W Morrissey, formerly Big Cass, has opened up about how his signing with IMPACT materialised, pinpointing a meeting with EVP Scott D’Amore.
Speaking with Inside The Ropes‘ Lead Writer Gary Cassidy, who had reported that Morrissey would debut for IMPACT Wrestling “imminently” on the morning of Rebellion, the former WWE Superstar said it was actually has second appearance for IMPACT star Gallows’ promotion Lariato Pro that was the setting for his meeting with D’Amore.
“Yeah, I worked the Lariato show where I came back for Gallows, and then the next time I went to Lariato Pro, Scott D’Amore was doing a training session there and actually scouting talent earlier in the day. So he was hanging around the show and I got a chance to talk to him, and he saw that I was healthy and in a good place mentally, and obviously in really great shape and, you know, I had more of a professional mindset coming back to wrestling, just treating it like, ‘Let’s do good business, let’s make money together’ and I guess after that conversation, we stayed in touch and that’s when we started talking about me actually coming here.”
As for the length of contract, W Morrissey remained coy.
“I’m here right now. That’s really all I can say.
“I’m grateful to wake up every day, I’m grateful to be alive, so I have to live one day at a time and I can’t future-trip, man, because in recovery, if you future-trip, that’s unhealthy so in terms of real long-term and looking too far down the line, where am I going to end up? I can’t worry about that. But for right now, I’m in and I love being in IMPACT – and I’m going to tell you, I’ll be here today, tomorrow and probably a few weeks from now, but as far as super long-term, there’s nothing really long-term set right now.”
Meanwhile, on the topic of his name change, it all happened very last-minute, as the former Big Cass revealed.
“It’s a fresh start in a new company and, you know, this is day one of a new journey for me. It’s day one of me making it to the top of professional wrestling on my own with a healthy mindset, being sober and happy and healthy – and it was a brand new start.
“I didn’t want anything associated with what I used to do or who I used to be getting in the way of this new journey, so anything that I used to do went out the window, including gear, the look, everything. I wanted a fresh start, and I thought coming back as a heel… When Scott Hall and Kevin Nash showed up at WCW, I thought that was really cool using their real names but, for a heel, just having me abbreviate my first name instead of saying it – I thought that that was pretty, pretty arrogant.
“So the day of is when I decided, or we decided, that we were going to be W Morrissey instead.”
You can read the entire interview here.
Thanks so much to W Morrissey for taking the time, and to IMPACT UK & Ireland for facilitating the interview. Fans in the UK & Ireland can catch IMPACT! every Wednesday on IMPACT Plus and on Facebook & YouTube, with the show repeated on 5Star on Friday evenings, and catch all IMPACT PPVs via IMPACT Plus and Fite TV worldwide.