes and he started explaining to me all this top secret stuff they had. And I'm like, 'Woah.' And here we are."

Jungle Boy feels like his smaller frame wasn't something other promotions were particularly interested in but unlike those other companies, AEW sees his size as something uniquely advantageous.

"I weigh about 150 lbs. and every week I get to ride a dinosaur to the ring. And those are two things that, until pretty recently, would not have been acceptable anywhere else," Jungle Boy said. "I think AEW is really good at instead of looking at those as disadvantages, it's what makes us special. It's what makes us different and entertaining, and really the only voice we care about is [the fans]."

AEW's World Champion, Chris Jericho, particularly enjoys that AEW doesn't use scripts to tell their roster how to act out their characters. He also commented on how the popularity AEW was generating before they ever appeared on national television helped instill a lot of faith in the company's future.

"I think that this is something that is very interesting to me, is the fact that there are so many people that can say we weren't watching wrestling anymore, we kind of drifted away from it and now we're back watching AEW. I think a lot of our fanbase is kind of the lapsed fan that disappeared over the years because they were bored or they weren't feeling what was being done inside the ring," Jericho said. "But now, as we mentioned with no scripts and all that, it gives us the chance to be the artists that we are and use the instincts that we've honed after doing this for years, and years, and years, and years to know how to put on a show, to know how to put on a match. Most importantly, how do you get your character across? There's nobody in the world that can play Chris Jericho better than I do, so don't give me a f–king script and tell me, 'This is what Jericho's going to say.'

"And on top of that, to know that the very first show was a huge success after all the waves that we've created in this industry and around the world without having one minute of national television time to our name, there was a lot of speculation. 'Oh, what's it going to be? Who's going to watch? Bloo bloo blee blah blow bloo,'" Jericho imitated in gibberish as he went on. "We saw who's going to watch – the numbers are huge, the demos are huge, and now we are a viable, major league wrestling company that only has upwards to go."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit NerdNews Today with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.