Welcome Back to the Indies, Jon Moxley

Mox is back, baby Photo Credit: WWE.com

Jonathan Good has finally left WWE after announcing he wouldn't renew his contract in February. There, he was known as Dean Ambrose, a name that will remain mentioned only on the Award Winning WWE Network™. More than a few people, myself included, thought he would take a break from the wrestling thing and relax in the desert, maybe producing his own live action Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner shorts in the meantime. Everyone who thought that was wrong, apparently, and he let the world know in shocking fashion. Having been Twitter-averse for most of his WWE career, a verified account under his once-and-now-current indie name Jon Moxley, popped a tweet last night at 11:05 PM EDT:


Breaking out of prison, chased by a, ahem, big dog, and wrapping his hands in barbed wire all paint a vivid portrait without Moxley saying a single word. It's not exactly subtle symbolism, but when has a wrestler, even ones passing up seven figures to bleed all over a ring in front of 100 degenerates (and I mean that lovingly, deathmatch fans, I swear) at a VFW hall and thusly are ostensibly in it for the art, ever mastered that art? I think it bears repeating that Moxley was making well north of seven figures in WWE and probably had an offer on the table for even more. Given that WWE offered the Revival half-a-mil a year apiece as a midcard tag team they didn't really feel like pushing, imagine how much they offered one-third of its most celebrated stable ever not to go?

I think it shows that more wrestlers don't necessarily need or want WWE's money over everything else. Granted, they will probably make ballpark figures if they jump to All Elite Wrestling or even Ring of Honor right now. And Moxley still has a WWE income in his household and has been reported to have good amounts of money saved anyway. But it appears he's not really driven by making more money. The Revival isn't driven by making big money if they're just going to get sporadic exposure on television. Sasha Banks and Luke Harper are willing to bet on themselves rather than being a jobber to the stars or a house show body respectively. The tides are turning against WWE, and even if they maintain their financial hegemony for decades into the future, the fact that they can't control the entire industry like they have since Impact Wrestling decided keeping Vince Russo on board was more important than staying on Spike TV means that it's a more wide open game than ever.

Of course, the $64,000 question is where will Moxley work? Game Changer Wrestling seems to be one of his stomping grounds, which makes sense. While he was a veteran of Combat Zone Wrestling before leaving for WWE Developmental, a lot of the names he may have trusted there jumped ship, including owner/booker Brett Lauderdale. GCW has the cultural cache as well, as in addition to being a deathmatch-friendly promotion, it houses a lot of other niches thanks to its embrace of the various Joey Janela produce shows as well as Bloodsport and the show they gave Orange Cassidy Mania weekend. Where else could he work? Honestly, I really don't know. Moxley is one of the most unknowable dudes in wrestling. He could show up at Battle of Los Angeles. He might sign a contract with AEW. Maybe all he'll do is deathmatch/hardcore promotions. I don't know. But whatever he does, I'm excited for it.

WWE put the chains on one of the most unique and talented wrestlers and personalities when it decided to present Moxley/Ambrose as a slapstick comedic foil to their "serious" Shield stars Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. If you want my real opinion on it, this was in the cards ever since WrestleMania 32, when WWE sold a hardcore match between Ambrose and Brock Lesnar, and Lesnar took exactly zero hardcore bumps. The barbed-wire bat and the chainsaw bequeathed to Ambrose by Mick Foley and Terry Funk respectively, were rendered useless. That was a failure of booking, in that if Lesnar wasn't going to take the fucking bumps, they shouldn't have started down that path. But really, WWE's loss will be the wrestling world at-large's gain.