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John Morrison On AEW, Bad Bunny's WrestleMania Match, Logan Paul, Boxing At Creator Clash 2
John Hennigan (@johnhennigan) is an actor, director and professional wrestler who has worked for WWE, AEW, IMPACT Wrestling, MLW and Lucha Underground using the names John Morrison, Johnny Nitro, Johnny Impact, Johnny Elite, Johnny Mundo and Johnny Caballero. He joins Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about his upcoming celebrity boxing match against Harley Morenstein from Epic Meal Time at Creator Clash 2, being released from WWE along with his wife Taya Valkyrie, his 3 appearances at AEW, working with Bad Bunny at WrestleMania 37, his thoughts on Logan Paul and Jake Paul, Kofi Kingston giving him credit for the Royal Rumble save spots, his splash from the top of the Elimination Chamber, why The Miz has been so successful in WWE and much more!
Subscribe to John's YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/thepalaceofwisdom
"It wouldn’t be the worst thing. Never say never. I have a tonne of unfinished business. Unfinished business with my frenemy The Miz, and with a tonne of people on the roster, like in the business of professional wrestling. If you look at the rosters of Raw, SmackDown, NXT, Rampage, Dynamite, IMPACT, MLW, Ring of Honor, NWA, I have personal history and issues with everybody, not everybody, but a lot of people on every one of those rosters for sure. So it would be great to go back to WWE, be great to go to any one of those rosters because there's a tonne of unfinished business and a tonne of new matchups. And mostly because I like wrestling."
"Dude, I’ve been waking up in the morning and fighting YouTubers. Sometimes I go to Highland Park and fight Aaron from Game Grumps in his driveway. And on Sunday mornings, you know, and sometimes on Monday mornings. And Alex Wassabi, Nathan Barnett, is a friend of mine who got me into this whole thing like, for a career clash 1 I was in his corner, and he went viral for Joe Rogan thinking that there was a dad beating up his son. I don't know if you saw that. And now I'm gonna be in his corner, but also fighting on the card of Creator Clash 2."
"I think I've got a lot of work to do. But ultimately, yes. When I asked Josh Burnett to train me, he said, Yeah, sure, John. But just so you know, boxing is your worst thing. And I was like, I know, I know. Boxing is my worst thing, I've spent the least time on it, it’s this very specific art form."
"Money. You know, the competitive spirit runs deep in me and yeah, money. Honestly, like there is that, but I was a, you know, a competitive wrestler before I got into pro wrestling. I wrestled in high school and college. And it's very different from professional wrestling, because it's just you versus one other person, and at some level, it's a test of wills. And it just doesn't start when you're out there in amateur wrestling or in boxing when the bell rings, the test of wills begins as you start preparing for the fight. If there are two evenly matched fighters, a lot of times it's the person that's tougher that wins. It would be impossible for me to catch up with a career long professional boxer at this point. Just the same as it would be impossible for a professional boxer to catch up with my ability in professional wrestling. I’ve been doing it for for 20 years, there's, you can't, you can't make up that difference in a year or six months. But it excites me to be back in a competitive environment."
"I mean, it could be great for me, it can be really bad for like the, you know, like the Jake Paul's, Logan Paul's, KSI’s, those guys, I mean, the overnight tough guys. Let's say, on YouTube."
“I don't want to take anything away from Bad Bunny, because he came in so humble and with so much respect, and was such a big star and worked so hard on learning the business and how to like put on an entertaining match. There are a lot of celebrities or people adjacent to wrestling that like I could take a Canadian Destroyer from but I probably wouldn't.”
“I would have been a lot more present, but I went to the Performance Center once to train with him. Then the following episode of Raw, I partially tore my MCL. And like there was like touch and go for a while like it was almost going to be Bad Bunny and Miz in a singles. Then a tag, didn't know if I was gonna be cleared. People were nervous about me doing much in the match. And it ended up well, I ended up just doing it. Whether I was cleared or not.”
“Here’s what I think of Logan Paul. Man, remember when he had that match, and he said he completely blew out his knee. All three ligaments, his ACL, PCL, MCL, and then come to find out like, he just kind of had a sore knee. Oh, man, poor guy. I feel like he's had three matches, he's acting like, and a lot of people are acting like he's God's gift. And if he wanted to have, I've had close to 4000 matches. And I've torn both these for real like no MCL partially torn scope, scope, scope, partial ACL. If he wants to stay in the business and do it for real. Why doesn’t he talk about wrestling then? Because right now I think he's getting a lot of help from the best minds in the business and pretending like he's doing more of it than he is. Because without the help of the people surrounding I think Logan Paul falls flat on his face.”
“I don't know if anyone's had their first three matches rehearsed as much as he's rehearsed his three matches either, especially like working one on one with Shawn Michaels. Who in the business can say that they worked for a month on one match with Shawn Michaels before they had that match. It's no wonder it was a great match. He's working with one of the best minds, best in-ring technicians and performers in the history of the business individually for a month for one match.”
“I feel like I had a good vibe in my head of where I stood, and I didn't really think I was getting released until the end when I like, realised like I was trying to do a character that had been convoluted and kind of like, tweaked and tweaked and tweaked until it kind of became impossible. And then I started thinking like, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if I get released. And it happened.”
“I think if you look at the roster, like and think about, like, all the baby faces, all the good guys and think about who would you want to wrestle if you were in that spot, like the most hated person, like the person that's the best at riling up the crowd? That would be the most satisfying for people to see beat the crap out of, it really would be him. And that's to his credit, because it's not an accident or a mistake. It's him being self aware and doubling down on what makes him the shiniest they like to say.”
“His authenticity, and he is a product of professional wrestling like we all are, plus reality TV and his environment. And he had to fight for what he got and fight for attention on reality shows, which if you don't know him and are in large groups, can come off as abrasive, and I think that is shiny. It's not necessarily like something that you would like, want your kid to be or teach someone. But in his case, it's him realising what he has and emphasising it like turning the volume up on his authentic self, I think is something that tonnes of people don't do. Like, they want to be liked or good guys, like. I'm trying to think who to throw under the bus, Cody, Cody Rhodes. He's got to start quality. He could have turned up the annoyingness and volume on himself and be the top heel of AEW. But he didn't because he wanted to be loved.”
“I remember like, Vince was always really big on tan. And there was a while where I was wrestling, Sheamus, and I'd come back and he's like, goddammit, you look fantastic. And I looked exactly the same, and then I wrestled Truth the next week and he's like, Morrison come here! You look like sh*t! I can't sell pale. And I looked the same, and I was like, I literally wrestled like the whitest guy on the roster last week, and [the I wrestled] Truth, who's very black. And of course, I'm not going to look that tanned.”
“Literally, Vince, and I don’t know if he would admit this or not, but he did not like Nitro. I don't think [he liked it] because it reminded him of WCW. And like it was, it's always going to be too soon. Like because he asked me to change my name three times. The third time was when I won the ECW title, and I didn't say no that time because I was like, Alright, I'm not gonna fight this anymore.”
“He [Vince] said you gotta change your name. You’ve got to have a champion's name if you’re going to be a champion. Make a list of names, write down 10 names. And then, like an hour later I had like a list of all these names. Morrison was off Jim Morrison from The Doors, but I had like Brando Morrison, Johnny Brando, Johnny Blaze Morrison like Blaze was already copywritten but a bunch of stuff. And he looked at this list that I'd spent an hour googling names and like meanings and like, different celebrities like James Dean and making this list and he just looked at it and was like [flatly] ‘John Morrison’ like that.”
“My wife, my family and my health.”
