Former WWE and TNA star Matt Morgan spoke with The Post and Courier. Among various topics of discussion, he talked about his career in wrestling, his son. While talking about his wrestling career, he discussed his relationship with Vince McMahon and the stuttering gimmick he was given.
“I hated it,” Morgan said. “I didn’t tell those guys to call me up prematurely. But now I was finally getting an opportunity to work as a heel. [Trainers] would put me in scenarios where I didn’t get to be seven-foot Matt Morgan the giant. There was nothing you could have thrown at me that I couldn’t have handled. As for the stuttering thing, I did say in that office, and not talking back or anything, but you know, Vince sold this to me as he’s always wanted to put this stuttering character on one of these bigger, super impressive looking guys.”
Morgan went into detail describing how Vince pitched him the stuttering gimmick and talked from Vince’s point of view.
“Joe walks into this bar and sees this beautiful woman. Everyone is staring at her; she’s absolutely perfect. And you walk up to her and introduce yourself to her and she a deep voice,” Morgan said of Vince. “I get it, there’s an imperfection that nobody expected.”
“‘I think you can do this,’ McMahon said to Morgan. “I think I can too,” Morgan assured. “But I just want to put this out there… Do you know I have a degree public speaking? I graduated with honors. I might not be the best as it, but talking is kind of my thing. Any essentially we’re going to pull that away? ‘It’s giving you an Achilles’ heel.’ McMahon said.”
Matt Morgan revealed Vince initially wanted to send Morgan back to Ohio Valley Wrestling in order to perfect the gimmick, but Matt declined the proposal so that he could be on WWE television.
“Sir, if I’m going to do this character, I do not want to go back to Ohio Valley Wrestling. I’m good to go,” Morgan reaffirmed.
“I tried to do it to the best of my ability.” Morgan admitted. “I didn’t talk like other big guys. I talked very quickly, and while some things I said might have gotten lost in translation, I wrestled on a television show. I always thought that separated me because now you’ve got a thinking man’s giant, you’ve got a guy that is well educated and well-rounded and doesn’t have his weakness, and I thought that would like like a ‘Mr. Perfect’ of the giants.
“I wasn’t a fan of it, but when Vince comes up with an idea, you gotta go with it. We’d be doing pre-tapes for Smackdown, and Vince generally was always behind the other side of that camera. Every time we were to stare off into space while I was talking, he was the one who was always producing a lot of those promos. So that makes it exciting. You may not be a fan of the character, but you’re assuming it’s going to have a lot more legs to it because Vince McMahon came up with the idea.”
