John Morrison

John Morrison is a flashy, athletic wrestler whose whole act is built around movement. He glides into springboards, lands on the ropes like they are solid ground, and then suddenly snaps into impact with a running knee, a corkscrew neckbreaker, or his best-known finish, Starship Pain, a split leg corkscrew moonsault.

Over the years, he has leaned into different names with different promotions, but through all of them, he is the parkour-influenced showman who makes wrestling look like a stunt reel, then backs it up with timing and control. Fans first got to know him in WWE as Johnny Nitro and later John Morrison, and he has since been a featured name in promotions like Lucha Underground (LU) as Johnny Mundo, Impact Wrestling (now TNA) as Johnny Impact, and AEW and Ring of Honor (ROH) as Johnny TV.

Morrison’s journey to national television began through WWE’s talent pipeline in the early 2000s. He made his debut in 2002 and gained attention as a co-winner of WWE Tough Enough III. He stood out as an athlete capable of quickly learning and incorporating unique movements into traditional wrestling sequences, which led to his transition into WWE’s developmental system.

His first real WWE character work came on Raw in early 2004. On the March 1, 2004 episode, he debuted as a heel, initially as Eric Bischoff’s on-screen assistant. He went through several names, starting as Johnny Blaze, then as Johnny Spade, before finally settling on Johnny Nitro.

The Johnny Nitro name was a good fit for the era. He was part smug pretty boy and part ambitious division climber, and WWE soon paired him with Joey Mercury and Melina in MNM. MNM came up through WWE’s developmental system and then hit SmackDown in 2005 with a full Hollywood-style presentation, complete with a red-carpet entrance and the idea that they were stars being chased by cameras. In 2005 and 2006, Nitro and Mercury won the WWE Tag Team Championship multiple times, giving Morrison his first sustained run as a champion on the main roster.

After MNM split, Morrison moved into a more singles-focused stretch on Raw, and that’s where his in-ring identity started to open up. He won the Intercontinental Championship in 2006, and the style that would define his career became clearer. He liked the ropes, he liked sudden flips into offense, and he always wrestled like he was looking for space.

In 2007, WWE sent him to the ECW brand at a moment when the show needed recognizable names. At Vengeance Night of Champions on June 24, 2007, he replaced Chris Benoit and defeated CM Punk to win the ECW World Championship, his first world title in WWE.

During that title run, he shifted from Johnny Nitro to the name John Morrison, a change that also came with a more rock star kind of confidence and a look that leaned into slow-motion poses, dramatic entrances, and a bigger sense of attitude.

Morrison’s next important time in WWE was when he teamed up with The Miz, starting in late 2007. Together, they formed one of the most successful tag teams of that time. They were loud, funny, and annoying, making their matches feel exciting after lots of talking, but they also backed it up.

They would go on to win both the WWE Tag Team Championship and the World Tag Team Championship during their run together. While they won these titles, Morrison also continued to build his solo career, stacking Intercontinental title runs and showing he could work at a faster pace than many of the heavier, brawling-based styles around him.

By 2009 and 2010, Morrison started to get more chances on his own, with a presentation that highlighted him as a thrill-seeking wrestler. This is the stretch where his moves like the Starship Pain and his spinning corkscrew neckbreaker, the Moonlight Drive, became regular punctuation marks in his big matches.

He finished his first WWE run in late 2011 when his contract ended, and he chose not to re-sign. He has said he wanted time away to heal up, chase acting and other projects, and come back with more control over his direction. This closed a first major run that included tag team championships, Intercontinental title success, and the one ECW world title that proved he could hold a top belt on a national stage.

Away from WWE, Morrison’s career became a series of reinventions built around the same athletic strengths. He worked the independent circuit under his real name and a range of “Johnny” variations, but the biggest reset came in 2014 when he joined Lucha Underground (LU).

He debuted there as Johnny Mundo on the first episode of Lucha Underground, titled “Welcome to the Temple,” on October 29, 2014, immediately positioned as a big personality in a show that blended wrestling with dramatic, season-based storytelling.

It was a nice fit for him because the promotion’s style rewarded creativity, stunts, and wrestlers with confidence. In 2016, his story in LU peaked when he won the Gift of the Gods Championship and later cashed it in to win the Lucha Underground Championship on the November 23, 2016 episode.

While that was happening, he also became a regular in Mexico’s AAA from 2015 through 2018, giving him another stage for a more lucha-influenced version of his offense and character work. AAA also became part of his later career, as he returned there in 2022 and 2023 under different ring names, often tied to special appearances and changing storylines.

In 2017, he joined Impact Wrestling as Johnny Impact. His Impact run built slowly at first, with him chasing titles and finding his place in the mix, but it ended with one of the biggest wins of his career. On October 14, 2018, at Bound for Glory, he defeated Austin Aries to win the Impact World Championship, showing he could still be seen as the top champion in a major promotion, not just as a highlight-reel athlete on the sidelines.

WWE brought him back for a second run in 2020, and the timing made his old chemistry with The Miz an easy story to return to. Back together as a tag team, Morrison and The Miz won the SmackDown Tag Team Championship at Super ShowDown on February 27, 2020, giving Morrison another major WWE title moment years after his first peak. He remained on TV through 2021, but was eventually released by WWE in November of that year.

Since leaving WWE in 2021, Morrison has been working in various wrestling promotions under different names that include “Johnny”. He made his AEW debut in 2022 as Johnny Elite and later changed his name to Johnny TV. In this role, he focuses on comedy and has a loud personality while still using his signature wrestling style of high-energy moves and rope tricks.