Jon Moxley Felt He Had Nothing Left To Lose After Leaving WWE, Recalls Following Hiroshi Tanahashi

After Jon Moxley officially left WWE at the end of April, his first match was for NJPW. And heading into the match, Moxley was surprisingly calm.

Moxley was revealed as the man behind the videos aimed at Juice Robinson, setting up a clash between the two at the finals of NJPW Best Of The Super Junior XXVI for the IWGP United States Champion. It was Moxley’s first match in over a month as his last WWE bout took place on April 21, 2019.

Speaking on AEW Unrestricted, Moxley recalled the feeling he had as he waited for his match against Juice.

“I’m following Hiroshi friggin’ Tanahashi, who is the John Cena of Japan. I couldn’t picture what I was going to do or how I was going to wrestle. I thought, ‘I’m going to empty my mind of everything and not have any expectations and not try hard to be something because people see through that. I don’t want to try too hard to be something new. I just want to relax.’ I was remarkably calm. I think it’s because I’d already given up everything. There was nothing left to lose. In my mind, I think the whole world thinks I suck already. Two minutes into the match, all these gears in my brain start clicking. I’m beating the hell out of Juice Robinson – he was one of my buddies from Tampa, which is great. I couldn’t ask for a better first opponent than him — it’s this wild fight, there’s blood, there’s an energy in the building. It all came back to me. ‘Oh yeah, this is how I used to wrestle all the time. This is what I naturally do. If you throw me out there with no plan, this is what happens. This feels so good.’ After the response in the building and when we got to the back, ‘I’m fucking back.’ I’m just having the time of my life,” he said.

Moxley would defeat Robinson to win the IWGP United States Title on that night and has continued to wrestle for NJPW and AEW, where he is the reigning World Champion.

Speaking to Fightful in an exclusive interview, Moxley revealed just how happy he’s been over the past year since leaving WWE. You can find his full comments by clicking here.

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