Trivia / John Morrison

• Actor-Shared Background: The "John Morrison" character is obviously inspired by Jim Morrison, the lead singer of The Doors. In interviews, John Hennigan has noted that he's a fan in real life of Jim Morrison and the Doors, and has even written some poetry on the side much like Jim, which coupled with having enough of a resemblance to Jim made the character a shoe-in for him.
• Breakup Breakout
  • From MNM, which makes Joey Mercury his Jannetty, even though Mercury had been in wrestling for years prior to teaming with Nitro. On the other hand, he and his second notable tag partner, The Miz, have both attained similar levels of success thus far. Morrison's third notable partner, R-Truth, then turned on him; although R-Truth's quickly become one of the best heels in WWE, the jury's still out (Especially since Morrison was injured soon afterward), as Truth went on to job to Cena, multiple times, then to Triple H, and then get shunted down the card.
  • As far as the Miz/Morrison breakup goes, Miz has become the more successful of the two in WWE, making Morrison the Jannetty this time around. 2011 saw this status ping-pong for Morrison - he started the year nearly subverting it by getting WWE Title matches with Miz but ended it firmly in Jannetty status with his being let go from WWE.
  • While Miz is still one of the top performers in WWE, Morrison hasn't done so badly for himself since leaving WWE. Becoming one of the top stars on the small but critically-acclaimed Lucha Underground, Johnny Mundo may be a big fish in a small pond there, but he's still being hailed as doing the best work of his career. In a bigger pond he's a triple crown AAA Champion and though he works with Triple A on and off, sometimes being absent from Triple A for years at a time, he did hold those belts all at once! He's done alright in Impact Wrestling under the name Johnny Impact too.
• Paying Their Dues: Subverted in that he underwent this AFTER becoming a star. After his and Melina's treatment of Trish Stratus that rubbed a lot of folks backstage the wrong way, in addition to Melina forcing her way out and Morrison's contract expiring, WWE put him through the jobber ringer in order to see if he was loyal and committed to the company or was trying to Matt Hardy his way out with his behavior. A big upset win over Dolph Ziggler in November seemed to signal he was through the process... then he promptly lost a US title match against Ziggler at Survivor Series (to add insult to injury, it was a title shot that the crowd felt should've gone to Zack Ryder, and they let Morrison know it) and was unceremoniously beaten in his final match on Raw - a Curb-Stomp Battle at the hands of his former tag team partner The Miz.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Johnny Nitro and Melina attacking Joey Mercury at Judgment Day 2006 and getting fired (from Smackdown, since it was during the brand extension era) was due to Morrison and Melina at the time refusing to work with Joey Mercury after a spat and almost getting fired for it. (Johnny and Melina's performances at the pay-per-view saved their jobs, so they were transferred to Raw).
  • One of the darkest examples in pro wrestling; Johnny Nitro won the vacant ECW World Championship on June 24, 2007 at Vengeance: Night of Champions, defeating CM Punk. He was inserted into the match as a last-minute substitute after the intended winner no-showed the event. That man? Chris Benoit...
  • Morrison and the Miz's initial tag team title run taking place (at least when it did) was a result of WWE needing to write out Matt Hardy, one half of the previous champions, to take care of his appendix issues. This also explains not only how they were able to win the WWE Tag Team Championship (a title exclusive to SmackDown) despite both being on the ECW brand at the time (a "talent-sharing agreement" between SmackDown and ECW was established to Hand Wave it), but also how they won a tag team title even though both were chasing the ECW World Championship at the time.
  • Morrison initially losing out on the triple threat slot for Extreme Rules 2011 was a punishment for Morrison & Melina verbally trashing Trish Stratus and Morrison very visibly snubbing Stratus after their match at WrestleMania XXVII. Eventually, he was given his spot back by winning it off of R-Truth, but then he also had to take time off due to a pinched nerve in his neck. Not exactly his finest April.
  • The behind the scenes reason for Johnny Mundo vacating his AAA belts are more complicated than the story given to the fans watching the shows, but to simplify, Taya Valkyrie was stripped of the Reina De Reinas for refusing to defend the belt on a show she hadn't been scheduled to appear on and then Mundo was asked to get the belt from her. AAA did decide to keep Mundo on TV at least long enough to see a plot through.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Morrison was getting pushed to the top more or less alongside The Miz, just a level below him. JoMo was the KoTR runner-up, defeated Sheamus cleanly multiple times while also winning their feud and was being groomed for a WWE Title feud. At Wrestlemania, he got placed in a celeb match (the co-main event) with Snooki and Trish Stratus against Dolph Ziggler, Vickie Guerrero and Michelle McCool. Reports at the time noted that Melina felt that match was pushing the Divas that work there full time aside. So JoMo treated Trish Stratus like cold vomit whenever he got a chance. That got him major heat backstage, as not only is she's a legend, she's very well liked by management and talent alike. Shortly after the incident, his push started to fade (he still got a WWE Title match at Extreme Rules) more and more, and in a period of 7 months time he went from number 1 contender for the WWE Championship to enhancement talent. He sat out his contract and left the company at the same year.
• Romance on the Set
  • With Melina in OVW, WWE, WWC and Lucha Underground. It was an on and off relationship that lasted for almost a decade; they finally called it quits in 2015.
  • With Taya Valkyrie on Lucha Underground. She started out as his new on-screen girlfriend in Season 2 (after Melina made a cameo at the end of Season 1), and they got engaged for real in 2017, with him proposing to her onscreen in Season 4.
• Star-Making Role: He was always fairly popular since his ECW reign and tag team with The Miz, but he didn't start really getting over with the crowd until his series of high quality matches with Sheamus in 2010, culminating in a ladder match at TLC, after which many are demanding he get a World Title run.