Jon Moxley recently spoke with Justin Barrasso of SI.com and discussed the tragic passing of Brodie Lee (Jon Huber, fka Luke Harper). Lee passed away on Saturday at the age of 41 due to a non-COVID-19 lung issue.
Moxley, who worked with Lee in WWE and AEW, said he still hasn’t accepted Lee’s death.
“It doesn’t feel real,” Moxley said on Sunday evening. “It feels like I’m in a very vivid dream and I’m waiting to snap out of it. My brain hasn’t accepted it yet. Right now, I’m completely f—— numb.”
Moxley talked about their history and his response when AEW President Tony Khan asked him about Lee in AEW.
“The first night we wrestled each other, we shared a hotel room together later that night,” Moxley recalled. “That was over a decade ago. He was an incredible person. While so many of us would be all hot about some wrestling angle, he would find a way to turn negatives into a positive or an inside joke. He was the exact person you wanted in the locker room. I was so glad to be around him again in AEW.
“And we wrestled so many times. Whether it was on the indies, in The Shield–Wyatt war, six-mans on house shows and European tours, it felt like we were always together. When Tony Khan asked me about Brodie in AEW, I said, ‘Hell yeah, I want that match.’ We could wrestle each other in our sleep. He was so f—— good.”
Moxley also recalled Lee’s WrestleMania debut at WrestleMania 31 in the multi-man Ladder Match for the WWE Intercontinental Title (won by Daniel Bryan), and how WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon reacted when they pulled off a big bump because they wanted to make the highlight reel.
“We wanted to make the highlight reel,” Moxley said of the match. “We figured the only way we could do that was if I nearly killed myself with a death-defying bump. So we devised this spot where he powerbombs me from the ring to the floor through a steel ladder, and that’s f—— sketchy. It’s an extremely dangerous bump, going backward at a high angle.
“It was a gnarly bump. Vince [McMahon] bugged out. He thought I was dead, which meant it was a good f—— bump. And we made the highlight reel. I maintain to this day that I would not have trusted anybody else on the planet with that bump. I put my life in his hands, and I walked away.”
Like so many others have done this weekend, Moxley also talked about how Lee’s main focus was his wife and kid. Moxley said Lee was not interested in being famous as his most important role in life was being a family man.
“He wasn’t interested in being famous,” Moxley said. “This is a guy you would not see at an afterparty. As soon as he was done with work, he was going home to his family as soon as possible. He was so proud to be a father and a husband. He loved wrestling and he was great at it, but it was his job. He was lucky enough to love his vocation, but his most important role in life was as a father and a husband.”
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