John Morrison Makes AEW Debut As Johnny Elite

Under the ring name Johnny Elite, former WWE Superstar John Morrison made his AEW debut on the May 18 edition of AEW Dynamite on TBS, during which he lost to Samoa Joe in the first round of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament after being revealed as The Joker.

AEW Dynamite “Wild Card Wednesday” kicked off with the first of two Joker’s in the men’s and women’s Owen Hart Cup tournament. Johnny Elite (John Morrison) was the Joker in the men’s tournament facing, Samoa Joe. Johnny was greeted with a massive pop from the audience. Samoa Joe couldn’t care less. The two veterans started the match off with a series of strikes before diving into some more of their flashy moves.

A solid opener then ensued between the two veterans, who had, remarkably, never gone one-on-one before. They were evenly matched for the majority of the contest. Johnny got a lot of his stuff in, but it wasn’t enough to put the big man away. Joe got the win after nailing Johnny with a brutal Muscle Buster for the 1-2-3, advancing to the second round of the inaugural Owen Hart Foundation Tournament in the process.

After the match, Jay Lethal, Sanjay Dutt, and Satnam Singh attacked the Ring Of Honor Television Champion, hitting his shoulder with a lead pipe. Dutt got a few stomps in on Johnny during the attack.

Prior to Morrison’s AEW debut, speculation regarding the identity of the Joke was rampant, with many fans expecting to see the likes of Cesaro and Johnny Gargano. Those two are yet to set foot in an AEW ring, but few will be disappointed with Morrison, who is a very good professional wrestler.

Whether Morrison has signed with AEW remains to be seen, but we’ll be sure to keep you posted.

As you might recall, John Morrison was released by WWE on Thursday, November 18 along with several of his now-former colleagues. According to Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, WWE Head of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis informed the eight talents that they were being released due to budget cuts (although as we reported, WWE generated $256 Million in revenue the previous quarter).

Source: TheSportster and AEW Twitter

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