Lucha Underground and Boone The Bounty Hunter star John Morrison recently spoke with Wrestle: List; you can read a few excerpts below:
John Morrison comments on his relationship with 5 Star Wrestling, competing in this summer’s 128 man tournament:
I’ve been a part of 5 Star Wrestling since the promotion began – I’ve been in every show they’ve done and I like big ideas. This tournament is a little bit crazy. It’s very ambitious. It’s the biggest tournament in wrestling history on live TV. What excites me about it is, yes it’s crazy but, I think that anybody who has ever won big has had an idea that a lot of people haven’t believed in and, we’re starting June 10th, in Liverpool. And I’m going to get a chance to wrestle people from all over the world – some people I’ve wrestled before and had some of my best matches with.
The likes of Rey Mysterio, Carlito, Shelton Benjamin and Rob van Dam, and some new wrestlers as well that I haven’t had the time to work with – El Ligero, Zack Gibson, and Joe Coffey. One of the cool things about wrestling in this day and age is that everything is accepted. Wrestling is viewed as an art now more than ever, and the crowds in the UK are some of the hottest in the world. And this 5 Star Wrestling tournament is going to be the cream of the crop. The best of the business.
Morrison comments on transitioning from wrestling to movies:
There’s a learning curve, for sure. Acting for film is more nuanced than Professional Wrestling. I had to learn to tone down my reactions. In acting for TV and film, a lot of the time you have to think big, but don’t react big because the camera is so close and takes everything. A lot can be told by just your eyes. In Pro Wrestling, you’ve got to be a lot bigger, because it’s ultimately the crowd that you’re working for. Even if it’s a TV taping, the crowd is a part of the show. In addition, the stunt fighting and choreography is very similar and very different. In wrestling, you’re doing one take of everything and making contact, because there’s no camera angles – you have to learn the difference between a stunt punch, a wrestling punch, and to really be good at stunt fighting, the difference between a boxing style punch, a kung-fu style punch, a taekwondo style punch. There’s a million different ways to throw a punch. In pro wrestling, you are creating your own character – all the coolest things you’ve seen and your best attributes are what you do. And you refine that over time, and it becomes, for me, Johnny Mundo. And for El Ligero it becomes El Ligero. But you step into the world of film and TV, and the character could be fighting as Hercules, the Eternal Warrior, or an android. So, you have to learn a different movement style, quickly.
Morrison comments on the British wrestling scene’s popularity:
I think that one thing that makes wrestling different from film and TV, is that the crowd is part of the show – the crowd is a character. The crowds in the UK have such a personality – they have all of the soccer chants and they become such a big part of the show and it adds a cool factor to wrestling in the UK. Add that to the fact that I think a lot of people are getting a bit tired of the wrestling they are watching on TV, and are looking for alternatives, because wrestling fans are fans of Pro Wrestling. And if WWE seems like it’s getting stale, a lot of those people have to turn elsewhere for good wrestling. Those two things combined, and you’ve got an independent wrestling scene in the UK that’s hotter than ever.
