That’s a question Wade Keller tries several times to get a straight answer on from the former Dean Ambrose about during the first part of their marathon interview.
What he gets, as you can tell in these answers from the episode of The Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast released today (June 1), is pretty much Jon Moxley saying, “well, it can’t be worse than it is with Vince McMahon in charge”.
When Keller asked if Moxley thinks Triple H’s success in NXT means he can run the bigger machine that is the main roster, he got:
“I mean, who else is there, you know? He’s clearly been preparing for this. When Vince isn’t there, he’s the guy you defer to, so... he’s got good ideas. His ideas are his ideas, but he’s a lot more - he’s very cerebral. He’s not like a super-open, collaborative, like ‘oh cool! do this, do that...’ He thinks about stuff a lot. But, I just think it’s a much better option, between the two of them, you know? [laughs]”
Asked if having The Game at the helm would change the WWE creative process which so frustrated Moxley, the AEW star said:
“I think he would be more open to giving people more freedom, but I think also - he’s smart, and sees things his way. So if he sees you doing something, and he envisions a better way, he’ll come over and be like, ‘hey, let me just ask you a question. Maybe we can do it this way?’ And a lot of the time you’re like, ‘oh, that’s even cooler!’ Because he like sees television and he’s, I guess, the closest thing to Vince that we have. You’d have to ask somebody in NXT that, you know, who’s just around that system... to give you a real, like, what it would look like, you know?”
As a follow-up, the host asks if people Moxley worked with who had been under Hunter in NXT were looking forward to him taking over Raw and SmackDown, or if call-ups said ‘count your blessings Vince is still alive.’ He still doesn’t get a firm yes or no:
“But it wouldn’t be like, it’s a free for all now. A lot of times, he’ll explain to you - like, there are times when I wanted to do stuff and he’ll be like, ‘no, we can’t do that,’ and I’ll be like ‘why not?’ you know, I want to like bleed everywhere or whatever it is, and he’ll be like, ‘well, if we do that, I understand you think it’s cool, but we will lose a ten million dollar sponsor,’ and that’s kind of hard to argue... so he’s not dumb. So it wouldn’t be like a free for all, but maybe it would be better. I don’t know.”
Reading between the lines of what Mox is saying here, my interpretation is that it would depend on whether or not Trips would be willing to tear down the infrastructure and bureaucracy McMahon has built up. Both men seem like they’re the final decision maker, and Moxley doesn’t seem to have a problem with that. It’s all the hoops you have to jump through to get to Vince, and extra work you have to do because of when/how his decisions are communicated.
Bottom line - Moxley isn’t willing to just say, “Yes, Triple H will save us all”. But given how often he pinpoints Vince as the problem at WWE - in his Talk Is Jericho interview & this one - and the Triple H-produced NXT product many of us prefer to Raw & SmackDown... it still seems like a change at the top of creative would be a positive thing for WWE.
Check out all of the 90 minute part 1 of Keller’s interview with fka Dean Ambrose here.