Insight with Chris Van Vliet - John Morrison On AEW, Bad Bunny's WrestleMania Match, Logan Paul, Boxing At Creator Clash 2

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

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 For more information about Chris Van Vliet and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are gathered. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van! Believe! Baby, welcome back to another audio adventure on Insight. It's your friendly neighborhood, CVV, Chris Van Fleet. And as always, I'm honored that you're here. And if it happens to be your first time here, take your coat off. Stay a while.

Also, maybe hit that subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. If you have been listening to this show for a while, well, you know this is the third time that we've had, Johnny John John, John with all the names on the show. John Morrison, John Hannigan, Johnny Drip, Drip, Johnny Impact, Johnny Mundo, Johnny Elite, whatever you want to call him, I know I missed some there, but whatever you want to call him,

he's just Johnny awesome to me. And I love being able to sit down with him in person for this conversation. Great timing for the interview, too, because it was just announced that John will be making his boxing debut at Creator Clash 2. It's April 15th in Tampa, Florida. we talk quite a bit about this newfound career that he's entering into. And, you know, who's a big name right now in boxing?

Jake Paul. So we talk a little bit about that. Of course, a lot about his time in WWE. Also his unheimly release from WWE for both him and his wife, Ty of Alquiry. Such a great conversation. So glad you're here for it. Snap a screenshot. Tag us.

Let us know that you're listening. Let us know what stands out for you the most during this. and tag John on Instagram. It's just his real name, John Hennigan, on Twitter. He's at the Real Morrison. Tag me, it's my real name, I guess my only name, at Chris Van Fleet. And Perez Play. Perez Play, thank you so much for this review on Apple Podcasts.

You said, Best Wrestling Interviewer. CVV has always been my favorite wrestling interviewer due to his amazing preparation and outstanding questions. He always brings a type of entertainment. that doesn't take away from the guest, but still showcases how awesome of an interviewer that he is. That is very kind. That is very, very kind.

Thank you so much for that. I'll keep reading one review from Apple Podcasts on every single episode is my way to say. Thank you so much for being on this journey with me. If you're a Spotify listener, go in there, click those stars because it goes such a long way on Spotify. And, you know, I don't know if you've seen it, but I've watched the show climb up the charts over the last few weeks,

and it's all because of views. So thank you. Let's do this. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my friend, John Morrison. Is this a Canadian tuxedo that you are gracing us with? Did you do this because I'm Canadian? My wife's also Canadian. I know.

I know. So it's either for you or her. Well, I'll take it. It's for you. It's for you. You look like a real star star star. sitting here. You know, actually, this is what I call my macho man outfit. Because you know that famous meme of his? Yes. Where he's sitting by the beach. Yeah. We're wearing this Canadian

tuxedo. This is kind of a modern day macho man. Did you match Shiki's glasses there on your shirt? Was that unintentional? Look at that. And the shoes has like some orange. Like I got like a man. I'll put a lot of thought and oh, you can really see. Yeah, there you go. Those are great shoes. Offlides. Really good shoes. I got a guy. You got a guy? I don't have a guy. You got to get a guy. I need a sneaker guy. You gotta get a guy. I gotta get a guy. Could you get me the guy? I can get you my guy. You could be the guy who gets me the guy? I could be the guy that gets you the guy, yeah. So then you can have gotten a guy. One of my all-time... One of my all-time favorite moments on my YouTube channel happened in your backyard about five years ago. I remember. That first interview that we did.

I also like remember the springboard? Like, I was legitimately so surprised. Like, I've shown, like, dozens of people how to do a springboard, and almost everyone eats it. And I could have swore you were going to eat it. The funniest part about that clip is as you're setting it up, you're like, all right, well, just do this springboard here. All you got to do is this.

It's so easy. And then I'm like, legitimately scared. I'm going to fall on my face. And I hit it, and you're like, ho-ho! I was not expecting that. You hit a perfect springboard. What were you expecting? Well, I thought that you were going to eat it and, like, fall on your face.

But, like, in a funny way, not get injured or, like, or botch it a little bit? What would have happened if I fell on my face and, like, broke my nose in your backyard, broke my neck in your backyard? I mean, Kira would have had to dig a hole and... Oh, what? No, I'm just kidding. It wouldn't have been funny, though, because you don't want people to get hurt. You know what I mean? I perfectly landed it.

I surprised even myself. Both feet on the top rope at the same time and landed. You had soft knees. Yeah. It exceeded expectations. That was my first and last springboard. Well, it's on tape. That's it.

It's immoral now. You never have to do it again. I can't believe you got rid of that wrestling, right? You know, it was one of my wedding vows. Are you serious? Yeah. I said, I promise, now that we're married, to not have a wrestling ring in the backyard anymore and to not have any more professional wrestler roommates.

And Super Panda and Luchosaurus were in like the second row of the wedding. And they both stood up and were like, hey, what the hell? Why didn't you say something to us first? So you traded the pro wrestler roommates for a pro wrestler wife? Yes. That seems a pretty good trade. Yeah. I mean, she technically was a pro wrestler roommate prior to becoming a pro wrestler wife.

Is she going to see this? You tell me. Hey, I love you, babe. She's been on the channel before. I don't know if she watches you. I'm sure she'll see it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, we love you. Yep. You're great. Of course, she's not going to see it if we're saying nice things. No. So we got to just, she's the worst. Yeah. Can you believe this?

Yeah. Can you believe what he's saying about you? Oh, my God. Ah, Canadians are the worst. I hear she's loka. Yeah, she is. Nobody's perfect, you know? Yeah.

I mean, you're a very nice guy. I know you're Canadian also. Right. You know, you can't really be human without flaws. and being from Canada. Oh, that's the flaw? That's the flaw. That's the inside joke I'm going for.

You know, it's funny when we met it was a flaw, and now it's kind of my escape plan. To go to Canada? In case America goes to hell on a handbag? Oh, yeah, I guess you could just like... Just head up north. She's a Canadian citizen still? Yeah, me too.

She's going to become a dual citizen. Oh. Oh, yeah, I guess that's fine. Yeah, if you can help both. No, she's not going to relinquish. Yeah. She could potentially be... A triple citizen.

Try a citizen? What's the other one? Swiss. Wow. Dad is a Swiss citizen. Does she have a Swiss passport? No, but she likes Swiss cheese. Well, I think that's all it takes.

I'm sure that's all it takes. That's probably. To be a Swiss citizen is a love of cheese with all it takes. Yeah, okay. This interview is going, So we're off to a great start. This is amazing. Canadian tuxedos and Swiss cheese.

Yep. Man, that's going to be the title of my autobiography. How many people recognize you in L.A. from your time on Ms. and Mrs. I will not lie. I have been recognized a few times specifically for Miss and Mrs. and by people who have no idea about wrestling or anything else. That's so funny.

That's the guy that, oh, you're the Mrs. friend from the Miss and Mrs. Oh, man, look, hey, can I have a picture? It's the Misses' friend. And they'd never seen you wrestle. They don't know anything about WWA. They just watch the reality show.

Dude, that's crazy. Most people are aware of wrestling that watch Miss and Mrs. But a few times, they've been completely oblivious. That's ridiculous. Yeah, right? It's funny almost. So how does it work? when you're going to be on an episode of Ms. and Mrs.

Does Mike call you up and go, John, are you in town? Pretty much. It's not that different from how it works out. Like, usually he will say, are you going to be in town? And then, like, schedule a date. And then also, like, there's kind of a frame for the episodes.

You know what I mean? Like, here's what's going on in my life. I'm getting a vasectomy. And I'm going to have a bunch of people over and we're all going to, like, roast my nuts. Oh, you don't cut off the nuts for a vasectomy, by the way. I didn't realize that. That's not what happens.

It's not like the surgery they do to dogs. It's not a castrated or like you don't get neutered. Yeah. There's like little tubes that humans have that you can tie. The vast deference, I believe. That's why it's his show. It's Dr. Van Vleet to you. Thanks, doctor.

Yes, those are tied. But so you made a bunch of jokes about the nuts being removed? Yeah, but I made more jokes about Ziegler because it was more fun to make fun of him. Oh, yeah. He was there. And Sechrist. Sechrist was there. I just made fun of Ryan, not Sechrist, the other Ryan Cabrera.

Oh. How do you mix up Ryan Cabrera and Ryan Seacrest? I was boxing earlier. I got punched in the head a lot. Oh. We'll talk about that later. I mean, we're going to talk about that right now. Oh, yeah.

Okay. You're a celebrity boxer now. Dude, I've been waking up in the morning and fighting YouTubers. That's crazy. Sometimes I go to Highland Park and fight Aaron from GameGrams in his driveway on Sunday mornings, you know, and sometimes on Monday mornings. And Alex Wasabi, Nathan Barnett, a friend of mine who got me into this whole thing. like for Creator Clash 1, I was in his corner. Yeah, he's dad.

Yeah. Yeah. 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. I did see that. He saw it. And now I'm going to be in his corner, but also fighting on the card of Creator Clash, too. Man.

Did you ever think you'd be a boxer? No. Like, you're so athletic with everything that you do. So I imagine you're going to crush it as a boxer, too. I think I've got a lot of work to do, but, ultimately yes when i asked uh josh burnett to train me he said yeah sure john but just so you know boxing is your worst thing oh geez and i was like i know i know boxing is my worst thing i've spent the least time on it but you got a very specific art form you got a lot of speed though

yeah a ton of like natural athleticism and confidence you're not short on confidence so much confidence I might have too much. So you're fighting the guy from Epic Mealtime. Yes. Who's going to win? The people in attendance. I think if you go into a fight and you don't think you're going to win, you should probably just call in sick and not go up.

I'm planning on winning. If we can bet on this fight, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm giving up some size. Harley is a 6-6. He started training at 270. He's already cut quite a bit. He's looking in shape. He's down to 255, it looks like.

What do you normally weigh at a? 210. Oh, jeez. 2-10? I'm like, I'm an honest six. Like, I'm like six feet with no shoes. I'm the height that most actors in Hollywood say they are. And then when you stand next to them, you're like, no, you're 5, 10.

There is a photo, so I interviewed Tom Cruise in Paris, the red carpet, Eiffel Tower is behind us, and we're looking at each other eye to eye. And I am an honest 5'10. And everyone's like, I didn't realize how short you were. How are you standing eye to eye with Tom Cruise? But when you look down at his shoes, you can see the answer as to why he's standing eye to eye with me. I need to get some Tom Cruise shoes. I wonder if they have Tom Cruise's boxing shoes.

choose. I bet they do. Because then I could be 6-6. You could be. And it would probably really like mess Harley up. He's been training to punch down and then suddenly he's going to have to look up. You still won't have the reach though. He's got to have the reach advantage. I bet you. Yeah, I don't know. True. So what's the allure of doing a boxing match like this? 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 it's 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. And 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.

Of course. They've been doing it for 20 years. 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'm very curious to see what happens here, because if you have a really great showing, this could be the start of something for you. I mean, it could be great for me.

It could be really bad for like the, you know, like the Jake Pauls, the Logan Pauls, the KSIs, those guys. I mean, the overnight tough guys, let's say, of YouTube. I feel like Jake Paul's the real deal, though. I'm just asking him. He'll tell you he's the real deal. That's true. Sure.

But he got famous from YouTube, but not like you because I got big from your own channel, right? Sure, yeah. He had a famous brother. It wasn't even his channel. He, like, latched onto his brother. This brother box. Now, I am going to box. He's just a follower, Jake Paul.

Come on. Wow, I see what you're setting up here. I mean, if he watches this, well, if he watches this, Jake Paul, you know where to find me. if you get tired and you want to take a nap in the boxing ring sometime. Are you worried at all that you could have that Nate Robinson highlight real knockout that happens to you? No. Well, here's why.

First of all, like the confidence, like I was saying, is a little. Love it. Very odd. And second of all, if you're worried about knockouts, so far from what I've, so far from what I've, learned, you're easier to knock out. If you're worried about getting hit and you're concerned about defense and your defense is not like Floyd Mayweather, which mine is not, most beginning boxers are not world class. He's the best defensive boxer ever, right? If you're not throwing,

then it's a lot easier to throw punches at you. Sometimes offense is the best defense. Defense is the best offense. So if you're tentative, you're going to get opened up like a can of soup. Is there any worry, though, that, like, you've been pulling punches for 20 years, and now you have to connect on every punch? Is it, like, does that change your boxing game or does that change your wrestling game? Who, I feel bad about whoever has to wrestle me next. What I'm saying?

No, you know, like, I think, like, step one is realizing the difference between all, these specific martial arts, performance arts, pro wrestling, boxing, martial arts, stunt fighting, stunt choreography, Wing Chun, Kung Fu, Mu Tai. I've dabbled in all these things. And switching back and forth can be done if you understand what the difference is and why. I think that boxing is something that would elevate a ton of professional wrestlers, fight IQ, and make their wrestling more realistic. Because punching is something in wrestling that took me, I couldn't throw a good punch for 10 or 15 years.

Wow. Because I just was never a striker. I was a collegiate wrestler and a professional wrestler. And striking is its own game. And for some reason, like, you know what? Because I did a lot more, I did traditional Wushu and Capoeta, which is more heavy with kicks. And so my kicking was always better than punching. It's like Capoeira's like kicking and it's like dancing almost.

Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. And I feel that's really, there's a lot of things that are really well suited to professional wrestling. Yeah. Because Capoeira is like specifically performative. because it was originally derived to fool people

into thinking they were watching dancing instead of fight training because the originators in Brazil wanted to camouflage their fight training so people didn't know what they were doing. Wow. So you're doing this alongside the pro wrestling that you're doing right now. Yeah. So I'm still wrestling

like a full-time schedule and training fighting YouTubers in their driveway. 2023. But it's also that time of year where, look, anything can happen in pro wrestling. I feel like at some point, your music could hit at the Royal Rumble. And we'd be like, of course, John Morrison's back. You know, that wouldn't be the worst thing. I mean, imagine how cool that would be for WWE.

You've got some unfinished business. Where is the Rumble going to be? Is it going to be in Saudi Arabia? Oh, wow. Well, now you're not going back. Never say never. You've got some unfinished business there. Yeah, I have a ton of unfinished business.

Unfinished business with my friend of me, the Miz, and with a ton 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, or 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. It would be great to go to any one of those rosters

because there's a ton of unfinished business, a ton of new matchups, and mostly because I like wrestling. And you're very good at it. It's a lot cooler to have someone else say you're good at wrestling than to say it yourself. When you did get released from WWE, you had survived so many rounds of the pandemic cuts.

Yeah. Every time that they were happening, were you like, all right, well, it's going to happen this time. Oh, my God,

we're safe. It's going to happen this time. Oh, my God, we're safe. No, I, for some reason,

like, I feel like I had, like, 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,

realized, I was trying to do a character that had been convoluted and kind of like tweaked and tweaked until it kind of became impossible. And then I started thinking like, eh, I wouldn't be surprised if I get released. And it happened. I just feel like what you and Ms. had going there was building to something. It was, you know, and it's not the first time.

I mean, it won't be the last time that happens with World Wrestling entertainments or, you know, any wrestling organization in general. general. And it would be great to go back there and pick that up. But if that doesn't happen, you know what? Like, it's not the end of the world for me. It's suck for Ms. You know, he could use the help. Just ask him. He's really good at wrestling too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He is. No joke. He's really like elevated himself like and become a star, you know. He's the most underrated person on the WWE roster, in my opinion. And I think that he was such a great WWE champion and deserves another run as he's, you know, getting into the latter part of his

career now. I think if you look at the roster, like, and think about like all the baby faces, all the, 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 rally up the crowd that would be the most satisfying for people to see you 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 his, what makes him the shiniest, does I like to say. So what do you think is his shiniest quality? His authenticity. And he is a product of professional wrestling like we all 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 our enlarged 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 realizing what he has and emphasizing it, like turning the volume up on his authentic self, I think is something that tons of people don't do. Like they want to be liked or good guys. Like I'm trying to think who was thrown up the bus. Cody, Cody Rhodes. He's got a star quality. He could have,

turned up the annoyingness and volume on himself and been the top heel of AEW. But he didn't because he wanted to be loved, liked. Yeah, there was a part there where he was getting booed. Oh, my God. He could have leaned into it. And what people don't understand is the more you're disliked, the more you're going to be liked. Yeah, yeah. Or the more you're liked, the more you can be disliked.

That's interesting. Because the more you get someone to feel one way or the other about you, you can flip it back and forth. The opposite of love is hate. It's not apathy. You know what I mean? If people are quiet, they don't love you or hate you. You can't make them one way or the other. Yeah.

I mean, if the crowd's doing nothing, then you've got a real problem. Yeah, that's not pro wrestling. The whole point is to get the crowd involved. To do something. And make them feel. Is Ms. for sure the most successful person to come out of Tough Enough? Man. You know, I was on Tough Enough, right?

You're the most successful Tough Enough champion, hands down, bar none. I think so. Yeah, but I answer that question. So I think you're the most successful, tough enough champion? You don't have to reframe the question. He's the most successful tough enough contest. He's definitely the most successful to come out of Tough enough. Yeah.

Yeah. And the irony is if he was champion, I don't know if it would have worked out for him the way that it did. That's so interesting. Because look at Daniel Puter, like, and what happened to him. I mean, you know, he was on, I think was the quarter million dollar tough enough. And I was still at OVW the day that Puter arrived. And he must have been driving like a $90,000 like Mercedes. And he like pulled up right in front.

And I remember sitting there and thinking like, well, no one's going to be angry at me for when he tough enough because all these guys are. are on contract. Some of them are making 300 a week. Yeah. And some of them are not even on contract, not on paper. They're just showing up trying to get jobs and they're working part-time moving furniture or they're nine to five. And then after 10 years in the business, imagine watching some kid roll up in a $90,000 car that he just won. He told me he never got a quarter of a million dollars.

I think he's an exaggerator. I think that they pro-rated his contracts over years. There was no lump sum. I thought it was supposed to be the first year, $250, and then three additional optional years at $250. Yeah, so $250 then. I think that they, like, did, like, some funny, like, a deal where it wasn't, like, a $250 a year thing.

Yeah. It was $2.50 total. Oh, that's not a million dollars at all. No. But was it a million dollar tough enough? A million-dollar tough enough challenge. Yeah, that was what was. called. Yeah. Well, he had enough for that Mercedes. Or at least for the payments for the Mercedes.

True. Yeah. And it didn't matter if he got the million or not. Showing up in that car made everyone think that he did. Yeah. It probably made everyone hate him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't. I thought he was like a nice dude, a little annoying because he was clearly politicking so hard with everybody that we had this thing called the over meter at OVW. You know what overness is, I'm assuming, right? Sure. Yeah. So say you're sitting in the stands at a raw,

and there's pewter by the ring, and Arne Anderson walks out. Arn's over. So the overmeter goes off, beep, beep, beep, beep, as Peter walks over to Arn. But what happens if the Undertaker? walks out. Oh.

There he goes. Or Vince McMahon. He would run in circles, depending on who was the most over. That's so interesting. Maybe that's his legacy. Maybe it is. Inventing the over meter. His legacy is that Kurt Angle moment.

He had him in a Camara. We all saw it. He absolutely had him in a Camara. And he wasn't pinned. But Jimmy Cordare is. It was quick on his feet, one, two, three. And told him to pin himself. Like, I think the Cordyris got a buzz in his ear and said,

oh, darn it, tell that kid to pin himself. Holy crap, what's happening? Yeah. Yep. So I feel like you look incredible, 43. What's the secret? Tell us. I mean, it's blood, sweat, and tanner.

Mostly tanner, spray tans. It looks good. It's a good tan. Look how white I look compared to you. Oh, yeah, yeah. I knew I was coming on here, so I figured I'd look radioactive. No, on camera, it looks perfect. In real life, you know, you know.

You know, it's funny. I remember, like, Vince was always really big on Dan. And there was a while where I was wrestling Seamus, and I'd come back and he'd be like, God damn, you look fantastic. And I looked exactly the same, and I wrestled truth the next week. And he's like, Morrison, come here. You look like shit. Get a tan. God damn it.

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 truth, who's very black. Sure. And of course, I'm not going to look that tan. What's the secret? Is it a spray bottle? Like, do you do it yourself or do you go to a place?

I get like the, all right. So I have a couple secrets. First of all, if you're staying in a hotel, it's the sprays. If you're going to tan yourself in your own house, you don't want to get that. You don't want to ruin the sheets. Are we cussing on this thing or not? Absolutely. It's the internet.

Okay. If you're going to spray in your own house, you don't want to get that shit all over the place. You know what I mean? And also, like, no one cares how tan your lungs are. So you don't want to, like, breathe it in because even if you got like an MRI of your lungs or something, it's not going to impress everyone if they're tan. So if you're staying at hotels, go outside your hotel room in the hallway and spray tan out there. So it doesn't get in the room and you don't breathe it in. also when you do that look out for fire alarms because i've set them off twice no way yeah the aerosol cans

if you're under the sensor will uh set off the fire alarm um not good especially if people come out and they see you in your underwear like tan if you're going to do it at your house you can do like the uh foaming moose uh things you don't feel bad about leaving yellow stains on the on the sheets in the hotel that's what they're for right i guess i mean yes i don't feel bad at all because you would assume that they would wash them does it wash out you're like i don't know i've already checked out i'm sure they bleach them i would i mean hotel hotels are so gross like so gross i would i would hope that they put the sheets every night no matter whether there's tanner or not into like a vat of bleach and clean i would hope so right okay so it's just tanner great

Yeah. All right. I'm going to keep this in mind because I've got that goal. I told you about this. Best shape of my life. May 19th of this year, my 40th birthday. So you're saying like, keep doing what I'm doing with eating and working out,

but tons of fake tanner. Oh, yeah. I think you need to tan on May 17th. And then let it kind of sink in. Yeah. And that way. Right. Exactly.

That way you'll have like, you'll be radioactive on the 18th and like fade a little bit to like a perfect natural glow on the 19th. For the like, you know, 40th birthday TikTok or whatever. Yeah. That's the plan. Yeah.

Everyone points to how great bad bunny was doing the Canadian Destroyer, WrestleMania 37. Very few people talk about your role in doing that move and making him look so good. You know, him and Damien Priest got nominated for an S-B for the Canadian Destroyer. I feel like 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 put on an entertaining match

that there are a lot of celebrities or people adjacent to people. adjacent to wrestling that I could take a Canadian destroyer from but I probably wouldn't he has set the bar so high for celebrity wrestling matches argued with people about that like

what are you doing like I really feel like he earned it and I have so much respect for that guy like he yeah I agree set the bar like so high because you know every other celebrity match they've had a WrestleMania you kind of like roll your eyes and you go I don't want a specific

specifically name names here, but you go, really? Who? I'm just kidding. Certain Jersey Shore member. Hey, she was on my teeth. I know, but you know, the handspring back elbow actually was really. I showed her that. You did?

Yeah. Of course you did. She was a gymnast. I can't believe I didn't mean to very Snooky here. I know, I know. I'm just saying bad bunny set the bar so high here. No, I know. It's funny.

I really like Snooky. I mean, do you know how Tantius? talking about Tanner. Yeah, bringing that right back in the Did you choreograph the entire match with Bad Bunny? Is that why it looks so seamless? No. I put in a few things,

but Adam Pierce, Brian Kendrick, Benny, Bad Bunny himself was there, working with Drew Guleck at the Performance Center. There was a lot of people that put in a lot of work on that. But I would imagine that's not a match you're calling in the ring. That's a match where you're going. No. after this happens, then this happens.

I would have been a lot more presence, but I went to the Performance Center once to train with him. Then the following episode of Raw, I partially torn my MCL. And it was like touch and go for a while. Like it was almost going to be Bad Bunny Miz and a singles. Then a tag, I didn't know if I was going to 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. What was the thing that impressed you the most about Bad Bunny? His pacing. And I feel like for me, it took a long time to be comfortable with doing nothing and hearing the crowd. And I think because he's a performer and been in front of so many crowds, that came a lot easier and more natural to him than it did to me. It took me a long time to figure that out.

I think it takes a lot of people a very long time to slow down and be comfortable and relaxed. And he got that very fast. You want to talk about a surprise Royal Rumble entrant. Bad Bunny would be a real good one. Yeah. And you. I could be good Bunny. Good Bunny and Bad Bunny? Good Bunny. Bad Bunny. What do you think of Logan Paul? Speaking of celebrities that are in WWA. Three matches in as we sit here right now. Here's what I think of Logan Paul.

Man, remember when he had that match and he said he blew out his knee? All three ligaments, his ACL, PCL, MCL, and then coming to find out, like, you 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 4,000 matches. And I've torn both knees 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 does 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. So you're saying like if Logan Paul were to go to a wrestling school and then have three matches on the independence, they wouldn't look that good? Not even close.

I think Logan Paul is an extremely gifted athlete. 100%. And his potential to become a phenomenal wrestler is 100% there. What he did, though, is indicative of that, not to say that he has those skills now. He could obtain them through years of work. But I don't know well enough to know if he knows that he doesn't or if he believes. leaves his own hype. It'd be interesting.

I don't know if anybody's ever had their first three WWE matches look as good as his first three WWB matches. I don't know if anyone's had their first WWE matches rehearsed as much as he's rehearsed his three matches either. Especially working one-on-one with Sean Michaels. Who in the business can say

that they worked for a month on one match with Sean Michaels before they had that match. Yeah, if you're going to learn from somebody, That's a pretty good person to learn from. Yeah. I mean, it's no wonder it was a great match. He's working with one of the, not just best minds, best minds, best in-ring technicians and performers in the history of the business individually for a month for one match.

Are we talking about the Roman match or the Ms. match? That was the Roman match, I believe. I mean, they've all been really good. Yeah. Ms. also has this incredible uncanny ability to make everybody they've. he works with look like a million bucks. When we were talking previously about him being underrated,

completely underrated. His pacing and way to engage the crowd makes the job of his opponents much easier. I want to talk specifically about some of your like crazy moments. Oh, I got an idea first. Okay.

Logan Paul versus Johnny drip, drip in the wrestling ring. Who do you think wins? What would make the most sense? Logan Paul, come on. Yeah, it would probably make sense for Logan. Logan Paul versus me in boxing, though. Ooh.

It's ironic. He went the distance with Floyd May whether. He would probably beat Johnny drip drip in like one segment. But if it was boxing, I don't know. He's probably had more experience in boxing than you. Much more. Yeah. That'd be interesting.

I think he's done with boxing, though, isn't he? Maybe. Who wins if it's you and Jake Paul? Well, I think I'd knock out Logan in like a couple rounds. Jake Paul, it's just a little guy. I don't know. He has some real hands, though. Oh, yeah, but he's just like a little small guy.

He's a very cute fighter. Jake Paul, if I could put like a little bow tie on him and sit him on my couch next to the dogs, I'd pet him. Your dogs are very small and cute. Yeah. I mean, he would be a very good pet, Jake. but as a boxer I don't know Tommy Fury would knock him out in a heartbeat

Sounds like that's going to happen I hope so I would still take Jake Paul in that fight If that doesn't happen I'll knock out Jake Paul It's crazy to me How many people think those fights are rigged Like crazy

They're not rigged Of course they're not rigged If they're rigged There's a lot of people That are in on this Extremely illegal activity Right I mean They're not rigged

I don't know yeah, I don't know why people think they're rig. Well, you know exactly why people think these fights are rigged because they don't want Jake Paul to win. And Jake Paul not only keeps winning, but he keeps knocking people out. He's choosing his opponents. That's 100% true.

Look at a... Sure. He's choosing money fights. Yeah, but he's choosing money fights. He thinks he can win. Of course. Like Tyrone Woodley, I actually thought Tyrone Woodley was going to knock him out.

I thought so for sure. Right? Yeah. But when on paper you look like, Woodley's background is mostly wrestling. Yeah. Collegiate wrestling. Yeah.

And obviously, M.A., which got striking, but so much of his toolkit, Woodley's, is submissions, taking a guy down that doesn't have any, like, overlap with boxing whatsoever. It was such a crisp knockout. I know.

So crisp. Yeah. But, like, that was a, Jake Paul. Woodley too, right? Yeah. I mean, Turner Woodley took that on very short notice also.

They didn't need to have a rematch. Well, he just, like, filled in, right? Was Jake Paul supposed to fight Fury? And he couldn't get into the country because of the visa issue. And, like, basically in the ring after the first fight with Woodley, Woodley was like, let's run it back right now. And Jake's like, we kind of, we already did this. Like, I think we're good.

Yeah. And then they had that stupid thing of like, all right, if you, if you tattoo my name, on your body. I love Jake Paul. Then we'll do a rematch. He's like, done. And then we got the rematch, which I wasn't that excited about,

but then the knockout made it go. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, I didn't even watch that one live because I was more excited. I'd be excited to watch Tommy, Jake Paul. Now I watch me versus Jake Paul.

Well, here's the thing. If you win your celebrity boxing debut. I'm just looking past Harley, this six-foot six man in Montreal who's been training his ass off. If you're 2070 pounds that I'm going to fight, yeah. If you win that fight, there's a real good chance you could be on a Jake Paul undercard.

Then you win that. Maybe. I mean, there's also like the best YouTube boxer of all of them is KSI. He beat Logan Paul way back. Yeah, like what, two years ago? Who did he just knock out, KSI? Uh, phase temper. What?

What? So, oh, YouTube boxing, all the boxers, go by their handles. So he knocked out Faye's temper. At Faye's temper. Oh, okay. This is the guy's name.

What's your at? I have to think of it now that I'm a YouTube boxer. Johnny something, right? I was going to go Johnny YouTube boxer. That seems long. I know. It's overly long, which is kind of funny.

But you got so many, so many Johns and Johnny's to choose from. I mean, Johnny Boxer. I kind of like Johnny's going to kill you. Hmm. It's really long, too. How are you going to chant that? Johnny's gonna kill you

You proved me wrong You proved me wrong I remember when you You had originally told me like John Hedigan's a great name You just can't chant it Really? Yeah It's true

Because you can chant all your other ones Yeah Johnny Nitro Johnny Mundo Do do do yeah Johnny Impact Johnny Elite Right

Yeah Johnny Rampage Johnny Boxing Were you upset when Johnny Gargano took Johnny wrestling? I'd wrestle him for it. You know why he did that, right?

Me and you. You know why he did that, right? Because he's smart. Yeah, obviously. No, why? Great. He took that name when Johnny football, when Johnny Manzell, right?

When Johnny Manzell got drafted to the Browns and he's a Cleveland guy, Johnny Gargan. So he's like, I'm Johnny wrestling. I always have him. Yeah, no, I know. And he is the best boxer to come out of Cleveland by far. Just ask the Misses' dad, he'll tell you.

The best boxer to come out of Cleveland? Wrestler. Johnny wrestling is? Yeah. Wait, the Misses' dad would say Johnny Gargano's the best? Yes. Over the Miss? And Ziegler.

To me and Ziegler and the Miz in the car. No. Oh, yeah, Johnny Gargano. I'm telling you, he's a Cleveland boy. He's the best. I see you on the dirt sheets. I'm telling you, Michael. He's the best guy from Cleveland.

That's a great George. Like 100% that's what he would say. That's shocking. He also will say that Gargano's father is a crook that owes some money over tickets to a Christmas party that he had in Cleveland 25 years ago. You know, we need to go down that road. I'm not making that up, but it's a very strange story. It's the new year, which means new habits for a lot of people. Maybe you want to lose some weight.

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When you debuted in AEW and Johnny Elite came up on the screen, you know how many people thought Johnny Gargano was coming out? Ooh, maybe that helped with a pop. I mean, you got a big pop. Yeah, but because people thought it was Gargano. But then they saw you and went, ah, Johnny Elite. Damn. All right.

A courtesy pop That's nice Oh, that's not I know I'm just kidding I like Johnny Gargano I would wrestle him for the name Johnny Wrestling though

That'd be a pretty good match Yeah Okay Johnny boxing I like Johnny boxing Pretty good I like Johnny YouTube boxer Because you're right

It's so long It's just kind of stupid That's too long But it's like It's like overly long On purpose Because it's dumb Why don't you just be

John Hennigan I should have been John Hennigan When I started Was that ever an option? No. When I started like, it was at a time when W.V.E. was adamant about everyone having a new name so they could own it. They wouldn't say that part, but that was it.

Did you say to them like, what about that Kurt Engel guy over there? I thought about it. What about that John Cena guy over there? But you see when you win a reality show and you show up. What about that Randy Orton guy over there? Who's he ever being? That's right. No, I was just trying to get on to RAR or Smackdown from developmental before I got fired.

I didn't think to say, they're giving me a name? Yeah. Sounds great. I'll be Johnny, whatever. Johnny Nitro, perfect. I'll take it. Although there was a real big shift when you went from Johnny Nitro to John Morrison in your ECW time. Yeah.

That was a big step up for you. It definitely was. and literally Vince, I don't know if we'll admit this or not, but did not like Nitro, I don't think, because it reminded him of WCW.

Oh, like too soon. Yeah, and like it was, it's always going to be too soon. Like he, 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, all right, I'm not going to fight this anymore. The fact that you said no to Vince the first two times, that's pretty crazy.

It was, I thought about it. too. I was like, I don't know I say this guy. Like, I like Nitro. I don't want to confuse people. I should have just said yes the first time. How do you, how do you say note events? You just say you'll think about it and then hope he forgets. And sometimes he does.

So how did you come up with Morrison? He said, you got to change your name. We've got to have a champion's name for 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 Morrison. Like, Blaze is already copyrighted. But a bunch of stuff. And he, like, looked at this list that I'd spent an hour, like, Googling names and, like, meetings

and, like, different, like, celebrities, like James Dean and making this list. And he just looked at it and was like, John Morrison. Like that. That's, That was it. Did he have put together that you kind of look like John Morrison or Jim Morrison? I don't know.

Did you put that together? Oh, that's why I picked it. Like Jim Morrison. You could have just been a Doris fan. Well, I was. I mean, he was like, but also like he went to UCLA. He was a film major. I was a film major.

I liked their music. The look was like similar. It became more similar when I started like, like, uh, yeah, flat ironing my hair like him. So Johnny Elite goes to AEW. You wrested three matches there. Yes. What happened?

Why wasn't it more? I think that the roster got scared. No. You know, I don't know. I never discussed with Tony anything more than one-offs. I was open and am open. I think that that roster is like just jam patch with talent. and you never know in wrestling what could happen.

I think there's a lot of people on that roster you could have some really great matches with. 100%. I mean, I want to start naming names because you ever named names and then realize, oh, I named two names. I had to name like five names. Now five, and I'm going to forget somebody. They're going to name everybody. That's the worst thing because you start to name names and people go, oh, I can't believe they didn't name so-and-so. Right.

Well, of course I meant that person. Yeah, but there's like, there's like, there's like, 100, over 100 people on the roster. Yeah. And I would name at least half or more. Yeah. You could have a great match with all 100 of those people. Yeah.

Really could. Do you want to name them? Do I want to name them? I'm just kidding. 100 names. I wonder how far we could get here. We could get pretty far, but we would for sure forget like 20. And then everyone would, I can't believe you didn't need a pock or fetus.

You're already doing it. No, no, but I did it in like a double negative context. Oh, yeah, good call. That was good. Okay, I'm going to circle back to what we were, I was going to bring up earlier. I want to talk about some of your most insane moments in your career. We're going to start with the elimination chamber.

Climbing up to the ceiling and doing a splash on a Seamus from there. Where does that idea come from? I had that idea years prior when I started washing the elimination chamber because you start thinking what can you do, or I do at least, when I watch matches like that. And literally I thought maybe I could Vega someone. By that I mean like Vega from Street Fighter 2, where he would climb up and just kind of jump back

and like splash people. And I was like really pumped about doing that. And then when I got into the chamber, I like climbed up there. and realized it is really high. And those chambers at that time were way less forgiving than the chambers are currently. For some reason, like the steel was like real steel and it didn't make much noise. So like when you fall on it, like this is outside the ring.

I fell inside the ring for this specific move. But when you fall on the steel outside the ring back then, the crowd would be like, oh, but it didn't make a loud noise. It just hurt. that looked like it hurt, that spot. Yeah. What's the thing you've done in your career that's hurt the most that maybe didn't look like it hurt the most? Man.

Injuries aside, because those are easy ones. You know the Falls Can Anywhere match versus Ms. I hit a starship pane to the outside through a table. And it looked like I landed perfectly flat, but I didn't. I somehow landed like slightly knees first. And like I did a really minor like scorpion. So I felt like I hurt my back and knocked the window to myself at the same time. And then like could barely get up.

Like I think the next thing was his finish. But like very like did not want to stand up and take another move. We'd never think that'd be one of them. Yeah. It looks really clean like nothing. Yeah. But I remember in that moment thinking like, How did I do this?

Why? Why did I just not do something easy? You know, Kofi recently credited you for his Rumble save spots. That's very nice of him. Kofi is a creative, like a genius and one of my favorite people to work inside the ring. And if I could inspire him, then that feels great. But he thought of those spots himself too. he was inspired by seeing your spot.

Yeah. You know, the spider man jump, which was so cool. And then he went, oh, well, Morrison's not here for this year's Rumble, so I'm going to do something now. Man, that's nice, him. I was really stoked about that first Rumble spot. I don't think it could have come off any smoother. It was so clean.

Yeah. Clean is my favorite word to describe. But then you had this other one that was, like a backflip. Oh, you saw the IG post. Yeah. Man. That one would have been so good.

When I got signed back and I knew I was going to be in the Rumble, I was trying to think of something that could one up what I did the first time. And that backflip spot, first of all, is like shades of oceans 11 a little bit. Remember when the guy's inside the thing they put in the safe and he gets out and he has do a backflip and land sitting. So it was that same maneuver, but you have to clear, I think it would have had to clear

11 to 12 feet, depending on how they set up the ring. And I trained that at the gym a lot because it's basically like throwing a whip back or a back handspring in the air because you have to travel so much further than up. I'm a nerd about movement.

That's also why you're so good at what you do. But I specifically trained it and like inched it back because like naturally if you're back flipping from that angle, you go up more. And it's not proper technique to go that far back. But if you're trying to land in your butt on the guardrail, that's what you have to do. So why didn't it happen? It was not in the cards on that return. That was the year of Brock. And I pitched really hard for it.

And I don't know. I think they thought that the story was Brock. And I said, I think Brock's the story, but why don't we have more than one story? And that made them think. And then right before they came back and said, no. Didn't need to be a whole story. Could have just been a moment. 100%.

Well, now you know you can do it if you ever do have another rumble spot. Right. What do you think's the most, what's the moment in your career that you're, you're the most proud of. Let's see. Side working with my wife and marrying her. You know, it's so hard because, like, I'm thinking back over a 20-year career now,

and anytime you're asked to name your favorite thing, your one thing, it's really difficult. But, like, things that come to mind are, like, working with Jeff, Um, as a tag M&M versus like the Hardee's and singles matches, Chinese Nitro versus Jeff, like the finish of one of our cage matches, like in 2007, I thought was still one of my favorite cage match finishes. Wrestling Ray and Cleveland of all places for the IC title in, uh,

one of an 09 was one of my proudest moments because when you wrestle Ramis de Radio, you think like the crowd is going to boo me no matter what. And I was really excited that the crowd was cheering for me. They're cheering for him more, but they're cheering for both of us. They were excited for the match. And having a good match with him on that day, like, sticks out. Luch Underground, there's the all-night long matches, which are like, basically, Iron Man matches, had two, one with Ricochet, one with Willie Mac.

I think you mean Prince Puma. True. With Prince Puma. Or ricochet. No. I don't want to ruin wrestling. No. Santa Claus is real.

Both of those, it's so tough. Like, now I'm thinking of all the moments that I didn't name. Oh, we're back to that before. Yeah. Who would I leave out? It's tough. It's tough to think of one thing. I think, like,

there's all those moments and then there's like your career in totality and like you make good decisions and bad decisions and I think like staying on the path is another thing to be proud of. Do you feel like there were several moments or matches that were building in WWE that could have maybe possibly led to the championship one day? Yeah, 100%. Like I feel like I was a I was on that path more than once. I mean, when I was ECW champion in 2007, I feel like I was really stepping up. And like there's like a few things that happened

that just someone else got moved up or it didn't work out. And everyone in the business, not everyone, but most people can say like they could have or would have or should have at one point. And for me, I've found like, It's better not to dwell on like the coulda what a should is. It's like I could have done better. I could have done worse too, though.

I've had a pretty great career. Yeah, exactly. Do you think you've had a hall of fame career? The funny thing is, I don't care. I think the Hall of Fame is political and made up. Yeah, it doesn't matter that much to me. That's interesting because I think you've easily had a Hall of Fame career. I still think you have so much more left in the tag.

Me too. Maybe that's why I don't care so much about Hall of Fame. I feel like it's too early for that question. Okay. I'll ask you again in like five years. 10 years, 15 years. You say like two years. No.

Yeah, 10 years ago. After I'm done being a YouTube boxer, you can ask me that question. Tail on my YouTube boxing career. I wonder if there's a YouTube boxing hall of fame. Maybe you create one. Yeah. Dude, and then I'll definitely be in it. How many YouTube boxing?

Maxy matches is going to have this year? At least one. At least. Yeah, the one goes. And then, I don't know. I mean, depending if those other guys, like, feel like getting knocked out or not, you know. You're going to have to really ramp up your YouTube channel here.

You know that, right? I know. Do you want me to link it below? Everybody watching this? Yeah. Okay. Put a link below. Okay.

The link is below. And the handles to be TBD. Whatever it says in the link below. Whatever it says there, we've decided on it. It's going to be a thing. You've got to come up with this pretty quickly. Oh, man, come on. You have a channel right now, right?

Yeah. But you're just not putting a ton of content on there. Um, correct. I'm going to subscribe to you right now. All right. Okay. Where will I find it here? I'm going to look at my phone, too, so it looks like I'm doing something.

No, no. Do I just look up your real name? At Palace of Wisdom. Palace of Wisdom. Palace of Wisdom. This needs to change, everyone. I know. Johnny Palace of Wisdom

No, it's just Palace of Wisdom It's not even It's not coming up Oh, hold on The Palace of Wisdom Maybe it's the Palace of Wisdom Is it got a Thud in front of it?

It's funny The Palace of Wisdom This is what comes up Oh, yeah Remember back when Avatar That was for the first Avatar Yeah, look at that It's a Drew McIntyre

Avatar parody Well, I can't find you. You'll have to send me the link. All right. That's actually crazy. But now that I have my phone out, I'm curious, how many of the words to your theme song do you know? Which theme song? Your WWE theme song. Ooh.

Let's, I'm going to pull that up right now. All right. Hold on. That is a fascinating question. Well, everybody knows at least the first liner, too, right? Yeah. Okay. So it's like,

I'm going to listen. Now listen. This ain't no make-believe. Boom. Open your eyes and see. Mm-hmm. Get up. Get up and follow me.

I'm going to show you what your future should be. Guitar. Too much wasting time. I can't waste no more. It's very prophetic if you think about it. It really is. This song was like 2007. It was like writing.

your future for you. Wasting time this whole time? No. Now take this. Rock on. I kind of phased out. Yeah, that's good. Let's change this subject now. I was going to just try to ride that high into the next topic. But it is really true, though. Yeah. Your song is very prophetic. Yeah, totally. And now I'm YouTube boxing.

Hey, how come when you made your WWU return, they didn't give you the slow motion effect? You know, I don't know. I asked for it. I think that they did, but they weren't prepared for it for some reason right away. Like weeks after the actual return, they started the slow-mo again. But when Ms. introduced you and you came out, you did all the motions, but they just didn't put in the slow-mo. Well, I thought they're going to do the slow-mo, which is why I did like the same stuff. Yeah. I really think it comes down to organization, even though you would think that, like, they would be organized enough to

do the entrance that I had done there for years. Yeah. But, uh, no. You don't walk through the entrances beforehand? We did walk through it. What's going on here? Maybe like someone forgot where the slow-mo button was in the truck. J-mo and slow-mo.

I know. J-mo, slow-mo, it rhymes. How could you forget? They forget stuff. They'll forget. All right. When we wrap this up, we're going to fix your YouTube channel. All right.

Oh, last thing to plug along with your YouTube channels. This, this chic shirt. that I got on was given to me by the Iron Sheik's daughter to Unruits of Fight, but she gave it to me when I was at her house in Atlanta getting voiceover for the Iron Sheik Massacre, which is a horror short comedy that Ty and I wrote on her honeymoon. It's now won three film festivals, the LA Film Festival, Georgia Comedy Film Festival, and Gainescon, film festival in Gainesville.

I've seen it. Yeah, it's not out. It's not out publicly yet. It's still playing in festivals, but it will be sometime soon. And if you like wrestling or horror or comedy or The Enshique or all of it or just any one of those things, you'll dig this.

I love your love of filmmaking. Yeah, I feel like I get really passionate about stuff and then I just go really far down whatever rabbit hole that is. Do you feel like when you first went down that rabbit hole? You were like, all right, if I put enough time, money, energy into this, this could definitely become something. I majored in film in college, and I still think that. I feel like it's not like an impossible thing.

It's just cracking like the business model and into the profession. And I believe I know how to right produce direct a professional product that could air on TV or be in a movie theater would be expensive, though. So that's where your passion lies. It's not in acting? It's not in acting. It's not writing, producing, directing. Storytelling. It's a good catch-all. Because you are so good on camera.

Like, the last time I interviewed you was for your film with Ziegler. Yeah, that's right. It was the speed of time. So great. That thing won, like, I think that thing won 10 film festivals. You're such a star in that movie, too. Because I think that, and I'm guilty of this myself, I've been in a few very, very small things.

Don't look them up. I'm not a great actor. Because I'm not, I haven't been doing very long. It's so clear when you do it, you get the subtleties of, like, what being a good actor is all about. Honestly, like what you just said is exactly how I got good at acting. I started taking it seriously when I left in 2012 and was not good for a long time.

but incremental work leads to incremental improvement. And I still, even through the pandemic, I would zoom my acting coach from Florida because he wasn't seeing people in person. And literally at least once a week, have like an hour session with my acting coach. They still do it now. And I think there's so much overlap into wrestling,

but outside of that, it's something I'm passionate about. I moved out here almost three years ago, and I was taking some acting classes before I moved out here and then taking someone I moved out here and so many of my friends that moved out here I just watched them struggle and it made me go

I'll just stick to YouTube and podcasting and interviews and hosting because I've got a background in that. Storytelling. You're storytelling? I'm definitely storytelling. 100%. 100%. Yeah. I'd rather be telling the stories

that I'm creating though. Yeah, exactly. I just watched so many of them fall on their face to put all their rent on credit cards And I'm like, I'd rather not do that. It sucks because I, I mean, when I first started going to acting classes, I can't tell you how many people, like, I thought, like, this guy's a really good actor or this, this woman is fantastic.

And five years, ten years later, they moved back to where they're from or they gave up. Not all of them. Some of them are stars. Yeah. But so many people that were so good. Like, it just, the demand from people, who want to be actors is higher than the amount of actual jobs in the industry there are. I really think, though, that acting is just a game of just continuing on and, like, you got to keep

doing it. Because there's, you know, you could act until you're 120. Yeah. But I think there's a lot of people that get into it and they're a year in and they're not getting booked. They're two years in. They've got, you know, they barely booked anything five, 10, 15 years in. Eventually, they just go, I can't live like this. Yeah. I mean, 100% That's true. And the I can't live like this is real too because like how long are you going to put your life on hold? Yeah.

And how long are you going to or how much further into debt are you going to keep going? Yeah. Like you can't like sustain yourself. Are you like and what are you giving up by doing that? Like potentially like getting married, starting a career. Yeah. Even if it's not the career that's like your passion or your dream. Yeah.

Like if you put off having a career. for 15 years, like, when you're going to go to graduate school and, like, start your career when you're 40? Yeah. I mean, or never, it's a big tradeoff. I do think, though, that if you put enough time and energy and money and do it like we just talked about, that, you know, one commercial will lead to two commercials, which will lead to a national commercial, which will lead to getting picked up for another cycle,

which leads to maybe not being in credit card debt. And I do think that that path is there. It's just you've got to take a lot of swings. 100%. A buddy of mine who's a wrestling fan, Nick Searsie, is really inspiring when you look at his acting career trajectory because he bootstrapped it, like auditioned. And it's not like he didn't book anything, but he didn't land the number two role on justified until he'd been acting for like 35 years.

And like he even dabbled with like becoming a professional wrestling manager for a while. but like he was struggling that whole time like booking things here and there but not like enough to like buy a house and live comfortably like he was hustling yeah how are you gonna get a mortgage when and and it worked for him yeah wow but it doesn't work for everybody but i think that that also goes back to what i was just saying of like it's just a super long game like i think that everybody's going to get their break i really truly believe if you put the time and the effort in yeah every actor's going to get their break for some people it might be in six months For some people, it might be in 26 years.

That's the hardest thing. Because, like, in your acting class or among your friend group, like, you're going to have that one friend or two that, like, you know, I auditioned for, like, Mission Impossible. I booked it. I'm in Mission Impossible. Now I booked another two, three, four, five movies. Yeah.

And you're thinking, like, what did I do wrong? And it's not that you do anything wrong. It's just that opportunities come at different times. Yeah, or like, you've been up for seven co-stars on network shows. and then your buddy who just started the acting class just booked one and you're like, what the heck? Right?

Yeah. Yeah. All right, so good to catch up with you. Yeah. I end every conversation talking about gratitude. I don't think I was doing this when we did our last interview. No, I've got a good challenge for you then. Go ahead.

Okay. No, you'll let you start. Okay. Well, I wake up every day. I say I'll have three things that I'm grateful for. And I do it before I go to bed, too. My acting coach is a strong advocate again. this. Okay. Oh boy. He recommended that I start keeping a rage journal,

rage instead of a gratitude journal, especially when you're in the pro wrestling business, because personally, like, I tend to be too nice. And his line of thinking was, instead of saying things that you're grateful for, think of the things that make you angry. Wow. Because you might need to dip into that. And that's, that's a, like, a personal thing that, like, that I do sometimes. Yeah, for acting. Or think about professional wrestling. I mean, basically, you're acting, but everything is very confrontational and you need to be able to tap into that anger and reach. Maybe I'd be a better actor if I started doing that. You'd definitely would be less happy. Smile a lot less. You'd probably be really miserable.

Well, you'd make people around you're miserable. For the sake of this interview and the sake of this exercise, we can go back to gratitude. What are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? Let's see. Number one, um, my wife. And it sounds cliche, but we met while I was older and ready to meet someone, ready to have like a partner to share my life with. And I'd gotten to the point where I started to worry that maybe it wouldn't happen for me. And when I met her, I was excited. And then when we got married, I was more excited. And I still like wake up and look next to me and I'm really grateful.

one two my family I have the best family they are so supporting and loving and smart I feel like

they level me up to take the good as it gets compliment Jack Nicholson gave they make you want to be a better person three let's see my health

I feel really lucky to be able to do the things that I want physically, considering I've been in the wrestling business for 21 years. I click and my back hurts and my hips are tight a lot of times, but I feel like with my knowledge of working out, I can work through that and it doesn't affect the way that I play with my nieces and nephews and, like, boxing or parkour, or any of the things that I like to do.

Well, there we go. Those are three great things. Johnny... Wait a minute. You didn't give your three. Oh, really? Yeah. You want me to do it?

Yeah. Oh. Okay. Grateful for... I'm grateful for my health, always. Grateful for my wife, who I'm recently married now. Wait, everyone. I wait, first, you're saying the same thing.

I mean, this is what I do every day, though. I do this every day. Okay. Okay. I'm going to lump in, like, just the people that I love in that second category, my wife and my family, and I'm grateful for all of their health as well. And I'm just grateful for opportunities. Like, I'm grateful that we live in a time where anything is possible. Like, anything is truly possible if you point yourself in that direction. Like, you're a YouTube boxer now because of the time that we're like... Literally, I'm, like, laughing at it. And, like, think of how

crazy that is. It's all crazy. Like, after, like, a 20-year-plus wrestling career. I decided to be a YouTube boxer. And you're going to be the most shredded one. You know what? You got damn right. I'm going to be the most shredded YouTube boxer in YouTube boxing history. But it's really fun and interesting and bizarre.

And I like all those things. Creator Clash 2. Yep. April 15th, Tampa, Florida, Creator Clash 2, R-I-P-Harley, or should I say D-R-I-P? Drip. That's good. Thank you, sir. Next time, let's go over the three things we're angry at.

Next interview. We'll do that when we work out together. Deal. Okay. All right, my friends, big thank you to John for sitting down with us in person. I just love that guy. I feel like I could talk to him every month for like three hours at a time. Hmm.

Not a bad idea. I have to reach out and see what he's doing every month for like a three hour chunk. I know we'll be seeing him boxing at Creator Clash 2 on April 15th, But where will he pop up before then? Hmm. Or I'll rumble as I record this right now is just around the corner. Hmm. Be very, very interesting.

Snap a screenshot. Let us know that you were listening and tag us so we can share it. John is at John Hedigan on Instagram. On Twitter, he's at the real Morrison. Tag me. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And I figure since he's John Morrison inspired by Jim Morrison, I'll leave you with a quote from Jim Morrison.

He said, expose yourself to your deepest fear. After that, fear has no power. And the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free. Be great. Be grateful. We will see you on the next one. Actually, we're going to see you tomorrow.

That's the next one. A little surprise third episode this week with a surprise guest. We'll see you then for some more insight. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, they were a. thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock but there was one band that had it all hammer alley whatever happened to hammer alley how did they go from top of the rock i'm looking for a music video they're a band from 1987 hammer alley ever heard of them to rock bottom dude i was born in

nineteen eighty seven uh i can't believe he's doing this hammer alley follow and listen on your favorite platform