The current IMPACT talent chats with Renee Paquette about what he’s been able to overcome.
On the 4/14 episode of IMPACT Wrestling on AXS TV, W. Morrissey kicked off the show and spoke to the crowd about his past addiction issues and the journey to get where he is present day. He further dove into that journey while guest appearing on The Sessions with Renée Paquette.
Renee and Morrissey recounted memories from their time together in WWE and there was an occasion where they were rehearsing a backstage segment that Morrissey and Renee both felt went left at some point. Morrissey wanted to get clarification about a lengthy promo that was written for him but he thinks it was taken as if he had an ego.
Morrissey said there were a multitude of mistakes he made during that period of his career and recalled telling Paquette that he was going to be fired.
Morrissey: Well we’re doing rehearsals and yeah, I feel like maybe there was a lot of stuff going on that day and I guess I must’ve made a comment like, ‘Are we going through the whole thing in rehearsal?’
Paquette: It was a long promo. It was a long promo, very bulky and it was like, yeah, there was a busy show-packed day.
Morrissey: And I thought that maybe they just wanted to get the shot, where are we gonna stand so you look way shorter than me. You know, the little tricks of the trade and I said, ‘Are we going through the whole promo?’ Because it was, it was like two pages long and there’s a lot of things to rehearse that day and there were a lot of big things going on and I don’t know. You knew better than me. I don’t know what happened after that. I was like — I was already kind of not doing well and I was really not being a good employee and I was really not living up to my end of the bargain and I was making a lot of mistakes and they came back to back to back to back. These weren’t like six months separated-isolated incidents. It was all at once.
Paquette: My recollection of that before we get into all these other things is that just to clarify with everybody is that yeah, it was a day, you and I were standing there going over the promo. You were clarifying with the camera crew. You didn’t wanna feel like you were wasting anyone’s time to go over the promo and that was misinterpreted as if you thought you were too good to rehearse the promo.
Morrissey: Perception’s reality and I guess my perception at that time, because like I said, there were some mistakes being made. My perception at that time was grandiose ego or how — I don’t know. The perception definitely wasn’t good so I think that, you know, when you look at that situation and you’re already very biased towards somebody because they keep f*cking up, someone, I don’t know who, must’ve taken it like, ‘Who the f*ck does this person think he is? He’s just not gonna do rehearsal?’ Which wasn’t the intent and I talked to you after and I was like, ‘Did I seem like I was blowing that off or…’ I think the cameraman was confused. Everybody was very confused. When that happened, I kind of knew this is not gonna go very well for me the next month or so and I had numerous conversations with you in catering. I remember there was one I said to you, ‘I’m getting fired’ and you were, you know, you were trying to be a good friend and you’re like, ‘I don’t know’ and I was like, ‘Ah, I’m definitely getting fired.’ I knew it.
Morrissey has been candid and open in the past about his addictions issues that he has since overcome and how Diamond Dallas Page played a role in that. He said the drinking got out of hand in 2017 and it got to a point when everyone around him knew he had an issue but he did not care.
Yeah, by 2017, the drinking was really out of hand. It was easy to hide because addicts, alcoholics are very good at hiding their alcoholism. So I was hiding it from a lot of people. You know, I got injured and when I came back, I was just in a bad place mentally and not to blame it all on taking medications that I definitely shouldn’t be drinking with. I guess I just kept drinking and kept f*cking up and the drinking, yeah, it got completely out of hand to the point where everybody was noticing. There was no hiding it anymore, everybody knew and you know, it’s sad to say looking back but at the time, I knew everybody knew, I still didn’t give a f*ck and I was like, I don’t care. I don’t know what switch flipped in my head but I really gave up spiritually at that point. I was done.
In June of 2018, Morrissey was released from WWE after a seven-year run with the company. After his release, he recalled there being a small sense of relief but his addiction vice only got worse because he had no responsibilities, he had his own home, was financially stable and did not have family around to keep up with him.
Yeah, initially it was a small, very small relief [after being released by WWE] because I had known it was coming but that uncertainty can really eat you alive, especially at night, you’re trying to fall asleep. You kind of know it’s coming but you’re not sure. When I got released, that very small amount of time, it was a relief but the drinking got really out of hand after that point because you know, I had a roof over my head, had plenty of money in the bank, I had no responsibilities anymore, I had no one to keep me accountable and I was by myself kind of in Tampa, Florida where no one, none of my family members or my friends from home were around to check on me. It was a recipe for disaster and it really got… it got bad and looking back now, it’s — you know, I’m very, very fortunate that the consequences — I faced some really bad consequences but I’m very fortunate that the consequences didn’t end up worse.
For a great portion of his wrestling career, Morrissey was paired with nZo. On the 4/27 AEW Dynamite, MJF made a phone call to Wardlow’s next opponent and said this individual is bigger than Wardlow and “you can’t teach that.” At IMPACT’s Rebellion pay-per-view, Morrissey teamed with Jordynne Grace to compete for the IMPACT Tag Team Titles.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit ‘The Sessions with Renée Paquette’ with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
