John Morrison has gone through more name changes than anyone in the history of wrestling. It all started when the former WWE star made his debut on Raw under the ring name Johnny Blaze in 2004. However, he instantly went through a couple of name changes before settling on Johnny Nitro. He used the name for a few years before Vince McMahon made him change it again. The former champion thinks it was because Nitro reminded the boss of WCW’s flagship show of the same name.
The high-flying star was recently interviewed by Chris Van Vliet. Among other things he also talked about his name change in WWE. The wrestling star admitted that going from Nitro to Morrison was a big shift for him. He also revealed that Mr McMahon asked him to change the name three times before he finally did:
“It definitely was. Literally, Vince I don’t know if [he] would admit this or not, but [he] did not like Nitro. I don’t think [so]. Because it reminded him about WCW. Because he asked me to change my name three times. The third time was when I won the ECW title [in 2007]. I didn’t say no that time because I was like, ‘All right. I am not gonna fight this anymore.'”
When asked how he managed to say no to Vince McMahon two times, Morrison said “You just say you’ll think about it and then hope he forgets. Sometimes he does.”
‘You Gotta Have A Champion’s Name’: John Morrison
John Morrison also revealed the reason Vince gave him for wanting the name change and detailed the final conversation about it:
“He said, ‘You gotta change your name. You gotta have a champion’s name if you’re gonna be a champion. Make a list of names. Write down 10 names’ Then 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, Blaze is already copywritten, but a bunch of stuff. He looked at this list that I’d spent an hour googling names and meanings and different celebrities like James Dean and making this list. He just looked at it and was like, ‘John Morrison,'”
You can check out the former ECW champion’s interview below:
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