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Dean Ambrose seemed burned out in WWE but why did he decide to leave the company?

WWE has seen a lot of its stars leave the promotion and join rivals over the decades. WCW came and went, TNA came and went and now it is time to AEW to pick up some of these stars.

Normally, Vince McMahon is more than happy to let go of some of the smaller names. FTR were one of the best tag teams but they were released and ended up joining AEW.

Chairman of WWE Vince McMahon wants stars to stop using Twitch and Cameo
Chairman of WWE Vince McMahon (WWE)

However, one of the bigger shocks in this AEW vs WWE war was seeing Dean Ambrose, now Jon Moxley, leave the promotion.

Ambrose was a former WWE Champion and won several other titles in the promotion. He was also a member of The Shield, which featured Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins, and possibly one of the best singles stars in the promotion.

However, he seemed upset with the promotion and explained his stance on the Talk is Jericho podcast.

Why did Ambrose leave WWE?

Jericho also left WWE to become one of the big names on AEW, and Ambrose took his time to explain why he was done with McMahon’s promotion.

Jon Moxley AEW champion aew vs nxt ratings this week dynamite preview
Jon Moxley won the title from Chris Jericho at Revolution 2020 (Credit: AEW)

Moxley claimed that he wasn’t even concerned about going to a promotion that had a TV deal and was just done with WWE (h/t ESPN):

“Whether AEW exists or not, I was still leaving WWE. It was good to know the wrestling business was doing so well outside of WWE, but even if it wasn’t, I still would have left. If there was no other promotions to work for in the world, I still would have left WWE.

“If there were no other wrestlers, I would have just started my own promotion, started my own training school and trained my own opponents. I would have re-seeded the wrestling business from scratch if I had to. But the timing of it is just so crazy.”

Moxley also brought up how McMahon was killing the company and the creative process was one thing that he didn’t like any more.

The former champion brought up a couple of instances when he had to speak about the Leukaemia diagnosis that Roman Reigns was going through and that was where he drew the line.

Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns
Dean Ambrose (L) and Roman Reigns during SummerSlam 2015 (Image credit: Getty)

In fact, Moxley added that he knew he was leaving the company while rehabbing from an injury in 2018. He claimed that WWE would take away the thing that you love the most and another storyline where he was to get a rabies shot was the last straw for him.

Moxley went on to confirm that he didn’t even see the figure offered to him on a new contract as he rejected it.

The current AEW champion isn’t the first one who has been upset with WWE over its creative vision. Many have called it out in the past but McMahon rules over the company with an iron fist. WWE’s loss is AEW’s game and Moxley seems to be keen on holding his title for a while.

AEW does provide mode freedom when it comes to promos and is a lighter schedule than WWE too.

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