Jon Moxley On The Shield Being Stiff In Their Early Days In WWE: ‘We Were Pasting Motherf—ers!’

Jon Moxley recalls the dog-eat-dog locker room that existed in WWE when The Shield first debuted.

Back in 2012, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, and Dean Ambrose made their WWE debut as The Shield. Their first Target was Ryback, who was in a feud with then-WWE Champion, CM Punk.

During his Starrcast show, Jon Moxley recalls advice from CM Punk that ultimately led to “The Hounds Of Justice” having a more hard-hitting style on WWE TV.

“We were pasting these motherfuckers at the beginning,” Jon began. “I remember the first night we were attacking Ryback and I remember CM Punk pulled us aside and being like, Because at this point we were like with him, and him being like, this is probably just paranoia because Ryback is a sweetheart but he was like, ‘People are going to be told not to sell for you. Somebody is probably in Ryback’s ear telling him not to sell for you. So make sure he does.’ So that was all we needed to hear. I was like, ‘well, fuck him then.’ So we literally just beat the shit out of him.”

Moxley admits that this attitude was amplified by the fact that back then, developmental talent didn’t get too many chances to shine on the main roster. These three were not about to let their opportunity slip away.

“It was a different, more tense locker room back then. Guys didn’t get opportunities as much. If you were in FCW, your chances of getting out and getting a spot were slim. And if you did, being successful at it and not getting buried and swallowed up really quickly were slim,” he continued. “You had like the top guys, like the Cenas and Ortons and all them. And for new young guys to come right into the mix was pretty rare and we were not gonna let it get taken away.”

At AEW Full Gear, Jon Moxley emerged victoriously from a war against Kenny Omega. Full results of that event can be found here.

If you use any of the above quotes, please credit Starrcast, with a h/t to Fightful for the quotes.