Former WWE Superstar Dean Ambrose, who is now once again going by his old ring name Jon Moxley, debuted with AEW last Saturday night at the conclusion of their Double or Nothing PPV event.
While with WWE, Ambrose missed almost a year of ring time due to injury, and then a staph infection which nearly killed him. Historically WWE has been known to tack on “injury time” at the end of a Superstars contract, however this was not the case for him prior to leaving the company.
On the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discusses why WWE did not add more time to the end of Jon Moxley’s contract prior to it expiring.
“Cause the thing is with the guys that they freeze you know with Daniel Bryan they knew he was going to New Japan and they didn’t want him there because they knew that he could be a difference maker so they’re gonna freeze. With Pac they froze him because of the way he quit he walked out of his contract and they wanted to send a message. With Mysterio they didn’t want him going to Lucha Underground at the time even though he eventually did.”
“I think they thought [Moxley] was going to do some indie stuff. I don’t think they thought he was going to AEW. I just think they thought he was so miserable that he was just going to do a few [indie dates] — you know what I mean?”
“Also, he had friends in high places and maybe they didn’t want to upset his friends especially since Roman Reigns is a real good friend of his.”
It seems as though WWE legitimately thought that Moxley just need a little time off from the company and that he would return, but as we now know that was obviously not the case.
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(Thanks to our friends at Ringsidenews.com for the transcriptions.)
