Category: Interview

Ember Moon Thrilled to Return to NXT After Long Road Back From Injury

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Ember Moon Thrilled to Return to NXT After Long Road Back From Injury

Ember Moon made a surprise return on Sunday at NXT TakeOver 31, revealing herself as the mystery behind the recent night-vision vignettes and issuing a challenge to Io Shirai for the NXT women’s championship.

Moon last performed in NXT in April 2018, when she dropped the title to Shayna Baszler at TakeOver: New Orleans. NXT is the site where Adrienne Reese created the phenomenon that is Ember Moon, a 13-year wrestling veteran, bringing an enigmatic, mystical character to the WWE realm. Her three-year run in NXT was the most successful stretch of her career, and she was grateful to infuse so much of her soul into her return.

“When learned I was headed to NXT, the whole motorcycle package was an idea I had after watching an action movie called Hardcore Henry,” Moon says. “The NXT creative team is absolutely amazing, and they got this massive set for me. I wanted elements of The Masked Singer so we could have clues to keep people guessing. And they were like, ‘Let’s do it!’ There is a video game I play, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, where there are these two dueling voices and you have to listen closely, and we did something similar for the surprise, which was absolutely amazing.”

Moon’s return was made official when she took off her motorcycle helmet, then unleashed a promo putting Shirai on notice.

“I was nervous and I wasn’t certain how I would be received,” says Moon, who was out of action for more than a year due to an Achilles injury. “I didn’t even know Toni Storm was popping up on the monitor right before me. She’s stunning in the ring, and I want to wrestle her, too.

“My nerves kept building as I was walking out to the stage. All I could think was, ‘Crap, did I even shut the visor to the helmet?’ If you look quickly, I grab my helmet and checked. Then I took off the helmet, and it was an outstanding, memorable moment. I think it may have broke the internet for a hot minute. It reminded me that NXT is the place where I’m meant to be. I couldn’t ask for a better team to support me, and it was so amazing to be there on the first night of the Capitol Wrestling Center.”

Ember Moon talks WWE NXT return: ‘I didn’t know if I still belonged on Raw or SmackDown’

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Interview

Ember Moon talks WWE NXT return: ‘I didn’t know if I still belonged on Raw or SmackDown’

Over one year removed from her last appearance on WWE TV, Ember Moon returned to WWE NXT at TakeOver 31 on Sunday night and immediately made her presence felt by interrupting NXT Women’s champion, Io Shirai.

Moon suffered a ruptured Achilles in the fall of 2019 and had a long road to recovery due to the current conditions. However, she’s finally back and better than before as a member of the NXT roster for the first time in two and a half years.

The former NXT Women’s champion was a big part of the women’s division on the black-and-gold brand from August 2016 through April 2018 when she was called up to the Raw roster. In that time, she had many memorable matches with the likes of Asuka and Shayna Baszler but failed to make as much of an impact on Raw and SmackDown in the years that followed.

Being back at TakeOver 31 was nothing short of a thrilling experience for Moon, especially after going to great lengths to keep it a secret in the weeks leading up to the event.

“I’m still buzzing, man. I’m just super excited and I haven’t stopped smiling,” Moon told Daily DDT in an exclusive interview conducted over the phone on Tuesday. “I would say it’s like the class reunion, but you don’t know anyone there. You’re all excited like, ‘I can’t wait to tell everyone what I did,’ but then you’re like, ‘Oh wait, I don’t know none of y’all. Am I in the wrong year?’ I’m so happy, I’m so excited.” (Aliyah is one of her best friends, surprised when she came back)

Of everyone in NXT, Aliyah was who Moon was most excited to be reunited with backstage on Sunday night. The two came up in WWE’s developmental ranks together and formed a bond in the few years Moon spent there.

That said, not even Aliyah was aware that Moon was back in NXT until she popped up after the NXT Women’s Championship bout between Io Shirai and Candice LeRae. In fact, the decision for her to return to NXT was only made official a few weeks ago, right before the vignettes promoting her comeback started to air on NXT TV.

“I found out I was going back to NXT maybe a couple of weeks ago,” she revealed. “I threw out the feelers in January. It was one of those things where I was like, ‘I don’t know if they want me back, I don’t know how I fit in, I just don’t know.’ I talked to Hunter and asked, ‘How would you feel about me coming back to NXT?’”

During her time away from the squared circle, Moon made multiple appearances on WWE Backstage on FS1 as an analyst. For the role, she was required to consume more wrestling than she ever had before, including watching for potential prospects on WWE’s radar.

It was while she was doing her WWE homework that she fell in love with NXT all over again. She hadn’t been there in years but felt she would be a better fit there than anywhere else in the company once she returned.

“I was like, ‘Man, I’m really digging this NXT vibe right now,’” Moon said. “Raw and SmackDown are doing great, but I’m sitting here thinking, ‘I don’t know if I fit in there anymore.’ I didn’t know if Ember Moon still belonged on Raw and SmackDown. I was looking at NXT and all my friends from the indies were there killing it. Not that any of the other girls weren’t, I’m just saying that when you’ve traveled the road for a hot dog and a handshake, you have a different friendship and admiration for those people than you do with coworkers.”

ComicBook.com Interviews Ember Moon

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Interview

Part of WWE Superstar Ember Moon’s job is staring down major threats, whether it’s Shayna Baszler, Asuka, or current Smackdown Women’s Champion Bayley. But on Saturday, August 3rd, Moon found herself in a unique situation – saving a princess from the depths of Hell. Moon and a motley band of adventurers were tasked with rescuing a kidnapped princess from an archdevil, stepping into its lair and facing down monsters and dangers from each level of the Nine Hells. As a clock counted down until she and her companions were trapped in Hell forever, a death dog stood between Moon and one of nine levels that needed flipped to rescue the princess. Moon waited until the dog turned its multiple heads towards one of her companions, pulled out her boomerang, and expertly flung it at the lever. The attack connected, and moments later, she and her compatriots were back home with the princess in tow.

Of course, Moon wasn’t actually in Hell on Saturday, she was playing in a special game of Dungeons & Dragons hosted by Dwarven Forge, a maker of premium miniature terrain. Playing alongside Internet personalities Satine Phoenix and Amy Dallen, Dwarven Forge founder Stefan Pokorny, and Luke Gygax, son of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, Moon was enjoying a well-earned respite from the wrestling ring at Gen Con, the largest tabletop convention in the world. Moon is a D&D expert and megafan – she appears on Rollout, a D&D series that airs on WWE’s UpUpDownDown YouTube channel, and she’s been playing D&D for just about as long as she’s been wrestling.

“I’ve been playing 12 or 13 years,” Moon told ComicBook.com during an interview at Gen Con. “Started off with Second Edition, with its dreaded THAC0 (an acronym for To Hit Armor Class Zero, for those not familiar with older D&D terms), and worked my way to Fifth Edition.”

In fact, wrestling was why she discovered D&D in the first place. “It was a writer of one of the shows that we used to work, Richard from PCW (Professional Championship Wrestling, based out of Texas,)” Moon said when asked about who introduced her to the game. “One day, during some downtime, he asked ‘You guys want to play some D&D? I need a creative outlet.’ And I was like, ‘Psh! That nerdy stuff? No, I’m not going to play D&D.’ But he talked us into it, and then we got TPKed by a goblin party. Afterward, we were like ‘That’s not fair, blah blah blah blah blah,’ and he pointed out that we didn’t stealth or do a bunch of other things. I was like, ‘We can do these things?'”