AEW world champion Jon Moxley appeared on a recent episode of Busted Open Radio to discuss all things pro wrestling. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
How scripted promos drove him crazy in WWE:
If I had to boil it down to one thing that drove me crazier than anything was the fact that I got handed a script. Even in developmental…I heard the phrase “scripted promo,” I always thought it was a turn of phrase, I didn’t realize – this is how naive I was – they actually script your lines, like a TV show, that blew my mind. First time they handed us a script…I thought it was like, a suggestion, like they were just kind of filling in words on the run sheet. And I’m like…’I got some cool ideas, we can say this or that, we go this new gimmick we’re doing,’ and [the writer] is like ‘Oh no, this is what you’re going to say.’ And I remember having this feeling in the pit of my stomach like ‘Oh my god, I’ve made a terrible mistake.’
Calls Vince McMahon a madman for putting pressure on his talent with scripted promos:
I’ll tell you what pressure is, pressure is having a two-page script written by a 74-year-old madman, that makes no sense to you, that’s going to make you look stupid, and you’re on worldwide TV, live, and you got to memorize every single line, and somehow try to pull it off and not look like a total jackass, that’s pressure. And a lot of times I did pull that, a lot of times I didn’t, but I’ll never have to be in that situation again. Now I just get to be me, it’s a nice feeling.
Check out the champ’s comments below. (H/T and transcribed by WrestleZone)