Former WWE star John Hennigan will face Harley Morenstein in a boxing match on Creator Clash 2
On April 15, live from the Amalie Arena in Tampa, FL, social media influencer IDubbbz returns with Creator Clash 2, which is the follow-up to what was a successful inaugural event last May. The card is filled with social media influencers from all types of platforms, but one of the matchups has the attention of social media and the world of professional wrestling.
43-year-old former WWE star John Hennigan (also known as John Morrison) will take on co-founder of Epic Meal Time, Harley Morenstein, in a boxing match with proceeds going to several charities.
Although Hennigan is no longer with the WWE, he keeps himself very busy as he gets booked with independent promotions worldwide. When speaking to him for this interview, Hennigan had just returned from wrestling in Philadelphia, PA, followed by a World Cup event in Mexico.
After being in professional wrestling for over 20 years, there was curiosity about Hennigan’s outlook on his whole body of work leading up to the present day.
Hennigan told FanSided, “How would you describe it? Intense? Long? Really, really fun. Difficult? It’s tricky, and I think when people ask that question, I say a lot of times wrestling comes in waves, right? It’s a good analogy for me because I grew up surfing, but you get waves of popularity and success, like how you’re being used at busy times and lulls between those waves. And when the wave comes, you’ve got to catch it and ride it.”
John Hennigan vs. Harley Morenstein will stream live on PPV, April 15 ($34.99)
Hennigan continued, “I’ve had the really good fortune of being there for a lot of really great opportunities in the business of professional wrestling. When the wave passes, sometimes there’s another one right away, and sometimes there’s a lull. Famous advice that Macho Man Randy Savage gave to Shawn Michaels that applies for the lull and downtimes when you’re kind of waiting for the next thing. Shawn (Michaels) asked Randy (Savage) what he could do to be the top guy and make it. Randy said, ‘Just don’t take yourself out of the game kid.’ Which basically means you got to be patient too. It’s not always go, go, go. Sometimes you’re waiting for the next thing, and during those downtimes, you got to stay motivated and sharp.”
Aside from wrestling, Hennigan enjoys doing acting, stunts, and even making cameo appearances on his friend Mike “The Miz” Mizanin’s show “Miz & Mrs.” During these segments, Hennigan shows off his fun personality and tries to match the energy brought by Mizanin throughout the episode they are both in. What’s it like filming those segments with “The Miz”? “Oh, it was fun. We have a lot of fun. The Miz is a very distinct personality and authentic to himself, and because he’s still a loud person, like a big personality, it really brings me up to a louder level. That makes me turn my volume up to compete and banter, so I think that’s a good thing.”
Staying within Hollywood, Hennigan released a short film called The Iron Sheik Massacre in November. After making its way through some film festivals, the project is gaining traction and has a trailer involving horror and humor. How did the idea for this short film come up? “When Kira (Hennigan’s spouse Taya Valkyrie) and I got married, we were on our honeymoon, and I knew I wanted to make something with her like that, just wrestling but outside of wrestling.”
Hennigan continued, “We wanted to do some kind of film project that was like wrestling but not wrestling. So on our honeymoon, we were like talking about ideas, and I kind of had this idea about the Iron Sheik, like an Iron Sheik Chucky doll. So we started watching all these movies, and basically, we wrote like the first draft of the script on our honeymoon.”
On April 15, Hennigan won’t be shooting a short film or wrestling an opponent. Hennigan will face Harley Morenstein from Epic Meal Time in an actual boxing match on Creator Clash 2. The inaugural event in May, Creator Clash, sparked Hennigan’s interest as he worked the corner of Nathan Barnatt, also known as “Dad.” Hennigan remembers how impressed he was with his performance. A few months later, IDubbbz and his wife contacted Hennigan about participating in Creator Clash 2, and he thought that would be cool and accepted the invitation. Once Hennigan was in, then Morenstein challenged him to a fight which he accepted, and now the two will face each other.
Preparing for a boxing match is different from any other sport, so getting in shape takes some specific training. Hennigan brought in Josh Burnett, whom he’s known for a long time, to prepare him for this fight. Hennigan has been training for the last two to three months to get ready for this fight, which he admitted is an entirely different skill (boxing) he needed to learn.
While Hennigan is doing his media runs, Morenstein has been adding fuel to the promotional fire by saying his opponent underestimates him with some colorful language. While hearing some of the trash talks by Morenstein, Hennigan was not impressed and told FanSided, “I’ll say a couple of things. One, Harley’s right, he’s not a clout-chasing delusional YouTuber. He’s a really intelligent dude. Probably why we’re friends. I know he’s grinding. He’s training hard and he’s lost a bunch of weight. He’s dialed in. He doesn’t want to just not get knocked out, he wants to win”. Hennigan continued, “So that’s what makes this interesting because I am planning on knocking him out. He’s planning on knocking me out no matter what he says. That’s what boxing is, and I’m like, ‘if you swim, you’re gonna get wet.’ If you box, you’re gonna get hit; we’re both gonna get hit. The problem for him is I get hit a lot. I’m used to it and I hit hard. I’m gonna hit him a lot. I’m gonna hit him hard and I don’t think he’s gonna be able to stand up after a few rounds.”
With the fight coming up, it was the right time to see what other projects or things to look forward to in the near future from Hennigan. “We got The Iron Sheik Massacre playing at film festivals. We’re going to do a release. We haven’t decided exactly where to release it yet, but an upcoming release for the public which I’m really excited about. I finished recording a diss track on Harley (Morenstein) that I just did the audio for. I’ll probably drop it in a few weeks because it takes a little while to do, like the video, to match it up. I’ve got a whole bunch of things that I’ve written, like a million things that I want to do and I feel like everybody in entertainment is the same way. Whether it’s like a longer version, like a theatrical release of The Iron Sheik Massacre, or one of the other half a dozen things I’ve got cooking, for now, I’m gonna kind of dial stuff back and focus on this boxing match.”
