Trivia / John Laurinaitis

• Breakup Breakout: Played with. While Johnny Ace has found success as an executive and even became a prominent onscreen character (albeit, a really hated one, for all the wrong reasons), Shane Douglas is far more well-known and more successful as a wrestler, though he's kinda hated too. It'd be safer to say that the Dynamic Dudes are just hated in general, even when they have long since left the gimmick behind.
• Follow the Leader: Invented the Cutter with Diamond Dallas Page, and was the first of the two to use it in a match. Superstars who've adapted the cutter include Randy Orton (RKO), Cody Rhodes, The Dudley Boys, both Hardys, etc. In fact, one of the most common names for the cutter is the Ace Crusher.
• He Also Did: In WCW, after the Vince Russo era ended, Johnny Ace became the head road agent - that is, the guy who planned most of the matches. And he did that job spectacularly well, causing a massive upswing in the quality of WCW's matches both on television and pay per view. One can't even call it "too little too late" because ratings were improving steadily - it just wasn't enough to save WCW from Time-Warner Executive Jamie Kellner.
• Hostility on the Set: Famously lead to the decline of and breakaway of Ohio Valley Wrestling, as well as the end of the FCW revival. Contrary to popular belief there was no hostility regarding Deep South Wrestling, although he ended up being a fall guy in that farm league's failure too.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Laurinaitis wound up being caught in the crossfire of the scandals that forced Vince McMahon to step down as CEO after details leaked out in June 2022, which accused him of partaking in sexual misconduct, with reports stating that Laurinaitis would either harass female corporate employees on his own or "tag team" with Vince.^note The first report about Vince's NDA payments in fact mentioned in regards of the woman involved that after ending their affair Vince "passed her like a toy" to Laurinaitis. He would be replaced by Bruce Prichard in late June 2022, before being terminated from the company by August 2022 after the Board of Directors completed its investigation.
• Romance on the Set: In 2015, he became engaged to the Bella Twins' mother, Kathy Colace.
• What Could Have Been:
  • When Mitsuharu Misawa took nearly all of the All Japan Pro Wrestling roster with him to form Pro Wrestling NOAH, Laurinaitis was going to be one of the few Gaijin (foreign wrestlers) to be a part of that walkout, had there not been a job for him at WCW.
  • Efforts to revitalize SmackDown's cruiserweight division were torpedoed by him, eventually culminating in a "Juniors" division centered around midget wrestlers. Supposedly the writer in question had suggested "Hiring a bunch of Juniors (junior heavyweights) from Japan and Mexico" and Johnny went and hired a bunch of midgets and acted like that was what the guy wanted.