During a recent appearance on the “Close Up” podcast, former AEW World Champion Jon Moxley discussed a wide range of pro wrestling topics, including the Death Riders, Marina Shafir’s talent, Wheeler Yuta getting his head shaved, and more.
You possibly can try some highlights from the podcast below:
On Wheeler Yuta getting his head shaved at AEW Grand Slam: Australia: “You’re only pretty much as good as your word, and him and Marina and Tony and Orange, they really put it on the road. They took an enormous risk. You already know, quite a lot of people wouldn’t need to risk the humiliation of being shaven in the course of the ring on live TV, beamed across your entire world in an arena filled with people. That takes guts. So I believe it’s an enormous win for everyone. I believe it shows Wheeler’s character that he took the chance, and he stepped up, and he took it on the chin, and day-after-day he looks within the mirror, he can know that he took it on the chin and he stayed true to his word. I believe that’s a victory.”
“Marina has grow to be my lieutenant, my head of security, the guts and soul of your entire operation. If every wrestler on this sport worked as hard each day as Marina Shafir, everybody can be a thousand times higher. The work ethic that she has, the approach to this game, living the life, not only talking about it but living it. Living the lifetime of an expert athlete, an expert wrestler. If she has an enormous match one night and I get up within the morning and it’s the afternoon because I sleep in, and I look out on the window and she or he’s down on the pool doing exercises and shadow boxing, after which I pull up on the constructing an hour later and she or he’s outside the constructing jumping rope. Looking like a pitbull, then that night, goes on the market and goes to war. She never turns it off.”
On Marina Shafir: “You’re only pretty much as good as your word, and him and Marina and Tony and Orange, they really put it on the road. They took an enormous risk. You already know, quite a lot of people wouldn’t need to risk the humiliation of being shaven in the course of the ring on live TV, beamed across your entire world in an arena filled with people. That takes guts. So I believe it’s an enormous win for everyone. I believe it shows Wheeler’s character that he took the chance, and he stepped up, and he took it on the chin, and day-after-day he looks within the mirror, he can know that he took it on the chin and he stayed true to his word. I believe that’s a victory.”
On The Death Riders: “I don’t think there’s anything I’ve ever done that I’m more pleased with in my profession than what we’ve built with The Death Riders. Death Riders means nothing; it’s just words put together. I prefer it since it’s form of that wrestling Japanglish because there was some kind of business with a jacket from Goodwill that said Death Riders that I believe was just like the motorcycle guys who ride around inside the massive steel ball on the carnival, which I’ve never done. So I don’t know what it means or where it’s come from, but in Japan, they began calling me the death rider. It’s a word which means nothing but to me, it means something now.”
On his motivations behind forming The Death Riders: “I don’t think I can be here if not for these people. I don’t know what I can be doing. I’d have been in jail at this point if not for this group of individuals. You already know, like, a few years ago, I’m looking around and I still go searching to this present day, I’m like, ‘I’m surrounded by clowns in every single place.’ And I hearken to people talk, and I’m like, ‘Do you even know what you’re talking about? Are we even talking about wrestling? I don’t think you even know what you’re talking about.’
“Sometimes, I believe George, the sound guy over here, is the one guy who has a clue what’s happening around here, and I said to myself, ‘This culture, this attitude doesn’t represent me. I don’t represent it. I’m not gonna get pulled on this direction.’ You possibly can’t change people, but you’ll be able to construct. So, I just decided that I’d construct the culture by myself. And it began with just me. ‘Okay, who’s next to me? Claudio is next to me, whom I’d trust with my life. He’s been my right-hand man for years. Wheeler, who is largely an adopted child of me. PAC, who’s an expert through and thru. You already know, these are the sorts of those who I start with.”