John Morrison has revealed why his WWE name was changed.
The 46-year-old has used over a dozen different names in his wrestling career, and even today, he uses a different moniker based on the promotion he is working for. This unique trait started very early in his career when he went through multiple name changes in the first few weeks of his WWE main roster run, before the company settled on the name Johnny Nitro. This new moniker lasted a couple of years before it was changed again.
During a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet, the wrestling veteran told the story of this name change. John Morrison revealed that Vince McMahon had never liked the Nitro name because of its connection to WCW:
When I won the ECW championship, I was Johnny Nitro. Prior to that, Vince had mentioned a few times that Johnny Nitro is not a champion’s name, or not a good name, ‘You got to change it.’ [I responded]’Why do you think that, Vince? Is it because it reminds you of WCW Monday Nitro?’ [Vince said] ‘Yes.’
I Like It, That's It: John Morrison
John Morrison won the ECW Championship at the 2007 Vengeance: Night of Champions PPV. Chris Benoit was originally supposed to face CM Punk for the vacant title at the show but after the late WWE star failed to show up at the event, the decision was made for Morrison to replace him and win the belt.
The week after he won the title, Mr. McMahon insisted on changing his name, and he did not give the new champion a lot of time to think about it. After being put on the spot, Johnny Nitro came up with the name that would stick with him for the rest of his WWE career:
The week after, Vince walked up to me in catering, which is rare, and said, ‘You got to change your name.’ Put a paper down on the table and a pen and said, ‘Just make a list of names.’ So I was really on the spot, and I just started writing down what could be an M and M name that fits?
Then I was like, maybe Johnny Brando, John Morrissey, John Morrison, couldn’t think of very many Ms, so I made a list of kind of like celebrity, Brando, Morrison, Johnny Brando, stuff like that. The first one that I’d written down was John Morrison, and a couple of hours later, I handed this list to Vince, and he just went like this and read the top was like, ‘John Morrison, I like it. That’s it.’
Elsewhere in the interview, Morrison also discussed the emotional effect of finding out that his ECW title victory was result of the Chris Benoit tragedy. You can check out his comments on the matter here.
