Back in 2016 Jon Moxley, then going by Dean Ambrose in the WWE, was booked for a Street Fight bout against “The Beast” Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 32. Moxley was nearing the height of his popularity at the time as a babyface and was just a couple of months away from his run as WWE Champion, and many fans saw his match with Lesnar as a potential star-making opportunity.
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Unfortunately what fans wound up getting was possibly the most underwhelming match of the night. The promise of a weapons-filled bloodbath was instead met with a 13-minute run-of-the-mill Lesnar match with a few extra steel chair spots thrown in. In the years that followed Moxley and Lesnar’s manager Paul Heyman both spoke publicly about why the match was a disappointment, hinting that it was the other wrestler’s fault for being lazy.
But on Sunday Moxley went into full detail regarding the match during an interview with Pro Wrestling Torch‘s Wade Keller. You can check out a full transcription of the interview here, but here are some cliff notes.
Moxley explained that he and Chris Jericho were originally supposed to work WrestleMania, but a promo between Ambrose and Lesnar leading up to that year’s Fastlane got enough of a reaction from the crowd that WWE changed plans. He explained he was originally thrilled by the idea.
“So now I’ve earned the match,” Moxley said. “So now I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ This is like, my dream opponent, dream scenario, Street Fight. I’m like, you can imagine how much effort and time and thought I put into this, right? This is my life. Like I’m saying, the match happened because of the vibe I put out.”
But it wasn’t long until the creative frustrations kicked in, as Moxley mentioned WWE’s writing staff making him do things like get a chainsaw from Terry Funk and a barbed wire baseball bat from Mick Foley, neither of which he could actually use in the match, or pull a little red wagon out to the ring to collect weapons.
He also went into detail about how Lesnar would either brush off or ignore every idea Moxley pitched, which resulted in them not rehearsing the match until hours before the show started.
“I was banging my head against the wall screaming at everybody for weeks it felt like, and it felt like I was invisible. 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 s—.”
Moxley made his debut for All Elite Wrestling at the Double or Nothing event back on May 25.
