Tommy Dreamer: John Laurinaitis Didn't Like MNM Because ‘Joey Mercury Looked Like Matt Hardy’
“I said ‘Listen, I get that you don’t like Joey Mercury, but just put him in that slot. This is MNM.’”
With three tag title reigns to their name, MNM were one of the bright sparks in WWE’s tag division in the mid-2000s, as Joey Mercury and Johnny Nitro (and Melina) ran roughshod over the competition.
However, not everyone was sold on MNM in the beginning, as during the team’s OVW run, WWE’s John Laurinaitis took a dislike to Mercury, apparently because he looked too much like Matt Hardy.
That’s according to Tommy Dreamer, as the ECW original told Johnny Jeter on the House of Hardcore podcast:
“I remember specifically, John Laurinaitis was not a fan of MNM. They loved MNM, but he wasn’t a fan of Joey Mercury. He said, ‘He has a plain look. He looks like Matt Hardy.’ I remember Morrison had come up with the whole idea (for MNM). They tried to replace Joey Mercury with everybody. I think you [Johnny Jeter] got a call to tag up with him once. I’m explaining the system. It was like, ok, we want to call this guy up but we don’t want this guy. They put Jeter with Morrison. They put Chris Cage with him. Maybe Matt Cappottelli, but then they said no because of Tough Enough. They were trying to put everybody in that spot. I had to go to bat and I said, ‘Listen, I get that you don’t like Joey Mercury, but just put him in that slot. This is MNM. If it doesn’t work, then just fire him.’ You have to have somebody in your corner to push for that. Then MNM worked, and the rest is history. I remember saying this to all of you. I would sit you up on the steps against the ring and I said, ‘I will hold your hand up until you get called up to the main roster, and then once you’re up there, you’re swimming with the sharks. It’s kind of like, you’re on your own. I have to let my children fly.’ Some made it, some didn’t, but it’s that type of scenario.”
H/T: WrestlingNews.co
