Moxley had his infamous promo video done months before it dropped.
When the clock struck midnight on April 30th, former WWE Champion Dean Ambrose was reborn as Jon Moxley when he released a promo video that reached three million views on Twitter. Moxley would go on to make an appearance at All Elite Wrestling's Double Or Nothing show in Las Vegas where he gave a "Dirty Deeds" to Chris Jericho and it was confirmed shortly afterwards that Moxley signed a multi-year deal with the company. Moxley recently joined Chris Jericho's Talk Is Jericho podcast and told all about his experiences in WWE and why he decided to leave the company.
During the podcast, Moxley shared that he had that video shot in February as he was planning his exit from WWE. The now-AEW star added that he knew was leaving the sports-entertainment company in July of 2018 and in early 2019, he came to the conclusion that Double Or Nothing would be his first post-WWE appearance and he told the story of how the promo video came to be.
“I gotta tell this story, especially because I gotta shout out to my boy. So I had the idea, back before anybody knew I was leaving in January. Then I was like, ‘Ok, how’s this gonna look?' Obviously the world’s different now. You gotta use social media. I’m not stupid. Just because I don’t wanna get on there and communicate with people and read comments -- I’m not an idiot. I know that social media is the way of the world now so I’m like, okay, my idea was, I’m a big fan of movie trailers, right? And kind of the inspiration for this was like the Venom teaser trailer when I first saw it." He continued, "Venom with Tom Hardy, because it was only like 30 seconds, and you didn’t see Venom, and the movie didn’t come out for like eight months, but it gave you just enough to where you were like, ‘Aww I can’t wait until that movie comes out. We have to wait so long.' At that point I kind of knew, likely Double Or Nothing was gonna be the first appearance and I’ve had to go to great lengths to make sure I’m not advertised for anything before that. I’ve been keeping people at bay and having to tell people to F off and I apologize to anybody I’m doing that to. So I’m like, okay, my idea was to make a movie trailer type of thing. Like a teaser trailer, just promoting myself and drop it exactly at midnight on April 30th so it’s literally the minute I get out of WWE, it’s like, ‘Oh it’s about to get real. It’s on.’ So the people get excited now." He said.
Jon Moxley became more invested in the promotional video when he got in contact with former 3-time CZW Iron Man Champion Nick Mondo. Nick was a vital piece in bringing Moxley's vision to life and he spent time in Japan learning how to make high quality films. Moxley stated that he was called by Vince McMahon during the filming of the promo and McMahon wanted him to extend his contract through the European tour so that Moxley could team with Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins on the tour.
“So I’m like huh, I wonder how I do that? It became more ambitious than I originally had envisioned it. So I’m like, ‘I’m not a technology savvy guy. I don’t know how to do all that but I know the people who do know how to do all that stuff that [are] all in WWE’ and this is a secret so I’m like, ‘Screw thinking about it. I'm just gonna do it.’ So, I hit up my friend who wrestling fans may know as one ‘Sick’ Nick Mundo, who was actually something of a death match legend, and now he’s a filmmaker in L.A., and I’d met him in Japan. He’s a very interesting guy. He was living in Japan learning how to be a filmmaker and we kept in touch." Moxley revealed. "He put out a movie called The Trade, and it’s kind of a docu-drama, and we kinda vibed because the theme of it is like, what drives you to mutilate yourself. Like self harm, getting some kind of satisfaction out of putting yourself through glass and light tubes and stuff like that. Why do you do that, and I’m like, ‘Is it some kind of deep down thing or is it like child… what is the thing?’ And that hit real close home to me." He continued, "I started talking with him about that film and stuff. Anyway we became friends and, so I just hit him up and I was like, ‘Yo, do you do trailers and stuff like that?’ That’s kind of what you do because he’s a freelance filmmaker. He’s like yep. For instance he sent me a couple examples of different trailers and so I was like look, I’m gonna be leaving WWE and here’s my idea and and he’s like, 'totally.’ So then he sends me this treatment -- where he’s like, you’re in a prison, and then there’s drums, a building and it was like a full movie script and I was like, ‘You’re hired. You are the guy’ and so we started collaborating on that or whatever and we filmed it in February and I had the typical two days off in between loops, so I landed in Vegas, threw the dogs in the truck, drove out to L.A., and we filmed for pretty much two days straight. We rented a RED camera. It’s like what they film Lord Of The Rings on. Like I spared no expense with this son b*tch. It was like eight grand, totally worth it. Two days of non-stop filming, because it’s a lot of sitting around, setting up shots. We hired actors, he had like a run sheet. So for the prison, we rented out this film set in L.A. where it’s like a warehouse where they have a bunch of different sets. They have like a prison, a bar, a courthouse and a bunch of different rooms for you to film various things. So we did the prison scene. So it took two days. Actually, Vince texted me at what would be 4 in the morning his time while I was filming this to try to get me to extend my contract through the European tour, and he’s like, ‘Hey pal, need a favor. The biggest box office we would have would be The Shield. Last run through Europe, whatever, these dates’, and for half a second I was like ‘Ehh', then I was like no. Now you want a favor from me but a few months ago this isn’t how you wanted it to go.”
The former 3-time WWE Intercontinental Champion entertained the idea for a split second but recalled everything that he had been through in the sports-entertainment company in the months prior to that phone call and was set on leaving when his contract expired.
"Now you need a favor? I’m like, ‘Dude, it’s not like you’re gonna put me on WrestleMania and do some angle that were gonna follow up on the tour with.’ Like no, screw you. You want me to do your brutal post Mania tour. I’m thinking, ‘Call Dave, call Triple H, call Brock, call somebody else. I ain’t your Huckleberry this time’. So what I told him was, ‘Sorry, I’m committing to a film project’, which technically I wasn’t lying, so I knew he would take it like I was on a movie set but the film project I was committed to was dropping this exactly midnight when I’m like, ‘I’m already committed, I already paid for it. I’m out here running through fields at 4 in the morning. I’m done man. This is happening.’ That’s just the funniest side, but…” He explained.
This coming August, Jon Moxley will be in action at Northeast Wrestling's show against Pentagon Jr. and prior to that, his debut match for All Elite Wrestling will be against Joey Janela at Fyter Fest.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.
