YMMV / Jon Moxley

• Audience-Alienating Era: His long-awaited heel turn in WWE started off in dramatic fashion, turning on Seth Rollins the night Roman Reigns left WWE due to his real-life leukemia diagnosis. It then devolved into a germaphobe Bane gimmick, killing off most of the fan interest in his rivalry with Rollins. The heel turn was so bad that Ambrose himself would later confirm fan speculation that it had been a major factor in him deciding to leave the company. After WWE took the unusual step in acknowledging Ambrose's then-impending departure after rumors of it were first reported, he was slowly retconed into resembling his old character.
• Badass Decay: After losing the WWE Championship in 2016 and moving to Raw the following year, Ambrose had lost all the momentum he had since the Shield broke up in 2014 and lost most of his matches. His Lunatic Fringe gimmick was also toned down during this period. By the summer of 2017, he had been relegated to the tag team division while Rollins and Reigns continued their singles runs, even after the Shield reunited. At most, his role was to serve as the punching bag for whoever the other two with were feuding with at the time. It got worse when Ambrose was absent for months in 2018 and when he returned, he continued to work in the tag team division and only held the Intercontinental Championship for a brief moment. His heel turn was considered a disaster that killed most of his remaining credibility. After the 2019 Royal Rumble, it became clear that Ambrose's contract with the company would expire after WrestleMania 35 and he would not be renewing it due to creative differences. Until then, Ambrose was largely forgotten by the WWE and the only matches he won were in tag team matches alongside the Shield. Thankfully after his release, he returned to his violent Jon Moxley persona and became AEW's top star, rivaled only by Kenny Omega (and later MJF).
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Ever since he won the World Heavyweight Championship, he's slowly morphed into this, which can admittedly be quite common for a lot of guys who win the world title for the first time. You have his devoted fans who believe he's absolutely doing a good job and deserves the push he's getting. Then you have wrestling fans who never liked Ambrose to begin with and criticize him for being overrated and/or limited in the ring, in addition to being unworthy of being world champion. You also have fans who like Ambrose but claim that he's been so neutered by jobbing to Reigns and Lesnar, along with WWE not pulling the trigger on him during the height of his popularity in 2014, that he can never truly be a credible world champion. Some fans accuse him of becoming complacent on the top and putting less effort into the matches. And of course, there are fans who say they loved Ambrose back when he was still in The Shield or when he had his first solo run but have turned on him now and see him as being a terrible world champion. Basically, his world championship run has divided wrestling fans into at least a half dozen or so different camps where opinions on Dean Ambrose are scattered all over the place.
  • Ambrose also didn't stand much of a chance when after SummerSlam 2016 he went into a feud with AJ Styles. At the PPV, Ambrose had a lackluster and disappointing match with Dolph Ziggler while AJ had a MOTY contender with John Cena (who he beat clean). AJ was one of the hottest acts around after that, so when he feuded with Ambrose afterwards, most were on his side because they wanted to see him as champ over Ambrose. For some it was simply a case of AJ over Ambrose while still being a fan of Ambrose. It also didn't help that in another example of bizarre face-heel booking on WWE's part, Ambrose was the one using a jobber to repeatedly humiliate Styles with the help and support of management.
  • The exact moment where fans became split down the middle for Ambrose seemed to be a podcast interview Ambrose had with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. While Austin himself had his fair share of detractors who felt he crossed the line by repeatedly trying to get Dean to talk about his past, a good segment of fans also turned against Ambrose, claiming how Dean was being lazy, apathetic, unprofessional, and disrespectful to Austin. Also somewhat related to the Styles vs Ambrose feud where a lot of fans jumped from the Ambrose bandwagon to the Styles bandwagon, it didn't help matters that AJ Styles also had an interview with Austin, who asked him just as many hardball questions about his difficult childhood past as he did Ambrose but AJ appeared to handle himself a lot better and was more open to discussing his past. Basically, after the Stone Cold interview, fans either saw Ambrose as a sympathetic guy who overcame the odds and should be respected for not wanting to talk about his past or a lazy, worthless bum who has no idea how to conduct himself as world champion, with very little middle ground.
    • This gets even Harsher in Hindsight when it was revealed in May 2019 in an interview that Austin didn't even know that Ambrose had asked him not to bring up his past/personal life. Apparently, the producer that Ambrose had talked to didn't communicate the request to Austin, and so when the topic was brought up, Austin was rightfully annoyed that his guest refused the topic and Ambrose was rightfully pissed that they hadn't respected his wishes.
  • While his return to the independent scene and entry into AEW were big Win Back the Crowd moments for him for the first few years, Jon Moxley has firmly drifted back into this status in his post-WWE career, especially in light of his match against Effy in GCW courting a lot of controversy. He's still really popular and whenever he's in the ring at AEW, he firmly has the crowd in the palm of his hands. But he's steadily attracted more and more critics who accuse him of being an Ungrateful Bastard who trashes WWE and Vince in interviews despite meeting Renee there and getting to make a big enough name for himself there to have his creatively freer AEW career. And he's steadily accumulated more criticism for being a "garbage wrestler" who relies on blood, weapons, hardcore gimmicks, and shock value (ie: his homoerotic risque moments with Effy in the ring or getting his head skewered in New Japan Pro-Wrestling), leading to some fans to conclude that Vince and Brock Lesnar were fully vindicated in the end to either not push Dean as strongly as the other Shield members or to turn down all his Wrestlemania ideas.
• Broken Base: One of the most discussed topics over the years is his in-ring skills. Is Moxley a great wrestler with decent talent and needs the guidance of WWE's structured storytelling to bring it out of him? Or does the WWE only stiffle the talent he had, working much better with the freer hand in AEW and NJPW? Or is he just a mid level amateur with skills equal to the likes of Miz and hides it by doing the hardcore stuff and bleeding in a lot of his matches? From his first WWE world title run up until his current AEW career, this has been a major topic of discussion and disagreement.
• Character Rerailment: Seems to be the general consensus since debuting at AEW Double or Nothing. His run in NJPW especially, culminating with him winning the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship in 2024.
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • The places where he hid so he could ambush Rollins: Under a table, in a goddamn car trunk, and in one of the presents at Hulk Hogan's birthday party!
  • And he weaponised a hotdog cart. And we don't just mean in the sense that he rammed it into someone, either.
  • His TLC match against Bray Wyatt was this, full stop.
  • His Asylum match against Chris Jericho at Extreme Rules 2016. Most of the match had been rather plodding and felt like it was overstaying its welcome,^ExplanationA backstage segment had been cut, giving the match 10 more minutes to run with the premise of the weapons hanging above the ring (including a potted plant) running thing. But then Dean grabs an orange bucket. You'd think it was just a bucket, right? Nope, turns out something's inside it. It's a black bag...filled with THUMB TACKS. The last five minutes turn out to be intense, with multiple teases as to who's going in them. Jericho's Code Breaker gets countered by Dean slamming him onto the tack...of course Dean hits Dirty Deeds on Jericho, landing partially on the tacks himself. Dean wins.
• Critical Dissonance: The days of Ambrose/Moxley being universally beloved and being viewed as the one Shield member to have the most pro-wrestling success are long over but even now, he's still pretty popular with live audiences in AEW and the independent wrestling scene, with Moxley always having the arena audience in the palm of his hands. However, once you get to the realm of official and anonymous online wrestling critics, you'll start to feel a very sharp divide on opinions over the former Dean Ambrose. Moxley is very highly regarded by esteemed wrestling commentators such as Dave Meltzer and the members of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter but in other corners of the IWC like with Jim Cornette or just anonymous online commentators, those people love to dogpile on Moxley and attack him for his in-ring abilities, his character, his style of deathmatch/hardcore wrestling, his bleeding, and almost anything you can think of. So while Jon Moxley isn't quite the phenomenon he once was during his Shield glory days, he's settled into the niche of still being popular with live audiences while dividing wrestling critics into those who either love or hate him intensely with little middle ground.
  • A particularly striking and noticeable example of this was his winning the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship from Tetsuya Naito at Windy City Riot. Critical reactions online were divided, with Moxley receiving some harsh rebukes from the online critics for ending Naito's first world title reign at little over three months before he could have a more fulfilling title reign with it. However, once Moxley showed up on the 4/17/2024 edition of Dynamite with the title, most of the casual live audiences there either didn't know or didn't care about the situation with Naito and happily peppered Moxley with "YOU DESERVE IT!" chants like he'd just won his first world title at Wrestlemania.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • His feud with Seth Rollins served as the kickstarter for this trope. Not that he wasn't one in NXT and in the Shield, but he has become this BIG TIME ever since he started letting out more of his Ax-Crazy personality again towards (and after) the end of the Shield run. WWE wasn't shown to have any long-term plans for him, and despite his popularity with the fans, he always seemed the member of the Shield WWE had the least faith and interest in. Part of this may have been that he spent most of his career taking part in the kind of hardcore deathmatches that WWE really don't want to be associated with, but mostly it was because he was standing next to Vince McMahon's new anointed one (Roman Reigns), and Triple H's golden boy (Rollins). That being said, they knew Dean has a sizable following, so they always cut away to him in the live segments just to remind you he's there, and later got a short program with Triple H headed for a WrestleMania Street Fight with Brock Lesnar (Major established stars like John Cena and Randy Orton being unavailable for that WrestleMania due to injury probably helps).
  • There is a reason why Dean is considered the most popular member of The Shield. Seth Rollins is popular with hardcore fans but since he's a heel he's hated by casual fans. Roman Reigns, with his controversial mega-push and the company's desperate attempts to make him Samoan John Cena, is hated by hardcore fans and a significant amount of casual fans. Dean is the only one of the group to be well-liked by both sections of the base. In fact, when Daniel Bryan retired, Ambrose became the most popular face on the full-time roster. Many speculate this is why he was last to become WWE World Heavyweight Champion — to make his win and subsequent pop as memorable as possible.
  • It was only two months into his title reign before people started saying Ambrose already had the best and most interesting reign out of all three members of The Shield, and that was during his first feud after Rollins and Reigns, with Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler had been a jobber to the stars for the last year and a half despite being one of the most decorated wrestlers in the company and a former two-time world champion. Despite all that making Ziggler an Ensemble Darkhorse of his own in the eyes of the fans, out of the six possible opponents Ambrose could have, he was easily one of the least credible, and many wondered how in the hell they were going to make Ziggler a viable and compelling contender for the title, especially after the company had just pushed Finn Bálor to the moon on Raw by having him pin Roman Reigns clean to become one of the contenders for the newly created WWE Universal Championship against Seth Rollins. The following week on WWE SmackDown, it only took Ambrose and Ziggler one promo to make their match feel as big the dream match between Rollins and Bálor; by the end of the show, people were more invested in it than the marquee match between Randy Orton and Brock Lesnar.
  • Ambrose was so popular that in 2018, every time he teased a Face–Heel Turn the fans cheered for him. He was only able to successfully turn them against him by turning on the one night they would never be able to accept it: the night Roman Reigns relinquished the Universal Championship and took a hiatus to battle his second round of leukemia.
• Estrogen Brigade: He's the closest WWE had to a "bad boy" that isn't a heel, so this was inevitable. It's been said Dean Ambrose has some of the most rabid fan girls in the company. Women love him.
• Fan Nickname: Uncle Deano.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • A lot of fans love to ship Dean Ambrose and Renee Young. This is not helped by the Ship Tease between the two in on-screen interviews since he turned face with The Shield, nor the possible case of Romance on the Set this seems to stem from. Renee later confirmed that they were dating in early 2015. Dean has made a few appearances on Total Divas, which gives us a look into their relationship, and they tied the knot in early 2017.
  • When it comes to slash, Ambrollins (Dean Ambrose/Seth Rollins) reigns supreme, though there's a good deal of Ambreigns (Dean Ambrose/Roman Reigns) out there too (considering their real-life True Companions relationship that also extends to the rest of the Anoa'i clan). Not to mention that The New Day seem to ship Ambreigns pretty hard.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Speaking of Wyatt, Ambrose's feud with him had more of this than one would expect. During TLC 2014, after he elbow-dropped Wyatt through the Spanish Announcers' Table, he actually kissed Bray's forehead◊, before beating the crap out of him further.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Deano started his and Roman Reigns promo after Seth Rollins' betrayal of The Shield saying that "we had a cancer inside of us, little did we know...". Cue 2018, and Roman is forced to relinquish the Universal Title due to an ongoing battle with leukemia.
  • While it was already pretty damn harsh and considered appallingly tasteless even at the time, the promo Dean cut on Seth after turning heel where he said that even Roman will "have to answer to the guy upstairs" after he was forced to take time out to recover from leukemia was even more horrible than initially thought. Out of kayfabe, Dean had gotten so distracted with trying to get a truly stupid line replaced (something about needing to bring a pooper-scooper to LA) that he hadn't noticed the shot at Roman until it was too late and Vince was able to persuade him with his "Jedi mind tricks" to go through with it. As soon as Dean said the line he felt physically ill, and this was what put the final nail in his decision to quit WWE. Even worse, the next week Vince wanted him to take another shot at Roman, one even worse than the first one, which Dean just flat-out refused to do, the line supposedly being so bad that if he had delivered it then WWE would have lost sponsors and Vince would have been forced to sack Dean and/or whoever writer came up with it on the spot in order to save face.
  • Relating to this, his whole Chronicle special made during his return to the ring in 2018 and lasting until the first few weeks of his heel turn as a whole can be considered this. Since according to him in a podcast with Jericho several months later he was breaking down from the creative strain WWE was putting him through and the botched heel turn is what sealed the deal for him to jump ship to AEW. This especially goes towards his speech near the middle of the special talking about how much he loves wrestling with his brothers and stating how they'll always be his brothers no matter what happens and talking about him feeling like the tour they're on as The Shield may be the last one. Everyone assumed Ambrose just had a bad feeling because Roman Reign's leukemia announcement happened not all that much longer but it could have been Ambrose finally deciding he was really leaving the company. The special did read like his gradual descent as a character with everything falling apart around him. With him becoming more angry and agitated near the end it's not that hard to consider his behavior wasn't just him acting. In fact he repeatedly states to the camera how much he just wants to wrestle and not have to worry about everything else outside of the ring which was another clear indication of how unhappy he was while wrestling in WWE. It goes to show how much different things could have turned out if Vince or any of the other top brass at WWE had been paying closer attention.
  • Moxley's All Out promo about CM Punk declaring that people should enjoy Punk while he's still around because Punk had a fragile ego, body, and mind can hit hard as a double whammy for both men. Later on, Punk would go on to have multiple hostile physical confrontations in AEW with other wrestlers that led to his eventual release and just when things seemed to get better for Punk when he returned to WWE, he got injured with torn triceps before he could even compete at Wrestlemania 40. For Jon, this can come off as not only prophetic in a bad way for Punk but for him as well, because eventually Moxley revealed in an interview that his own doctor told him he had the arthritis of a 70 year old when he's only in his late 30s.
• He Really Can Act:
  • While 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown was considered your standard WWE B-Movie fare (though many state it's better than what they usually put out), Ambrose was considered to be a highlight of the film with some definite talent for acting. This sentiment only increased when an episode of Swerved came out on the WWE Network and showed him acting as a crazy tourist at Universal's City Walk for a faux-prize promotion in order to prank fans. He managed to convince people so well that when he finally said "Swerved!" said fans had a delayed reaction.
    • Happened again after the release of Cagefighter: Worlds Collide where he played the villain. Many viewers singled him out as a major highlight enjoying his cocky, arrogant character who had a couple great one liners.
  • His WWE Chronicle episode. A character study of Ambrose, from his return to the night of Face–Heel Turn, it is a fantastic piece that blurs the line between kayfabe and reality and really showcases Ambrose's acting chops. Many fans outright stated that Ambrose deserved an Emmy for his performance.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Back during The Shield days, everyone pegged Ambrose as a career heel. By 2016, he was one of the most popular faces on the roster, if not THE most popular, and eventually its top face. For added hilarity, everyone pegged his future Arch-Enemy Seth Rollins as a career face. Rollins ended becoming the top heel in the company.
  • Crossed with Heartwarming in Hindsight, the fact that his harsh background has left him as such a grounded and mature person yet so talented at portraying a realistically mentally damaged character that it's become his stock and trade in the wrestling business.
• Ho Yay:
  • Quite a few fans picked up on some early on between him and Seth Rollins, dating back to their FCW feud. While Roman Reigns did often spear people as part of his Big Brother Instinct towards his teammates, Seth was usually the first to leap in and defend Dean during matches. Dean and Seth also walked together to ringside during their entrances (despite Roman being positioned as Seth's tag team partner for awhile), pulled one another to safety after matches, and generally would hang all over one another. During one Ambrose match with Daniel Bryan, during which Bryan busted Dean's face open right under his eye, Seth Rollins acted like a concerned boyfriend, even trying to come to Ambrose's defense, risking both a DQ and a beatdown from Bryan's tag-team partner Kane. That the borderline-psychotic Dean Ambrose seemed genuinely fond and protective of Rollins is surely significant, as well.
  • During the Shield's face run, Seth and Dean began doing stereo suicide dives, and even resorted to crazy dives to save one another from Randy Orton and Triple H's assault as the four fought increasingly further away from the ring during the six-man tag match at Extreme Rules 2014. It seemed they were developing into a first-rate tag team of their own while working alongside a burgeoning singles juggernaut in Roman. Perhaps this goes toward explaining Dean's absolutely visceral hatred towards Seth for his betrayal—he's a borderline Man Scorned, and not in a mockable Matt Hardy-ish way. During a handicap match against Rollins and Kane, Dean finally got Seth by himself after incapacitating Kane, only to grab a page from Obi-Wan and scream this in his face:
    "I loved you, Seth! You were my brother!"
  • This came back in the Destruction of the Shield DVD, when Rollins admitted that he and Ambrose are wrestling soulmates.
  • There's a curiously intimate moment during their Lumberjack match where Ambrose caresses Rollins' back◊ as Rollins is trying to pin him.
  • Things between Ambrose and Rollins heated up even more during the summer of 2017 after both got into feuds with the Miztourage. After on-and-off teaming, bickering, and generally acting liking Tsunderes to each other, things culminated in the August 14, 2017 episode of RAW, which saw Dean and Seth acting like a pair of bitter, jilted, ex-lovers that both want to get back together but have burned each other so many times that they just don't know how to really forgive. The entire segment was dripping with Belligerent Homoerotic Foe Romance Subtext, to the point even male wrestling fans were telling them to screw already, lampshading their support of said homoeroticism by mentioning how much they wanted to see two guys "fisting" each other. Eventually, the tension boiled over and the two got into a brawl, only to finally reunite and "fist" after getting attack by Sheamus and Cesaro. The following Sunday, they won the RAW Tag Team Championship, which only fuels the fire even more. In fact, many wrestling fans commented that Ambrose and Rollins' reunion storyline was the second gayest storyline in 2017, after the reunion of the Golden☆Lovers Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi, whose entire gimmick is based on the Homoerotic Subtext between them.
  • Of course, Ambrose and Reigns have this with each other, even after the breakup of The Shield. This was especially prevalent during mid-late 2015 while combating the newly reunited Wyatt Family together, where Ambreigns seemed to be concocting some epic bromance together and Dean acting like jealous boyfriend when Randy Orton joined up with them briefly before Orton got injured again. For that matter, Rollins and Reigns were starting to develop some too during their brief feud before Rollins got injured, which may owe to Ambrolleigns having a surge of popularity. Hilariously lampshaded by The New Day on the 2-1-2016 episode of Raw.
    Big E: Ambrose!
    Woods: Reigns!
    Kingston: Ambreigns!
    Woods: Hey, that's what they call them on Tumblr and all those fanfiction sites!
  • According to Dean, Roman tastes like cinnamon. No, wait, he meant SMELLS!
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Aside from Renee, as well as Seth Rollins (see Ho Yay above for details), he's also been shipped with William Regal and, of all people, Bray Wyatt.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Many people had this reaction towards the idea of WWE seriously pushing Ambrose, even after he won the title. Many were convinced he was a transitional champion at best... until he pinned Roman Reigns cleanly to retain the championship, to the delight of the fanbase.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Nope." ^explanationThe Shield's first promo on the November 26, 2012 episode of Raw, with Dean Ambrose's face right after he gave this one-word answer to a question Michael Cole asked them in the interview.
  • His vest, apparently. It even has a Tumblr blog dedicated to it.
  • Two words: Titty Master. ^explanationIn a match in 2013, it was discovered that Dean Ambrose had the words "Titty Master" written on his wrist tape (Right Hand;◊ Left Hand◊). The IWC ran with this, making "Titty Master" his unofficial nickname and making all sorts of Titty Master macros. Turns out it was a joke based on Dean frequently wrestling Big E. Langston, a big man with a big chest, during the ongoing European tour at that time, including the very match in which that picture was taken.
  • Dean. Fucking. Ambrose.
  • Dean stole Roman's cousins.^explanationAfter the 2016 WWE draft, the Shield Triple Threat match at Battleground wasn't just to determine who was the best of the former Hounds of Justice, but which brand would be host to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, with Rollins and Reigns both representing Raw and Ambrose representing SmackDown. When Ambrose pinned Reigns to retain the championship, the SmackDown roster came out to celebrate, including the Usos—who hoisted Ambrose on their shoulders as a triumphant hero. While not entirely out of the blue since it's well-known that the Anoa'i clan are close with Ambrose through his friendship with Reigns both on and off the screen, given the emphasis on Reigns' family ties since his push first kicked into high gear and especially the Usos' zeal in helping Reigns in his title reign a couple months earlier against AJ Styles, Karl Anderson, and Luke Gallows? Many found the role that Reigns' cousins played in the celebration of the man who pinned him in the big championship match to be either hilarious or petty, depending on their sense of humor and/or perspective on Reigns following his Wellness suspension.
    • Dean is an honorary Samoan.^explanationAgain, because of Ambrose's close association with members of the Anoa'i family. It's often been joked that Ambrose is the only Samoan in the company besides Samoa Joe that isn't related to that family by blood. This has only intensified since the 9/20/16 episode of Talking Smack, in which Ambrose pointed out that he runs with Samoans and Jack Swagger.
  • Arrive. Dirty Deeds. Leave.^explanationOn the 12/6/16 edition of SmackDown, Dean Ambrose interrupted the opening segment to get into the ring, hit James Ellsworth (who had cost him a title match the previous Sunday at TLC) with a Dirty Deeds, then walk back out. The Stone Cold comparisons came immediately.
  • How long can Justin Roberts hold Jon Moxley's first name for?
  • Jon Moxley blading. ^explanationMoxley has been repeatedly criticized for blading himself and getting covered in blood in what seems to be every single match he has in AEW. This has become the subject of many jokes, with some jokingly claiming that Mox bleeds like a pig even in the most minor of bumps.
• Mis-blamed: After an infamous appearance on the Stone Cold Podcast, in which the discussions turned quite awkward and Dean looked quite uncomfortable throughout it, the show wasn't renewed for the WWE Network again, leading some to believe that the disatorous interview caused the show to be cancelled. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, however, said that this wasn't true and that it was planned to be the final episode anyways, though he did feel guilty afterwards for pushing Dean a bit too much.
• Moral Event Horizon: Turning on Seth Rollins on the night Roman Reigns announced he was going on hiatus for leukemia recovery. It is so far, the only thing that has gained Dean legitimate heat from the fans.
• Narm: A lot of his moveset has been criticized for looking ridiculous (and no, not in the 'lunatic' way) and unintentionally hilarious. The biggest contender has to be Ambrose's punches which are notoriously weak-looking.
• Never Live It Down: After leaving WWE, Moxley's built a reputation for himself after gaining more creative freedom for blading and bleeding in nearly all of his matches, to the point that bleeding once per match is probably the biggest thing he's known for from AEW onwards.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • In the 2006 Royal Rumble, he held the torch as one of The Undertaker's druids.
  • He also appeared on Velocity shortly afterward as one-half of a tag team jobbing to MNM. One half of MNM became his own example of the trope, appearing in 2014 as one-half of Seth Rollins's security detail.
• Rooting for the Empire: As part of The Shield before they turned face. He and Rollins each had followings from before hitting WWE; and upon their debut, their immediate course of action was to defend their ultra-popular fellow former indy star CM Punk from transparently pro-establishment babyfaces the likes of John Cena and Ryback. They were practically asking for this to be the case.
• Shocking Moments: Mox making his surprise debut at AEW's first PPV, Double or Nothing.
• Signature Scene:
  • The last match of FCW before transitioning into NXT, where Ambrose absolutely wrecks William Regal's face with a knee trembler.
  • Money in the Bank 2016: Finally capturing the WWE World Heavyweight Championship by cashing in on Seth Rollins, finally getting his revenge for Rollins' betrayal of the Shield.
  • The August 14, 2017 episode of RAW, which saw him and Rollins finally burying the hatchet and reuniting as a team.
  • August 13, 2018: his return from injury, helping Rollins take down Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler.
  • October 22, 2018: In one of the most shocking endings to RAW in years, Ambrose makes his long-awaited Face–Heel Turn against Rollins, the same night their other best friend Roman Reigns was forced to relinquish the Universal Title and go on hiatus from wrestling to battle his recurrent leukemia.
  • May 25, 2019 was the night the "Deano leaving WWE is a work" rumours were finally put to rest with his cameo at All Elite Wrestling's Double or Nothing show, by destroying both Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho.
  • February 29th 2020 at AEW Revolution: The Moxley Era begins with him capturing the All Elite Wrestling World Title against Chris Jericho.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: His WrestleMania Street Fight with Brock Lesnar. The issues are many: After weeks of awesome promos by Ambrose, he basically got squashed by Lesnar, not even in a way that could've at least made Ambrose look Defiant to the End, while Lesnar seemed to just mock him the entire time. The commentary didn't put Ambrose over either, instead chuckling and counting how many times Dean went to "Suplex City." Ambrose didn't even get a chance to use any real weapons, which sort of defeated the entire purpose of the match. Furthermore, the revelation that The Rock's segment went about a half hour (where he basically dicked around with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, a flamethrower, and The Wyatt Family) led to fans basically going apoplectic: why did we need to waste that much time with The Rock, which did no one any favors, instead of trying to build a new star?
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: He's responsible for ending it, actually. Ambrose winning the title ended a long chain of heel and/or majorly disliked champions. He's been proclaimed as the first true face champion since Daniel Bryan himself. However, WWE had beaten down their fans so much that they had become extremely pessimistic and cynical and were convinced Ambrose was going to be a transitional champion. It wasn't until Ambrose pinned both Rollins and Reigns clean to win the title did people realize they were gonna get a nice, long reign with a popular face, much to their delight.
  
  He previously played this straight, during his insultingly one-sided WrestleMania 32 feud with Brock Lesnar. Despite Dean's epic promos throughout, Brock always came out on top during their weekly encounters... which was ultimately no different during their final match — despite Dean's favor and support from Legends like Mick Foley and even Terry Funk. The feud was constructed similar to The Undertaker's summer-2002 mini-feud with Jeff Hardy: the big violent dastardly heel repeatedly beats the hell out of the smaller rising superstar plucky babyface but the face never stays down and even challenges the heel to fight him in his type of match with grand stage and/or stakes involved. The heel wins in the end, but the face still gains credibility by showing his resiliency and utter refusal to give up. Yet unlike Hardy, who came damn close to snatching the Undisputed Championship on several occasions, refused to stay down after both the match itself and a post-match beating from Taker, an act which shocked Big Evil himself into showing him respect and turning back into a face, Ambrose was never portrayed as standing a chance for more than two seconds in the big match, and he never received a gesture of respect from Lesnar. Fans were consequently left burned-out and frustrated (no surprise there) by this depressing and pointless feud. The only saving grace was Dean's aforementioned title reign soon afterward, which was widely speculated to be a much-needed Author's Saving Throw after this anyway.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Like his former Shield brothers after Survivor Series 2015 opened up a floodgate of resentment against the company for the terrible booking the entire roster seems to be going through. Dean's the most popular of the three, however he's been stuck in the upper midcard for most of his singles career. However, he doesn't get this as much as the other two because it's very clear the company doesn't actually hate him (in fact, Vince has stated in many interviews that he likes Ambrose, and Hunter has a soft spot for all his NXT talent, former and current), and he was considered on the cusp of being main event talent. It's more likely his push was being delayed because they want Roman Reigns to get over as a face first, whereas Seth Rollins merely benefited from circumstances surrounding the controversy of Reigns' push and got his push as a result of that. Dean, being more over than Roman as a face and wildly popular in general, would've eclipsed Reigns if they were to give him a full-on main event push then, to the point that they would never be able to get Reigns over as THE top face of the company like they want to, as for all of Ambrose's talent and popularity, he simply lacked the look corporate wanted in their top face. While many were willing to be patient and wait for Dean's push, many point out that they'd tried to get Roman Reigns over for practically the entire year, yet have screwed up his booking so badly that it'd be impossible for him to get completely over as a face, and since Ambrose is the most over face on the roster behind Daniel Bryan (and, should Bryan's in-ring career truly be over, the most over face in general), it would've been logical to just give Ambrose his main event push then as a face and just have Reigns get over as a heel and then turn him face later. This argument also postulated that they should feud, which is what everyone wanted anyway after Seth Rollins got injured, putting a kibosh on the potential Rolleigns feud. However, the ending to the aforementioned PPV had him squarely stuck in the midcard for the foreseeable future, which many were not happy about since his potential spot as Reigns' feud got taken by Sheamus, who many believe ran his course as a main event star years ago, and whom no one wanted to be champion at all.
  • It's popped up again in the latter half of December 2017, after Dean injured his triceps at TLC in October, wrestled with it for two months, and then had to go in for emergency surgery. The injury was unforeseeable, but it's clear that WWE was heavily relying on him to carry both the Shield reunion and a chunk of the tag-team division with Seth Rollins. Now that Dean's on the shelf for an unknown amount of time, Creative seems to be throwing everything they can against the wall. Roman's feud with Samoa Joe looks to be entertaining and potentially great drama for the Royal Rumble, but Seth is stuck teaming with Jason Jordan - a guy who spent weeks building a heel turn and feud with his "father" Kurt Angle, a guy who is talented but not seen as anywhere near the level of either Seth or Dean, and a guy who Seth never really liked before mid-December. Putting the Raw tag-team belts on Seth and Jordan seems to be exacerbating the ire of fans, who are irked that while the Roman-Dean brotherhood seems as strong as ever, Dean and Seth had been on a losing streak against the Bar (most of which were pins of Dean), and after Dean gets hurt, Jordan just steps right in and wins the tag belts with no problems. It makes Jordan look stronger than he is, Seth look like he's stepped back into his 2015ish weasel persona, caring only about gold, and Dean the guy who was weighing the Shield down and can be easily replaced. They tried to salvage this by having Jordan come off as increasingly arrogant that he could replace Dean while drawing the ire of Roman and Seth to the point they can hardly stand him, but this went nowhere because Jordan got injured as well.
• Win Back the Crowd: Since becoming WWE Champion, Ambrose steadily found himself sliding into Base-Breaking Character territory and towards the final stages of his WWE run, particularly during his final heel turn, damn near everybody was complaining about his on-screen character, from haters who never liked Ambrose to even fans who were sympathetic to him as both a person and a wrestler but still otherwise thought his Vince-written character was god-awful at that point. After a somewhat ignominious end to his WWE run where he was humiliated on-screen by Bobby Lashley, Ambrose left the company and reinvented himself as Jon Moxley in the international scene with AEW, NJPW, and various other independent promotions, winning back a lot of fans and causing them to see him in a new light, as both a wrestler and a story-teller, culminating in him earning his first 5 star match by Dave Meltzer in the Summer of 2019 only a few months after he left WWE, being awarded Wrestler of the Year in 2019 by Sports Illustrated, becoming Number 1 on Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Top 500 Wrestlers, and being named Wrestler of the Year also by PWI (the last two in 2020) as well.
• The Woobie: Moxley, Ambrose, and the man himself Jonathan Good have one thing in common: They've been through utter hell.

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