Mox Jon Moxley Quotes

Great things aren’t achieved with a safety net in place. Safety nets, backup plans — these are distractions, excuses to give up early.

I don’t believe in backup plans. I call them “10th-hour plans.” You can’t win in the 11th hour if you quit in the 10th hour.

Also, Terry Funk rules, bitch.

When you’re at the touchscreen ordering a custom sandwich at Wawa and they ask you all those questions, take them seriously.

Don’t pace yourself. Just go until you fall over. We’ll pick you up.

They made a bunch of stupid toys. I remember seeing some at the store where Donatello was a basketball player. … He’s like five feet tall. I guess he could have been a John Stockton type, but the pick-and-roll wouldn’t have worked cuz none of the other turtles were tall either; they would have needed that giant robot body with Krang in his stomach to play power forward, and by that point I think there would have been just too much animosity for them to gel as a team. This book sucks.

Maybe this book just serves as a guide to what not to do. For instance: Don’t smoke crack. I’ll describe it for you now just so curiosity doesn’t get the better of you: It’s like doing a whip-it and eating wasabi at the same time. Still, if you really just love smoking crack and that’s your thing, I won’t stop you.

Wrestling can be ANYTHING. It’s everything. It’s world-class athletes. It’s Broadway, Shakespeare, summer blockbusters, best-selling novels, soap operas, high art. It’s nobodies from nowhere finding a way to say to the world: “Fuck you!” It’s entertainment, it’s movies, it’s music. … It’s EVERYTHING.

Maybe this book just serves as a guide to what not to do. For instance: Don’t smoke crack. I’ll describe it for you now just so curiosity doesn’t get the better of you: It’s like doing a whip-it and eating wasabi at the same time.

My favorite wrestling coach when I was a kid once told me: “Don’t pace yourself. Just go until you fall over. We’ll pick you up.” That stuck with me, maybe too much.

It’s this thing. … Shit! You see, I was completely comfortable in my world where the G1 didn’t exist until a few minutes ago, but now I feel like I have to go or I’m a coward. It intimidated me, but I can’t live in a world where I backed down from a challenge, where I was scared, where I took the easy road, where I had the chance to do something extraordinary and I took the safe option. There was no choice now. Rocky couldn’t have put less pressure on me the way he mentioned it, but the way my brain works, he may as well have said to me, “You won’t do the G1, you pussy!

One time I was so frustrated with these boxes in my garage I took them up the street and threw them in the dumpster. My mother, my biggest fan, reacted as if I’d drowned a litter of baby kittens.

I’ve come to find as I go back and think about how I got here, about to have a little girl (who we’re calling Nora, and who I’m gonna teach to be choking MFers out from an early age), that I’m a bunch of other things too: athlete, entertainer, storyteller, yes, but also … socially challenged, borderline alcoholic, mildly sadomasochistic, headcase, poor kid, juvenile delinquent, brother, son, friend. I’m also a pretty damn good husband and a supernaturally potent sexual creature.

JoKe Claudio told me: I had a dream I swam in an ocean of oranGe soda, but it was just a Fanta Sea.

He taught me how to melt a square sheet of plastic in two spots, bend them, clamp them into place and make a picture frame.

Obsessed” is a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated.

I don’t know why we were in the back of this SUV, but I assume it had something to do with acquiring coke and/or ecstasy.

Snot, tears and spit spewing as I howled, a 230-pound limp sack of bones slumped over, my head resting on the stoop. I cried for two hours. You happy now, motherfucker? Now I look like a pussy in my own book. Walking off a plane in Dallas in tears after writing this, and people are staring at me and shit. I will always miss you, Grant. I love you.

I decided, that Walt Disney magic that only Vince has, and when he dies it’ll be gone forever. Hunter was smart enough to hire half the indies and take Instagram selfies with them, but he ain’t got the magic. Shane would probably stick an M80 up his ass and light it if he thought that’s what fans wanted to see, but he ain’t got it either. Fortunately, though, when Vince is gone, that magic will live on in the hearts and minds of the fans forever.

Let’s fucking go. In the ring, squared off with my opponent, I hear a flute. I think I’m hearing “Season of the Witch” by Donovan. I get briefly enraged as I wonder if they’re playing house music and we’ve gone to commercial break but the song quickly fades, and the shit is on. After the match, holding the IWGP U.S. belt high, I realize I’m hearing “Wild Thing” by the Troggs. I assume that’s my music now. That’s pretty cool. I feel touched that Tony knows me well enough to know I would think it was cool. He was confident that he could surprise me with it and I wouldn’t flip out.

I hated Wednesdays in FCW, my least favorite day of the week. Fucking promo class, or excuse me, “The Art of Communication with Dusty Rhodes.

I’d consider all the splendor and beauty of this world and my place in it and then … BAM!!!!! Roadkill! Or I’d get distracted by a Pizza Hut sign.

We’ve done karaoke in Tokyo and filled up on gas and stocked up on snacks at Buc-ees truck stop in Texas (THE BEST truck stops).

I’m in the zone, dialed in like a motherfucker and then here comes some pusscake coming at me with a “tone it down.” I remember Hunter telling me, “You just don’t wanna become Terry Funk spinning around in a circle like Homer Simpson. … Whooop … wooooop woooop woop woop.

What puts this film over the top, and cements it as a classic, is the soundtrack by Queen. Yep, THE MF’n Queen. It includes the badass track, “Princes of the Universe,” also the theme for the ’90s Highlander TV series, which was actually pretty good.

searched Craigslist for a room and found one that looked nice for 100 bucks a week in cash (it would turn out to not be nice, like not at all, in the slightest).

On one’s first day it was customary for Doc to bring the new person up to the front of the class to introduce themselves. Doc would ask you to tell a joke. … I had been warned of this tradition, so when I got up in front of everyone I was prepared. “So, you got a joke” Doc asked. I hit the audience with the following gem: “How’d the computer get so fat? … He downloaded too many cookies.” Crickets. A complete swing and a miss. Maybe not complete. One person laughed: Derrick Bateman, who would go on to become one of my first Tampa friends.

The high point of my stay in the house came late one night when I heard a commotion in the common living room. I walked out to see one of my roomies wielding a kitchen knife at two other residents. I took two inquisitive steps toward the scene when a cop burst in and tackled the offender. I returned to my room and put my headphones on. I jumped at the chance to live in an actual apartment.

One time, Trent Beretta pulled the fire alarm in that bar, because it was a very Trent thing to do.

Anonymous friends.” We don’t hang around and make conversation. We were in and out in maybe three minutes flat. It was a hailstorm of canned goods and Praise Jesuses. We were like the SEAL team from the militant wing of the Salvation Army. And then … we vanished.

After that I’d go back to the flophouse apartment I shared with Ricker, who’s now wrestling for NXT under the name L.A. Knight. Back then he called himself Dick Rick.

She introduced me to snorting Klonopin, which is a terrible idea and, needless to say, not a useful skill.

The Gunslinger” was one of our favorites, listening to it we created a secret handshake that was something of a mixture of a cheers, a hang ten and throwing back a shot. When I did Make-A-Wish visits, I would often show the secret handshake to the kid. I would tell them to watch out for the signal after Roman and I defeated the bad guys that night. The memories of looking out into the front row as the Make-A-Wish kids proudly displayed the weird hang ten/problem drinker signal we created, smiles on their faces, are some of my favorite memories. They were on the team. This is why we do this.

HOME AWAY FROM HOME: PHILADELPHIA The City of Brotherly Love. Except a lot of people are mean. Not really mean, it’s just a city with people who take no shit and don’t suffer fools. I felt at home in Philly immediately. I stayed in Manayunk, a super-hilly neighborhood. Sketchy as all hell driving in the wintertime. I think of the arena, Flyers games, Dev’s Grandma’s Italian stuffing, dive bars that look like somebody’s house. I never had a dog in the fight about which place delivered the best cheesesteak. … Those conversations between proud Philadelphians can get tense. I thought they were all pretty good, but, boy, did I fall in love with Wawa.

Ultimately, I was placed in a full-body bear costume and left to rampage through the house, screaming obscenities while onlookers took shelter behind furniture so as not to get swiped in the face by a paw. When this wild animal wandered into the backyard to forage in the grass, one poor bystander was hit by a running dropkick that was described to me as an assault by a cross between Doug Furnas and a 6'2" Teletubby on Meth. Many just enjoyed the show and took Polaroids. Luckily, only the cops showed up and nobody called animal control.

This is what you call … a paradigm shift.

The last couple months since I’d turned heel … a change I once hoped would be my salvation … had been the lowest, most disappointing, infuriating, frustrating, agonizing period of my career. Vince was very hands-on with my new heel persona, whatever the fuck that was supposed to be, writing scripts I was to follow verbatim. They all sucked. He even went so far as to script my matches. They all sucked. He had begun to infiltrate the house shows now too, sending detailed formats to the stressed-out producers 30 minutes before bell time, and demanding I cut cheesy heel promos to the audience as I walked to the ring.

If you thought you were confused, imagine what it was like being me? Shit, at least you had a remote control. I couldn’t just turn the channel on my own life.

The standout here is the classic track “Brain Stew,” which I appreciated on another level in later years. Any former (or current, I guess) methamphetamine user will appreciate how this song so eloquently and accurately depicts what it’s like to have insomnia and be “fucked up and spun out” in one’s room.

I had some good size and was still growing. I’d been amateur wrestling for years, I even got trophies and shit. I play football. … They love that, right?

There was a mean little fucker named Jamie Noble,

Work left, turn right” was painted on the wall, and it meant, as I discovered, that we always work the left arm or leg of opponents, Irish whips are always left wrist to left wrist, and for positioning purposes, like a dance, we always turn to our right. I had never picked up on this detail in all my years watching.

You got a name?” the ring announcer asked me. I’m sure I had thought of a million ideas, but I was drawing a blank. This was all happening fast, and I had nothing. I totally froze. A wrestler who went by the name Tack turned to Cody, “He’s like the F’n guy from the movie, Varsity Blues, Jonathan Moxley!” In the movie the guy’s name is Jonathan Moxon. So thankfully, he had actually messed it up. Cody gave the OK sign to the ring announcer. I was busy pissing my pants, so I didn’t offer anything. Just like that, I had a name, a name I like to think I’ve defined as my own. The fact that women wearing whipped-cream bikinis are often lurking around every corner ready to accost me is purely a coincidence.

Dustin Rhodes, at 52, is still the fastest man in wrestling. When he hits the ropes with that velocity, leapfrogging, running, ducking and stopping on a dime, dropping to his knees to deliver his trademark Goldust punch, I’d be willing to bet he’s at a resting heart rate. It’s his footwork and timing, honed to perfection from decades of repetition, that make it look so smooth and so fast.

In research for this piece, I went to Wikipedia and learned this album incorporates elements of new wave and something called shoegaze. … Cool … I also learned that upon its release some music critic named Robert Christgau dismissed this classic as a “dud.” … Listen here, Rob, you can go fornicate yourself on an iron stick!

Headup,” a collaboration with Max Cavalera of Soulfly/Sepultura is … Just. The. Shit. Heavy. F’n. Metal. F’n Chino vocals mixed with classic Max vocals … so unique. Put that shit on and get on a bench press … guaranteed new PR.

wrestled Cena and A. J. Styles in front of a hot, standing-room-only Palm Springs crowd in some kind of carpeted event room where I swear to God there was a bar mitzvah going on next door.

There is a weird, old-school ego thing that goes on between “call it in the ring”-minded guys, and it’s admittedly stupid. Neither guy is gonna want to be the first to get too excited or have an idea. Both will just be like, Sure, whatever, we’ll figure it out. Even though you are working together, there is still some kind of weird chess-game battle going on. Nobody wants to make the first move. This is what was happening tonight. That’s the way I wanted it.

Then it’s a drive to Pittsburgh for TV where I see Hunter. He’s real beat up, but the pride is evident in his face. That twinkle in his eye you never get to see, almost like he had reconnected with a little part of himself, that part of him that just wanted to be a “rassler.” Vince loved it. Steph was really stoked about it too. Pat can’t stop talking about it. He’s asking people in catering: “Oh! My god! Did you see that match?!” This all makes me feel good. I’m proud every time somebody comes up to tell me how much they enjoyed watching it, that it felt really unique. That match doesn’t have any historical significance and will probably just be another one lost in the annals of time. I doubt you’ll find that shit on Peacock or whatever, but I hope the people that were there have fond memories of it. Maybe it was the first show they brought their kids to, or it was just a fun night out with the gang drinking giant cans of Molson Canadian and watching some wrestling. A night at the matches. Maybe some kid got a blow job in the parking lot. I’d like to think so. I’d go on to wrestle Hunter a few more times, in places like Belgium and the UK. We always had dope matches. Turns out that HHH kid can work. He’s just gotta do something about those skinny calves.

Sami had a brilliant idea for the finish in which, at the apex of the action, Sami and the new recruit to our little group, a student named Joe Gacy who Sami had taken under his wing, would run interference.

Jack Reacher, one of my favorite literary characters and often an inspiration for my character in AEW, kills motherfuckers at a breakneck pace in pretty unforgiving fashion, but it’s always because it’s the right thing to do. Jack Reacher has no patience for bad guys doing bad-guy shit — he’ll just shoot you — but his moral compass is always irrefutably on point.