John Morrison

John Randall Hennigan (born October 3, 1979) better known by his ring name John Morrison, is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) performing on their ECW brand. He is also currently co-holder of the SmackDown! brand's WWE Tag Team Championship with The Miz. He came to WWE in 2002 after co-winning their reality television program Tough Enough, and has since held championships in the company on seven occasions; having held the Tag Team Championship four times, Intercontinental Championship two times, and the ECW Championship once.

Career

Tough Enough

Before getting into professional wrestling, Hennigan attended University of California at Davis studying both film and to become a geologist. Deciding that wasn't right for him, he began his professional wrestling career training at the Supreme Pro Wrestling professional wrestling school. In 2002, he was accepted as a cast member for the third season of the WWE/MTV reality show WWE Tough Enough, eventually becoming co-winner with Matt Cappotelli. For winning he was awarded a WWE developmental contract and assigned to WWE's "farm territory" Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) to continue his training. The duo made their first appearance on WWE television on an episode of Heat in January 2004, losing to Garrison Cade and Mark Jindrak in a tag team match.

2004-2006

On March 1, 2004 Hennigan debuted on the Raw brand. His character was depicted as the apprentice and assistant of Raw brand General Manager Eric Bischoff and given the ring name Johnny Blaze. The next week his name was changed to Johnny Spade, and three weeks after that it was changed to Johnny Nitro. It's worth noting that both the Johnny Spade and Johnny Blaze names had been in use before Hennigan used them, by an independent wrestler and by Marvel Comics respectively. The Nitro name, a name which finally stuck, was a reference to Monday Nitro, the flagship show of World Championship Wrestling which Bischoff had created, and to drive the point home he began using the Nitro theme music as his ring entrance music. Nitro acted as Bischoff's apprentice and assistant until June, when he was sent back to OVW. To explain his departure he lost a June 7 Raw match against Eugene which carried the stipulation that upon his loss, he also lost his job.

For his return to OVW he was put into a feud with his former partner Matt Cappotelli. During the course of the feud Melina Perez was brought in to the company as Nitro's ex-girlfriend and an ally of Cappotelli, only to double-cross him and side with Nitro. Not long after, they were joined by Joey Mercury, forming the stable "MNM". MNM wrestled in OVW for around a year, holding the OVW Southern Tag Team Championship once, before being called up to the main SmackDown! roster in April 2005. While on SmackDown!, they were put into feuds with the teams of Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero, Mysterio and Batista, the new Legion of Doom, and Paul London and Brian Kendrick. MNM held the SmackDown! brand's WWE Tag Team Championship on three occasions, all in their rookie year on the brand. At May 2006's Judgment Day MNM dropped the championship to London and Kendrick, with Nitro and Melina suddenly turning on Mercury after the match, breaking up the group.[21] Later that night Melina and Nitro were booked off of the SmackDown! brand by having it's General Manager, Theodore Long, "fire" them.

The next week Nitro (with Melina) debuted on the Raw brand in a loss to WWE Champion John Cena. He was immediately placed in the WWE Intercontinental Championship picture, getting his first reign at June's Vengeance with a win over champion Shelton Benjamin in a Triple-Threat match also involving Carlito. He held the belt, the first singles title of his career, for four months, feuding with several challengers before losing it to Jeff Hardy on the October 2 Raw. In addition, he was featured in a sporadic feud with John Cena throughout 2006. The feud was unique in that it also involved non-wrestler Kevin Federline, who appeared on the October 16 Raw from Los Angeles. Federline was then (kayfabe) trained by Nitro for a January 1, 2007 match with Cena, which he ended up winning after interference from Umaga.

In the meantime, Nitro recaptured the Intercontinental title from Hardy on November 6 when former friend, and General Manager for the night, Eric Bischoff restarted a match that Nitro had been disqualified from. The very next week, however, Hardy got the title back. In November 2006 MNM reunited on an episode of Raw to accept an "open challenge" from The Hardys (Matt and Jeff) for ECW December to Dismember. MNM and the Hardys feuded across the brands throughout December, with the feud intensifying after Mercury was (legitimately) injured at Armageddon in December.

2007 - present
Morrison is currently one-half of the WWE Tag Team Champions, along with The Miz.

MNM continued on and off as a unit until Mercury was released from WWE in March 2007. Without Mercury, Nitro was paired up with Kenny Dykstra until the annual WWE draft, during which Nitro was sent to the ECW brand and Dykstra to SmackDown!.] He made his ECW debut on June 19 with a win over Nunzio,[36] and the next week, at Vengeance, took the vacant ECW World Championship in a match against CM Punk, when he was called on to replace the missing Chris Benoit. A few weeks after getting the title, Nitro's name was changed to John Morrison and his character was tweaked to be even more conceited and self-aggrandizing, modeled after former Doors frontman Jim Morrison, with whom Hennigan bore a resemblance to. After defeating CM Punk again at the Great American Bash, he began taking part in a "15 Minutes Of Fame" segment on the weekly ECW on Sci Fi television program, where if a wrestler could either defeat him or last 15 minutes without being defeated, they would be granted a title shot. The first wrestler to do so turned out to be CM Punk, setting up another match between the two at SummerSlam, which Morrison won when he used the ring ropes for leverage. The next week, Punk again became number one contender, this time taking the Championship at a September 1 television taping in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hennigan was then suspended for 30 days, renewing his feud with Punk upon his return, as well as fending off Mike "the Miz" Mizanin who was also after the title. Though enemies, The Miz and Morrison teamed on the November 16 (taped November 13) episode of SmackDown! to take the WWE Tag Team Championship from Matt Hardy and Montel Vontavious Porter. At Survivor Series, Morrison and The Miz were both defeated by CM Punk in a triple threat match for the ECW Championship. After the defeat, the rivalry aspect of Miz and Morrison's relationship was dropped, instead portraying them as trusting friends. Morrison and Miz continue to hold the tag titles and have had successful defenses against the teams of Jimmy Wang Yang and Shannon Moore, and Jesse and Festus.

Personal life

Hennigan was in a long term relationship with Melina Perez, his former on screen manager, but they have since broken up. The pair met during auditions for Tough Enough III, although she didn't make the show.

Articles posted by Sports Illustrated, the New York Daily News, and the Washington Post during the weekend of August 30, 2007, named Hennigan as one of a number of WWE superstars to have purchased pharmaceuticals from an online pharmacy, a violation of the WWE "Talent Wellness" program. Specifically, Hennigan received somatropin, anastrozole, testosterone, stanozolol and chorionic gonadotropin between June 2006 and February 2007, which is after the "no drugs from online sources" rule was instituted. As a result of the infraction, Hennigan was suspended for 30 days.

Profile

John Morrison and The Miz

John Morrison and The Miz are an active professional wrestling tag team and former WWE Tough Enough contestants. The team currently works for World Wrestling Entertainment on its ECW brand, but also appears on the SmackDown and Raw brands due to ECW's talent exchanges with those brands. The team has no official name, although they have been referred to as "The In Crowd" or "The Dirt Sheet Duo", after the name of their online webshow. They are the current holders of the World Tag Team Championship, which is originally exclusive to the Raw brand.

They first began teaming together in 2007. They became partners as a result of winning the WWE Tag Team Championship and making the title exclusive to the ECW brand, for a brief time. They eventually dropped the titles in July 2008. During their title reign, Morrison and the Miz developed a gimmick that resulted the duo being given their own webshow, The Dirt Sheet, and their own in-ring interview segment of the same name on ECW. In December 2008 they won the Slammy Award in the category for Tag Team of the Year and won the World Tag Team Championship. (Credit: Wikipedia).

Websites

John Hennigan (John Morrison) at WWE.com

John Hennigan's (John Morrison) official MySpace

Profiles

WWE

ECW