Nick Mondo Addresses Several AEW Clues Fans Thought They Saw In Jon Moxley's "Prison Break" Video
When Dean Ambrose returned to being Jon Moxley, he made a prison break video hyping his arrival. Where he would arrive was still unknown at that point but many thought they saw clues in the video pointing to AEW.
Nick Mondo helped create that video and Mondo spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast about the Viper Room logo that appeared in it. There was a 2-5 displayed on some dice and many thought that was alluding to Double or Nothing which aired on 5-25.
"It was hysterical because it was coincidence that those numbers were there. It was something we didn't think of," Mondo said before adding that the tick marks in the prison cell that equaled "25" wasn't intentional and they were just looking to fill the frame with tick marks.
"It was so fun to see how invested people were with this and beyond what we intended with the imagery; it was fascinating."
Mondo then described the creative process between he and Moxley for the prison break video.
"Jon's idea was to be in prison and then he gets out. It was pretty simple the concept he sent to me," Mondo stated before adding that Moxley sent him the trailer for Venom which prompted Mondo to ask if he knew how much that would cost. "He would get a bunch of random ideas for specific visuals that he wanted to see and that helped form the idea. He said, 'I see an image of my hand closing around barbed wire.' When he said that I was thinking how can we make that make sense? Okay, if he's running and climbing a fence, it has barbed wire at the top and his hand gets caught.
"So, that's kinda how he thinks. He gets these specific visuals and I get the context around them. He wasn't actually imagining himself breaking through a wall, but when he imagined himself getting out of prison, I was thinking about a dramatic way we could do that. Well, let's have him break the wall."
Another allusion that many fans thought they saw was when dogs were chasing Moxley. Mondo was asked if that was supposed to allude to the Hounds of Justice.
"It wasn't. Some people thought that he's escaping the shadow of Roman Reigns and all this. No, we're not trying to diss anyone in WWE, especially no one in particular. ?In my mind I just wanted to have as many people as possible coming after him. He gets out and everyone's coming after him – the authorities. You hear the sirens going. The dog is running and now here come the police," said Mondo.
"That was all the intention was there."
Mondo is a CZW Hall of Famer and current independent filmmaker. For more information about Mondo you can follow him on Twitter @NickMondoMedia or visit his website NickMondoMedia.com. Mondo's full interview with Wrestling Inc. was included as part of Thursday's episode of our WINCLY podcast, which can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post. In it Mondo discusses becoming friends with Moxley, the original pitch from Moxley about the "prison break" video, his desire to keep working with Moxley, NJPW and AEW and more.
You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.