Nick Mondo Reveals His Reaction to Being Asked to Direct Jon Moxley’s ‘Escape’ Video

– Nick Mondo spoke with Wrestling Inc about directing Jon Moxley’s “prison escape” video following Moxley’s WWE departure. Highlights from the interview are below:

On first meeting Moxley: “I didn’t meet Jon until he was in WWE but I heard about him in CZW. I think the first time I heard about him was right when he got signed to WWE. His promos were just so legendary and powerful and impactful, I’m sure that’s why he got signed to WWE … He also wrestled for CZW and was involved in the Tournament of Death. I participated in the first and second Tournament of Death events and that was the starting point for us to connect.”

On if Moxley shared his frustrations about WWE to him: “I try not to dig into that too much when I talked to Jon. As he described on Talk is Jericho, it was just a text that caught me off guard, ‘Hey man. You do music video trailer-type work?’ ‘Yeah, what’s on your mind?’ It was just real quick. I had already seen the rumors that he might be leaving WWE and as soon as he asked that first question I thought it was related.”

On his reaction to Moxley’s idea for the video: “I was immediately excited … So, when Jon hit me up for this video, I dropped whatever else I was doing and said, ‘I’m listening.’ As he described what he wanted to do, I told him, ‘Jon, this is going to make waves. This is huge.’ He carried out all of his duties and let everyone assume that he was gonna retire or take a break, but no, he had a different idea. So, I was tremendously excited to be a part of this.”

Of if there was any pressure on him to keep it all secret: “It was amusing. I couldn’t believe, especially after this video dropped, all of the speculation swirling. ‘AEW produced this video.’ ‘This is WWE working with Jon to re-brand him and bring him back.’ It was hysterical. I knew this was going to be big, but it was bigger than I even thought. I knew they [the crew] wouldn’t talk, but boy we wanted to. We got so much mileage out of it and I’m sure AEW sold more PPVs because everyone is wondering if Jon is gonna be there because they had no idea who made this video. So, it was beneficial to stay quiet.”

On whether Moxley always planned to go to AEW after the video: “With Jon I didn’t really ask him those questions because you could tell that he doesn’t want to feel nervous about secrets getting out. I don’t think he quite knew what he was gonna do but he wanted to let everyone know that he was available. I’m sure every wrestling company was hitting him up, but at the time we made the video in late February, I don’t think he even knew what he was gonna do.”