Former WWE Superstar and current Lucha Underground talent John Morrison (a.k.a Johnny Mundo) recently did an interview with Colt Cabana on The Art Of Wrestling podcast to talk about his time in the WWE. You can check out some of what he had to say here below (quotes via Wrestling Inc.):
Morrison says he wasn’t released from WWE, but just decided not to re-sign his contract:
“I wouldn’t say I quit or was released. At the end of 2011, I just didn’t resign. I let my contract run out. They offered me a couple of things. They didn’t offer me what I wanted.” Morrison continued, “I wanted to make a movie and I didn’t want to work 250 days a year.”
Being tired of not having any “creative autonomy”:
“That’s one of the reasons I left. I was tired of just kind of being on that express train, whatever you want to call it, so to speak. It just sort of shoots forward and you have no creative autonomy, no control over your time, and there’s not much time for side projects or family and friends.”
Believing he’d take a year off from wrestling to do movies after leaving WWE:
“When you leave WWE, like, when I left I was thinking, ‘maybe I’ll take, like, a year off, and in that year, I’ll probably do a Marvel movie, maybe a couple of movies. I don’t know.’ And, obviously, completely unrealistic.”
“I was thinking with the TV exposure I had with WWE, and it’s kind of hard to explain to people sometimes how many countless hours you are on television when you’ve been on the road with WWE. I was thinking that was going to open doors, get me auditions, and get me into a lot of high profile roles. The thing that I didn’t take into consideration is that acting, like wrestling, is a skill. And, as many people are fans of wrestling that are going to be excited to meet you, talk about what The Undertaker and John Cena were like, there [are] a lot of people out there who are movie producers and casting directors who are not impressed with wrestling on your resume.”
