Dean Ambrose revelas why he left WWE at Talk is Jericho

TALK IS JERICHO PART 7

Jericho: Don't be an artist and be creative.

Mox: Don't worry - we've taken care of everything! You just show up. So you're just like oh, okay. So what do I do in my off-time? What do I have to think about? Uh... so you try to fill it with other things, and that's a recipe for a very unhappy person. A very unfulfilled existence. And I think just like a depression set in at some point, like not to minimize anybody who actually goes through like real depression - I remember like WedMD-ing it, cause there were days like, TV days where I'd be like, be in bed, wake up and just like stare at the ceiling and like, couldn't get out of bed. Like no motivation to work out, no motivation to do...

Jericho: Depression!

Mox: ...just dreading going, having this moment with the writer that I'm gonna have that I described, to Vince, like, it's crazy. The fog that has drifted slowly since it became real, that like - I am leaving, it's all good - to now, I'm like literally an entirely different person.

Jericho: They call it Stockholm Syndrome, where people are like in prison and they end up falling in love with their captor, and can't envision not being in prison and not being told what to do by the warden, for example. And I'm not saying it's like the same thing as WWE, but when you're in that system, you don't realize what it's like in the outside world. And when you get on the outside world, it's like, I can't believe it's this easy. I can't believe this is really how it can be, not in that world.

Mox: Yeah, it's crazy, man. Looking back on it now, I can't believe I hung in there that long. And it's a shame to think of like, I don't every want to be one of those "I could have been a contendah" guys who sit and bitch about the past like, what should have been. "I shoulda been on top but I got screwed by Hogan..." While I do think there was a lot of stuff they missed out on with me, I don't care. It's over. I don't think it was meant to happen. I think I was meant to be sitting here today, talking to you. Cause the ultimate goal, or the ultimate reward I got from WWE was that now, I'm sitting here with all my freedom, and I got to do that. And it's like, it's the ultimate gift because it's almost like, now I get to start over. It's like I'm 18 again. I can be anything I want to be, I can - as a wrestler, as a performer, as an artist - I can do anything. And now I have experience and stuff that I can... I'm starting ahead of the game now, you know?

Jericho: And you can also, we discussed this before, make a difference. You or I going back there, or you staying. It's the WWE. It's not going anywhere, it's the machine, it is what it is. We have a chance to actually change things in the business with AEW and be a big part of this new history.

Mox: Dude, it's very exciting. Like, to be able to be a difference-maker is such a - I haven't had that in, I can't even remember. One thing that I want to do is cause like, if I have something to prove, it's that I want to prove that your creative process, the WWE's creative process sucks. It does not work. It's absolutely terrible. And I've said that to Vince. I've said that to Hunter. I've said that to Michael Hayes. I think that - I can't even tell you how their system works. It's some kind of system of meetings that take place in Stamford with the home team, it's writers and producers and production meetings and nobody knows what's approved and what's not and like the bureaucratic red tape you have to go through to get anything approved is just - it's crazy. It doesn't work. It's killing the company. I think Vince is the problem. And not so much Vince, but Vince and whatever the structure that he built around himself, probably starting I'd imagine like 2002 after the sale of WCW, and he started building this infrastructure around himself - this team of writers and whatever and producers and however he does it, and this is how WWE is and this is what the product is, the product sucks. Great talent, amazing talent, none of this is their fault, you know? So I'm hoping, if I have a goal with AEW is that's we prove that Vince's way sucks. I mean this is not what I'm gonna focus on, because it's not about competing with WWE. I don't think that's any of our...