Moments before WWE’s Clash of Champions pay-per-view got underway, a new bumper for the WWE Network flashed on the screen. But as fans were quick to point out, the clip featured a wrestler who is not with the company anymore. The clip appears to be from WrestleMania 32, and shows Ambrose’s face and name on the big screen in the background as the camera slowly pans towards the ring through a sizable crowd of fans.
Ambrose left the WWE back in April and made his surprise debut a month later for All Elite Wrestling, going by his old independent wrestling name of Jon Moxley.
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Oh look, itโs Dean Ambrose on the #WWENetwork right before #WWEClash begins! pic.twitter.com/qrFA2VP6Zn
โ Whats Wrong With Wrestling?๐ (@WrongWrestling) September 15, 2019
One of the ironic things about showing Moxley from that particular WrestleMania is how negatively he spoke about his match with Brock Lesnar at that show during a series of interviews he gave in the early summer.
In an interview with Pro Wrestling Torch back in early June, Moxley said the build-up to that match was incredibly frustrating because Brock Lesnar refused to discuss any ideas about the match until the last minute.
“I was banging my head against the wall screaming at everybody for weeks it felt like, and it felt like I was invisible,” he said. “Main reason was, I wasn’t the most important match on the show. I was basically non-important at all. As long as Brock’s on the show, Brock’s good. Other matches were more important, whatever match was on the show that night. I was just, they didn’t give a sโ.”
In his first post-WWE interview with Chris Jericho, Moxley blasted WWE’s creative process for how they operate.
“I want to prove that [WWE’s] creative process sucks,” Moxley said. “It does not work, it’s absolutely terrible. I’ve said that to Vince, I’ve said that to Hunter, I’ve said that Michael Hayes. I can’t even tell you how their system works, it’s some kind of system of meetings that take place in Stamford, then there’s a home team. There’s writers and producers and production meetings and nobody knows what’s approved and what’s not.
“The bureaucratic red tape that you have to go through to get anything approved is crazy! It doesn’t work! It’s killing the company and I think Vince is the problem,” he added. “And not so much Vince, but whatever the structure that he built around himself probably starting around 2002 after the sale of WCW and this infrastructure of writers, producers and this is what the WWE is and what the product is, and the product sucks. [They have] great talent, amazing talent. None of this is their fault.”