Sometimes with the WWE, you can get a little bit stale. Your traveling is usually with the same group, and you're generally working with the same person and the same type of match, and it's the same environment backstage.
— John Morrison
Touring is exciting.
Creatively, there are no limits to what you can do in the ring.
Lucha is faster paced, harder hitting, and more acrobatic than any other style of wrestling.
WWE is so huge, and they have to crank out so many hours of television, so they don't have time to take the care and attention to detail for the entire roster.
I love being able to perform in the ring in front of people, and that's the greatest feeling in the world.
With WWE, I mean, as a kid, I was watching 'WrestleMania,' and that was my dream.
I've been spending quite a bit of time writing, acting, and making films. Because I'm doing all this extra writing, acting, and creating short comedy skits with my friends in improv shows, I feel like that's really filled out my confidence on the mic.
I remember when 'Stranger Things' came out, if I had to watch one episode a week, I wouldn't have been nearly as into it as I was when I just sat there and watched the whole thing in, like, two days.
There's a lot on my plate, but the cool thing is everything that I'm doing I'm really into. I love 'Lucha Underground.' I love Impact. I love wrestling every weekend all over the world.
Prince Puma is one of the most talented people in the history of the business. He can do anything. He's so ridiculously talented. When you're in the ring with someone like him, that means that anything is possible.
That's what defines 'Survivor': it's the ultimate test of who you are.
I felt like I evolved into a great singles wrestler in ECW because of the opportunities to speak and wrestle longer matches.
The key to good art is to make something that means something to you.
Johnny Nitro was an homage to Eric Bischoff, who, I was his apprentice at the time. I liked that name. Basically, Vince McMahon thought that 'Nitro' reminded him of WCW, and when I became the ECW Champion, like, he had a couple times mentioned to me, 'If you're going to be a real star, you need a real name.'
Wrestling is a business: the more promotions the better, more opportunities for wrestlers to work.
All through college, I did a lot of break-dancing and all kinds of different martial arts.
Wrestling, for me, is always an awesome challenge because you have the opportunity to constantly create something new, your canvas is always the ring, and there are similarities to every match that you have and what you do.
Wrestling promotions are kind of like new religions - nine out of 10 fail in the first year.
Working with Lucha and Mexico and all the independent wrestling I've done has made me an exponentially better performer.
I have a singular focus, I'm a perfectionist, and I always want to prove I am the best and the best version of myself.
Wrestling ultimately comes down to what happens when the bell rings, and it comes down to athleticism, storytelling, and characters - and what we're doing in 'Lucha Underground' is the highest-quality wrestling out there.
I think anytime you have an event for the first time ever, like a Super Bowl or WrestleMania or UFC, as the years go by, everything becomes more polished with promotion and bigger stars.
Usually, every match in the WWE, I was the one with the stupid ideas. I'm trying to figure out how to jump off the stage or turn the logo into a weapon or obstacle.
I can't count how many times I've heard a wrestling fan say they don't have enough time to watch 'Raw.' Maybe it's less about not having the time to watch a three-hour show, but it's more about the time and the patience. You can usually sum up your three-hour 'Monday Night Raw' in a five-minute conversation.
One thing I really like about 'Lucha' is it breaks traditions. It's established it's own identity and a world where the character can be darker, multilayered, even supernatural at times.
I worked on 'Boone' for five years. I tried to find money for it. I couldn't. I ended up selling my house to finance it personally.
It's easy to be the Mayor of Slamtown in the wrestling ring.
I'm really excited about producing my first feature, 'Boone the Bounty Hunter.' Boone is a bounty hunter that does parkour to catch skips.
When I see action sequences I like, I imagine what I would do if it were me in the fight.
I'm a fan of Shinedown.
Johnny Blaze was my character at OVW. I had all these fancy fire catchphrases: 'Call the fire department,' 'Get your fire extinguishers out, ladies.' 'By the time you hear the thunder, it's going to be too late because the lightning will have already struck.' That was all my thing.
What I think ECW presented was a big opportunity for a lot of WWE superstars. Definitely me. It revitalized my entire career when I moved to ECW.
I don't think anyone in the WWE really knew that I did parkour. I mean, some of the guys have seen me doing it backstage in arenas before and have always asked about it, but the office didn't know.
The best way to describe 'Tough Enough' is to just call it an opportunity. In my opinion, it's best opportunity any aspiring wrestler could possibly have.
'Lucha Underground' is a combination of new psychology, new moves, and a new take on wrestling: an evolution of wrestling. In my opinion, it is entertaining. It is the kind of wrestling I want to watch. It is the kind of stories I want to tell, which is why I intend to be part of it.
My favorite part of working with 'Lucha Underground' is learning more Lucha, combining that with my WWE psychology, and taking wrestling to a place we've never seen before in the evolution of wrestling.
When I was leaving WWE, I'd started becoming interested in applying parkour to the matches and using the ring environment in fun, new ways.
Hopefully, when people watch 'Lucha Underground' and WWE, Ring of Honor, New Japan, AAA, and any other promotion out there, they fall in love with pro wrestling. Pro wrestling, as it affects pop culture, is bigger than any one promotion.
As far as being the guy and really the first guy with the reputation to sign on to be a part of 'Lucha Underground,' I take a great deal of pride in it.
Football has an off-season. Basketball has an off-season. TV has an off-season. Everything has an off-season except wrestling.
'Lucha Underground' really is the first episodic professional wrestling show. There are storylines in every promotion, but the way 'Lucha Underground' is crafted really is more of a TV show than your traditional wrestling show.
The creative autonomy in 'Lucha Underground' is more than I felt in WWE. There is more willingness from the creative and production team to listen to input from the wrestlers in 'Lucha Underground.'
When I'm in the ring with somebody like Puma, it really forces me to level up and rise to the top of my game. It's sometimes just face-melting, the kind of stuff that he can do.
Can I bond with people and live for 39 days without my Instagram account? Probably! But the real question for me is this: can I be happy doing that?
Miz & Morrison, 'The Greatest Tag Team of the 21st Century,' was fun because Miz and I have great comedic chemistry for backstage segments and our Internet show, 'The Dirt Sheet.'
I've always appreciated a creative approach to action, doing things that people don't expect, tweaking things to make them different.
At the end of the day, I look at it like this: pro wrestling is really hard on the performers, the luchadoras, and any time a performer is in a position to do something good for themselves and make money, I'm always happy to see that happen.
I tried out for 'Tough Enough' season 2 originally and made it to the final casting episode and got cut by Kevin Dunn, who said all I wanted to do was run and flip and jump.
When I grew up, my dad listened to all that stuff - Neil Young. Floyd. The Doors. The Beatles. Stones. So even now, to this day, it's the music I listen to a lot of the time.
