Jon Moxley details Renee Young's experience with COVID-19, his own concerns about contracting the virus, and how Taz made him feel better by taking a public dig at WWE.
2020 will forever be synonymous with COVID-19. The global pandemic has negatively impacted all facets of life and professional wrestling is no different.
WWE broadcaster Renee Young was the first WWE employee to publicly come forward and reveal that she tested positive for the virus. Because she is married to Jon Moxley, this also negatively impacted AEW television as Jon Moxley had to pull out of several events, including Fyter Fest where he was supposed to defend his AEW World Championship against Brian Cage.
Speaking with Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, Moxley detailed his frame of mind during Renee’s brief battle with the virus, including his own uncertainties and fears about how little is known of the virus.
“[Renee] came back from Orlando. Apparently somebody there had had it, so everybody had to get tested. So like her and like I or many people or however many of us got tested, she was negative,” Jon began. “The next morning, she was talking about, oh, 'I hope I don't have freakin' COVID, man.' that's what I'm like now. You have told me, you know, 'I'm thinking, what are the odds?'”
Moxley would say that after he came back from the gym the next day and his wife is still in bed, they decided to get tested. At this point, he had already decided to pull out of a Dynamite taping.
“We do the test. It takes about thirty-six hours, and we're literally going to bed. We're about to lay down in bed [at] like Midnight or something and the tests come back, they come back in an email. I look at mine and it says ‘negative.’ I'm thinking ours are going to be the same because we've been in super close contact,” he recalled. “So I get a negative and for like 30 seconds I'm going, 'well, shit, we're negative. I can probably get a 6 A.M. flight and still make TV. Alright, we're back on. I'll be at TV tomorrow. not 30 seconds later, she gets hers back and it's positive. So I'm just sitting there like, 'what do we do?' Because I didn't expect us to have different results.”
Moxley went on to say he considered going to a hotel but decided against it because he immediately chose to get another test and if he was positive, he didn't want to spread the virus around to hotel staff. Instead, he opted to stay home and sleep on the couch. A difficult task considering he had to listen to his wife’s coughing fits as she battled the virus.
“I just went down and slept on the couch and I just didn't know what to do,” he continued. “So I just immediately got tested again as soon as I could. But yeah, that whole thing sucked like she was bad for a couple of days. Some people don't get sick at all, some people get mildly sick. She got bad for a couple of days. She was just coughing a bunch and I was sleeping on a couch like listening to her coughing all night. Like I didn't sleep for like two days because I was scared.
“I'm not ashamed to admit I was, like, a little scared because we just know so little about this disease and it affects everybody so differently. I was doing all this research and I was talking to a specialist but it worked out good. Her case was probably average, you know, at best. Sick for a couple of days and then lingered a little bit, and now she is fine, so it all worked out fine. But yes, when I was, I was. I was I had fucking feelings about it, I'll tell you that.”
Regarding WWE's lack of testing before Renee Young tested positive, Jon Moxley didn't want to throw too many barbs but did question their mindset.
“I mean, what did you think was going to happen if you just never tested anybody? I mean, we were testing people from the get-go... I'm not saying -- there's no way to do this that's absolutely perfect and foolproof. But you have to do the absolute best you can. They've got a gazillion dollars and they couldn't afford a couple of tests?”
Regarding pulling out of Fyter, Jon Moxley would say that made him an extra upset. Fortunately, Taz made him feel better with his line about WWE running a “sloppy shop” on live television.
“Taz made me feel better though. Taz hit them with that 'sloppy shop' line, and then I was like, okay, hell yeah. Taz to the rescue baby, FTW.”
Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Renee Young has requested her release from WWE. You can learn more about that at this link.
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