John Morrison On Refocusing On Pro Wrestling, His Personas, Creative Autonomy In Lucha Underground

On episode 350 of The Art Of Wrestling, independent thinker, spirit, and wrestler Colt Cabana spoke with Lucha Underground's Johnny Mundo, formerly known as WWE's John Morrison. During the interview, Morrison talked about refocusing on pro wrestling, the biggest differences between his pro wrestling personas, and finding "creative autonomy" working for Lucha Underground.

According to Morrison, he has refocused on pro wrestling. Moreover, 'The High Priest of Parkour' admitted that he wanted to work in the the 'flippy s–t' style all along, and now that he sees it on the indies, he wants back in.  

"Absolutely [Morrison is a major part of the independent pro wrestling scene]. Part of the reason that it's working for me is I refocused on wrestling and I've been focusing not exclusively on it, but with 'full force', to quote an epic wrestling promo, for the past several years, especially since the beginning of Lucha [Underground] because they really opened my eyes to this completely new style of wrestling, which I'd call the 'flippy s–t' style. Yeah, it's that John Woo style. It's just a lot of what's happening now, like PWG and AAW, Pro Wrestling Revolver, and WrestleCircus, is faster paced, more acrobatic matches. And when I started originally, I wanted nothing more than to do that stuff. Like, I can't tell you how many spot shows little Johnny Nitro, like, pulled the chair out in the arena in Shelbyville Fair and did a moonsault only to get chewed out by Rip Rogers and Jim Cornette about it. I mean, I did years of it." Morrison added, "and when I was looking at the independent scene I was suddenly a part of, it's like everyone was doing that and I was like, 'argh, I want it. I want back in. I need to be doing this.'"

In Morrison's estimation, the names are the biggest differences between his characters.

"It's weird. A lot of people ask me, like, how the characters are different between Nitro, and Morrison, and Mundo, and the biggest difference is just the names. Like, wrestlers are usually a version of yourself and the versions of myself haven't really changed that much." Morrison said, "I always try to associate Johnny Mundo, John Morrison, or whatever my name is with high quality."

Morrison claimed that he found creative autonomy in Lucha Underground and there may be 16 months between shooting seasons 3 and 4.  

"When I get into Lucha Underground, now it feels like I'm part of a collaboration. And I'm talking about storylines; I'm talking about how we can put matches together, where we're going to go, what's going to happen to Lucha Underground as a promotion; what's going to happen with my character; and I was back in suddenly. And I felt the creative autonomy I didn't have in WWE, I finally had."

Make wrestling fun again here. If you use any of the quotations that appear in this article, please credit The Art Of Wrestling with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Source: The Art Of Wrestling