John Morrison details his memorable name change in WWE.
During his early years in WWE, fans knew him as Johnny Nitro. Beginning in July 2007, though, he morphed into John Morrison, a name he’d carry on through the remainder of his first WWE run, and later, a second.
Appearing on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, Morrison noted that Vince McMahon called for a ring name change specifically because it reminded the then-CEO of WWE’s former rival company, WCW.
“When I won the ECW championship, I was Johnny Nitro. Prior to that, Vince had mentioned a few times that Johnny Nitro is not a champion’s name, or not a good name,” Morrison said. “‘You got to change it.’ [I responded] ’Why do you think that, Vince? Is it because it reminds you of WCW Monday Nitro?’ [Vince said] ‘Yes.’
“The day after I won the championship. Actually the week after…Vince walked up to me in catering, which is rare, and said, ‘You got to change your name.’ Put a paper down on the table and a pen and said, ‘Just make a list of names.’ So I was really on the spot, and I just started writing down what could be an M and M name that fits? Then I was like, maybe Johnny Brando, John Morrissey, John Morrison, couldn’t think of very many Ms, so I made a list of kind of like celebrity, Brando, Morrison, Johnny Brando, stuff like that. The first one that I’d written down was John Morrison, and a couple of hours later, I handed this list to Vince, and he just went like this and read the top was like, ‘John Morrison, I like it. That’s it.’”
As Johnny Nitro, Morrison often donned wet hair in his on-screen appearances. Once he transformed into John Morrison, however, he adopted a flat-ironed hair look complemented by aviator sunglasses.
Morrison initially captured the ECW World Championship as Johnny Nitro at Vengeance: Night of Champions in June 2007. The following month, he defended it as John Morrison at the Great American Bash.
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