Matt Morgan was Vince Russo’s guest on the latest edition of “The Swerve” podcast. You can read some highlights below:
Failing to get picked up by The Monster Factory despite his size:
“In the past, the only wrestling school I’d ever heard of was ‘The Monster Factory’. I was still in college at the time in Hawaii, and I tried to call them up to try to get trained when I’d be back in Connecticut after graduating. Larry Sharp kept hanging up on me! Every time he’d ask me my name, my height and my weight, and every time I’d tell him, ‘look, seven feet tall, 382lbs…’ and he kept hanging up. He was like, ‘kid, if I had a dime for every time someone told me they were seven feet, I’d be a millionaire’ and he hung up. So obviously that wasn’t the route to go.”
How he got himself in front of Vince McMahon:
“At night I was working as a bouncer and wound up meeting this guy named Marco Torelli, who worked for the WWE Magazine, and became my friend. Every time he’d come in, he’d tell me, ‘dude you gotta come by Titan Tower! You’re working down the street, you’d be a fool not to let Vince see you.’ He knew I was a big wrestling fan, obviously, but just like any other guy out there, I was like, ‘how do you begin? How do you start?’ So every Friday night, he’d bring me in, which is when Vince would work out at the gym there at Titan Tower. So I’d go there every Friday from 8-10 hoping to bump into him, and after six months of going every week, I finally bumped into Vince in the seventh month.”
Vince McMahon’s advice:
“He asked me how big I was, and my name. And I told him I was a huge fan of what the guys do, and I asked, ‘could you give me some guidance on what do I do to become a professional wrestler?’ He gave me Jim Ross’s card, and he gave me Tom Prichard’s card. So I started annoying Tom from that moment on.”
How the infamous stuttering gimmick was presented to him:
“Me and Jillian Hall both got called up from OVW to go to a show in Chicago. We’re in catering, and John Laurinaitis taps me on the shoulder and says, ‘I want you to go and speak to Vince, he really wants to speak with you in his office,’ and I was like, ‘great.’ When I get there, Laurinaitis is outside and he goes, ‘now Matt, this is an opportunity. Vince doesn’t come up with ideas very often for individuals… this is a one-on-one opportunity that he’s about to present to you, so you might wanna be a team player here.’ So I go in there, wondering what he’s got for me, and I sit down across from him, and Vince goes on about how he’s been waiting for a guy with the right look, the right height, and all these perfections, who he could then hang this one big imperfection that nobody sees coming. He tells me, ‘you’re gonna stutter. You’re gonna have this speech impediment and it’s going to be your Achilles Heel. Nobody’s going to make fun of you, but you’re going to think that the whole world is mocking you.’… and I would’ve taken anything he had given me, this was Vince McMahon talking to me.”
