WWE Legend and independent wrestler Bully Ray has been a huge talking point in the past week for his comments on Jon Moxley’s return speech after being away from the ring to handle his alcohol addiction. While most praised the AEW star for his promo, Bully Ray thought it was missing words of atonement, feeling that he should have apologized for letting the fans down. He clarified that he did not believe Moxley ‘owed’ an apology but should have given one anyway. Fans and wrestling veterans have poured in their support of the AEW star and defended him against Bully’s words. One person in particular who defended Moxley was Renee Paquette, Moxley’s wife, who initially responded that it was a ”bad take” on her official Twitter account. You can see the post below:
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Renee has since elaborated on her feelings for the Hall of Famer’s take on her podcast, Throwing Down with Renee and Miesha, which she hosts with former UFC star Miesha Tate.
“He’s an incredible wrestler, an incredible person, and an incredible man. I could not be prouder of him.” Paquette said of her husband. “So, to see him out there doing that was so great. And now to just — I hate even having to talk about this because it’s stupid and annoying, and I don’t even want to pay it any more attention. The whole thing with Bully Ray. I saw it all over my Twitter, and I was like, ‘do I even address this?’ But it’s like that thing, you know, people can talk sh*t about me all day long and whatever, it’s fine. You talk sh*t about my husband, you talk sh*t about my family, that bothers me more. It also bothers me because Bully is somebody who I’ve always really enjoyed. I always thought I had a good relationship with him despite other people not having a good relationship with him or him having burned bridges in other places and leaving a bad taste in other people’s mouths. I’ve never had that situation with him. So, to now be on the receiving end of it sucks. I’ve not talked to him since it’s all gone down. He has my phone number. He certainly has my husband’s phone number. But as Dave Lagreca said, he was out at Northeast wrestling over the weekend.”
Renee then elaborated on how she first felt about the Bully Ray’s comments, stating how she felt taken aback by what she deemed a trash take.
“Honestly, my first reaction to it was like, I just thought it was like some shock jock sh*t, and I was like ‘he doesn’t think that. There’s no way he actually believes that Jon needs to apologize for taking time off to better himself.’ There’s part of me that’s like, listen, people don’t know the whole story, they don’t know what’s going on. So, you can plead ignorance to that to a certain degree, and that’s fine. Bully has not apologized for it, and I don’t even need Bully to apologize for it, and I assure you, Jon could give a sh*t. It’s annoying to even be talking about it at this point.
Renee’s co-host Miesha Tate enquired about the possibility of the debacle being part of an angle, but Renee was quick to shoot down the idea and asserted that Bully’s comments were all his own opinion and nothing more.
“There’s no payoff…this isn’t an angle. They’re not going to have a payoff of like a match or anything like that…It just seems like a really sh*tty take. And honestly, Jon didn’t even know about this until I said something to him at like 10 pm That day, like he had not a clue what was going on.” (H/T WrestlingNews.com)
Renee clarified that her husband would prefer that she not fight his battles, but she wanted to use her platform to address the situation but was happy that it didn’t need to be discussed any further. Moxley would have a triumphant return to the ring on AEW Rampage, where he defeated Ethan Page. Both Moxley and Bully Ray competed on the January 22 Northeastern Wrestling card this past Saturday. Moxley defended his GCW World Championship successfully against Homicide the next night at The WRLD on GCW. There were chants of “F*ck Bully Ray” within the Hammerstein Ballroom as the match began as the crowd was in full support of Moxley.
During the podcast, Renee also praised her husband for identifying that he had a problem and choosing to handle it head-on, despite the stigma around drugs alcohol in the wrestling business. She acknowledged the amount of bravery it took for her husband to do so and what it means to others facing similar issues.
