Dean Ambrose On His Passion For Wrestling: "This Is All We've Ever Loved", Shares Story About Crazy Airport Run-In

Dean Ambrose was a guest on this week’s new episode of the Major Wrestling Figure Podcast hosted by Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder. Ambrose spoke about being addressed as ‘Jon’ versus ‘Jonathan’, his figure collecting history, love of wrestling growing up and much more. You can read a few highlights below and listen to the full show here.

Dean Ambrose jokes about being addressed as his real name:

“I’ve been Jon my whole life because it was easier, especially as a little kid, [I’d say] Jonathan and they’d go ‘oh, Jon.’ I’m used to it. Now that I’m getting older and a little more grizzled and —what’s the word…Tom Selleck?—I’m getting a little bit older and I’m embracing going by Jonathan. I might start wearing brown dress shoes and calling myself Jonathan.”

On his reaction to getting his first merchandise:

“It’s trippy when you first make it to WWE. It’s one of those things where you’re like ‘Oh, I’m going to be in the video game, and the toys?’ And it’s trippy, it’s like ‘whoa’, it’s very cool. It’s hard to wrap my brain—it’s still hard to wrap my brain around that I’m even in WWE because you’re just so used to just walking around and seeing Triple H and Vince McMahon, like used to having conversations with Vince McMahon. It’s hard to remember like you were a kid watching this on TV.”

On crazy airport run-ins with autograph seekers:

“When I was first dating my now-wife [Renee Young], she lived in New York, and sometimes on the day off it’d make more sense, sometimes we’d stay at her house, some time at my house depending where in the country we were. One time I changed my flight to go to New York—I bought a new Priceline flight, completely unrelated to the company travel—when I landed in Newark, as soon as I got to the gate, there was like ten people there with all of this Dean Ambrose stuff for me to sign. For a second—I had just woken up from the plane—[I was thinking] ‘Do I have a show today? What’s going on?’ And then I was going home and I’m signing all of this stuff and sitting in baggage claim thinking ‘how did they know I was going to be here?’ It was an autonomous decision by myself to buy a new flight. How did they know? You hear that they have leaks in the travel department, but they have leaks in the airline! This dude came up to me in baggage claim and he had this [merchandise] and said ‘hey dude, I’m not trying to bother you, I’ll give you $50 to sign these things.’ I [said] ‘Keep your money, I’ll sign these for you, but tell me how you knew I was here.’ And he goes ‘oh dude, we got like a whole system. We got people everywhere.’

The thing is, even if you’re a legit—sometimes they’re just legit fans. When we land in McCallan Airport in Hidalgo, Texas—people probably don’t know, but when we go to this town in Texas, right on the border of Mexico—it’s like the Beatles have just landed. The whole town comes, and they’re not collectors, they’re just really passionate fans; it’s one of our best crowds. You’ve got to take the time for them, it’s pure. You have to step back and think ‘I’m living the dream right now.’, but those other people do ruin it for everybody.”

Ambrose says he’s been in wrestling so long because it’s the only thing he’s ever loved:

“You guys are like me; there’s a lot of people that are here for the money. They didn’t grow up watching it, don’t care what they do. They have no artistic care for what we do. You guys are like me, this is all we’ve ever loved. Toys are a part of it.”

Hawkins and Ryder talked about some of the jobs they had before WWE, and Ambrose said:

“I had every job under the sun. Six months is maybe the longest I could sustain a job anywhere because everything took a backseat to wrestling. So you work somewhere for a week, train, learn the system—a waiter somewhere, work in a factory—but then eventually, I got a show, can’t show up to work, you get fired. Or a train ran late, I’m fired. I said whatever, on to the next one because I could always get another job, especially if you acquire the skills to be in the food service, like a waiter, it’s the same everywhere. If you got fired from Applebees, jump over to Olive Garden. Keep wrestling as the priority, you can get money everywhere.”

The full episode of the Major Wrestling Figure Podcast can be downloaded here.