Dean Ambrose (now known as Jon Moxley) was recently a guest on Talk Is Jericho. During this podcast, he opened up on a wide variety of topics.
One of the most interesting topics was when he spoke about the promo that he cut on RAW about Roman Reigns’ cancer. For those who forget, Dean said on RAW that Roman would have to “answer to the man upstairs” for his actions.
Dean revealed that he was very hesitant to say it but was eventually convinced by Vince McMahon. Here is the quote (via Ringside News):
“Earlier I had to go into Vince because in this promo there’s a line that’s a very distasteful line taking a jab at my friend who had leukemia and was now going off to recover from that: Roman Reigns. Something that I don’t remember what the line, but I said I’m not saying that, are you kidding me? I’m going right to Vince about this one it is clearly a mistake.”
“I got into the production meeting at the time and said surely you don’t want me to say this and he’s like ‘Oh Roman’s part of the story we gotta make sure he’s still included you turned on him and Seth’ and he kinda explains it to me in like he says it’s a line about Roman you just include him. He kinda says it in an innocuous way so it’s like okay — it’s the Vince Jedi Mind Trick.”
Dean also revealed that there was a worse line about Roman that he refused to say. He wouldn’t reveal the line, but cited that WWE would have lost sponsors if he had said it. Here is a quote (via Wrestling INC)
“This promo also had a line about my actual friend who’s going through leukemia that Vince wanted me to say, that he tried to talk me into saying. This is where I absolutely drew the line. I said, ‘absolutely not.'”
“It is the worst line. I’m not going to say it on the air, I’ll tell you after we’re done. It would have been like a thing where someone would had to get fired, maybe me. They might have like lost sponsors, like the Susan G. Komen and all of that.
“I don’t know who wrote it, I don’t know if it was Vince himself. If it was a writer and he’s listening right not, ‘you should be ashamed of yourself.’ You wouldn’t believe it!”
On a related note, check out the highest-rated Dean Ambrose/ Jon Moxley matches of all time.
