Real Name: Sean Morley
Height: 6' 4"
Weight: 270
Also Known As: Scott Borders; The Big Valbowski
Titles Held: Intercontinental (2); European (1).
Contract Details: Contract due to expire in April 2003.
Major Injuries: In mid 2000 Morley suffered a mild neck injury.
Sean Morley wrestled in various promotions in Japan, Puerto Rico and Mexico
before the WWF offered him a try-out in late 1997. They obviously liked what
they saw because Morley was invited to the WWF's main training facility, the
Funkin' Dojo, in January of 1998.
Morley later admitted that both WWF and WCW made him offers at the same
time. He said that he opted for the WWF because he was "uncomfortable" with
the way WCW was run. In all actuality, Morley probably chose the WWF because
of their reputation of pushing rookies and not letting them sit around and
collect dust as WCW has been known to do. Money probably wasn't a factor and
location most likely wasn't all that important to Morley, although I have
heard it told that Morley opted for the WWF over WCW because the WWF
wrestled in his native Canada more often than WCW.
In any case, Vince McMahon and extradite Vince Russo had come up with a
gimmick of an adult film star who had decided to turn wrestler. Morley fit
the bill perfectly and Val Venis was born.
The WWF debut of Val Venis started with several interviews supposedly from
the adult film sets that Venis was "performing" on. He was also the poster
boy for the WWF's "Cocked Locked and Ready to Unload" advertising campaign
for Shotgun Saturday Night.
It was a decent build up and when Val Venis debuted on Raw in the summer of
1998 he was so popular that a planned heel role was changed to a face role.
Call them insane, but some fans really liked the idea of this porn star
turning wrestler and wanted to cheer his sexual escapades, not boo them.
Ladies and gentlemen, Val Venis had arrived. With his flamboyant wrestling
trunks, oiled and buffed body with his fluffly white towel and his deep
throated "Hello Ladies." catchphrase Sean Morley made an immediate impression.
He was launched into a feud with "Kaientai" and their Manager, Yamaguchi
San. This was complicated by the fact that Val Venis was also tag team
partners with Taka Michinoku, who later betrayed Venis and joined Kaientai.
The story line revolved around Val Venis' affair with Yamaguchi's wife. Val
even made a movie about it - Land of the Rising Venis. This particular angle
developed into something that our friends at wrestlecrap.com called "I
choppy choppy your pee pee". Basically, Yamaguchi San decided to punish the
adulterous Val by castrating him. Ouch. Of course Val remained intact and
the WWF were able to chalk up a guest appearance by John Wayne Bobbit.
Truthfully, it was a very strange angle.
At Summerslam 1998 Venis was given a European title shot. The fact that
Venis only debuted in the summer and was given a title shot (no matter how
pissy the title) spoke volumes about the kind of hopes that the front office
boys at the WWF had for him. He didn't win the belt on this occasion because
he hit the referee and was disqualified.
Val Venis moved on to feud with Goldust who was then appearing as the
man-of-God Dustin Runnels. Venis and Runnels' supposedly estranged wife
Terri basically got it on at every opportunity, infuriating Dustin Runnels.
They even made a porn movie together called "The Preachers Wife".
One Monday night on Raw Dustin Runnels carried a sign saying "He is coming".
Val retaliated by carrying a sign that said "I have come". Okay, so maybe
you had to be there, but it really was quite amusing.
As the Man of God character "Dustin Runnels", Runnels was very unpopular,
but when Runnels changed back into Goldust, the dynamics of the angle
changed. The WWF chose to pull a very strange storyline twist by making
Terri supposedly pregnant with Val's child. Venis denied the allegation and
said he'd had a vasectomy years ago. First Val was almost castrated and now
the news of a vasectomy.can we say "one tracked mind"?
Anyway, Terri and Val broke up and Val moved on.
The next feud/alliance for Val Venis was with the Godfather. Basically they
were a tag team for a while and there were rumors of giving them the name
"Supply and Demand" as the Godfather supplied the ho's and Venis demanded
them. In any case, it didn't pan out and Venis moved back into singles
competition.
Around January 1999 Val Venis got together with Ryan Shamrock, the supposed
"little sister" of Ken Shamrock. Ryan was the bait to start the feud with
Ken Shamrock. Val even made another couple of movies - "Sister Act: There's
Something About Ryan" and "Saving Ryan's Privates". That lasted until Val
defeated Ken Shamrock for the Intercontinental title. He dumped Ryan around
then and later lost the title to Road Dogg.
Mid 1999 saw Morley being paired up with Nicole Bass in one of THE strangest
pairings the WWF has ever put together. My guess is they were going for
another Triple H/Chyna thing, but failed miserably. Venis and Bass wrestled
Jeff Jarrett and Debra on occasion, but the matches weren't anything to get
excited about. The Venis/Bass alliance was broken up when Nicole supposedly
dumped Val, much to everyone's surprise. I don't really know why the WWF did
that. It hurt the character of Val Venis and he sort of lost his edge a bit.
I guess they were trying to push Bass, but they'd have better luck pushing a
truck full of cement up Mt Everest.
In December of 1999, Val Venis defeated the British Bulldog and D'Lo Brown
in a Triple Threat match to win the European title, his first Federation
gold. He held the Title until February of 2000 when he dropped it to a young
upstart named Kurt Angle on Smackdown.
The year 2000 didn't start out to be a great year for Sean Morley. The porn
star gimmick started to show signs of being old hat. When I originally wrote
Sean Morley's profile over a year ago, I made mention of the fact that the
gimmick was a good one, but time would tell as to whether Morley was
overshadowed by it or able to use it as a stepping stone to bigger and
better things. Morley actually stated to Slam Wrestling in August 2000 that
"I always felt the porn star gimmick and story lines kind of overshadowed my
work". I'm pointing this out because, really, how damn good am I?
As well as the staleness of his gimmick, Morley had to contend with injury.
He suffered a neck sprain that resulted in limited mobility for about 6 months.
Prior to his injury an angle with his sister and Adam "Edge" Copeland's real
life fiancee, Alanna Morley, was being scripted. Sean Morley's injury put
that angle on the shelf. By the time Morley was ready to return, Copeland
was busy in the tag team scene and the proposed angle was scrapped. There
was a rumor that Morley wasn't behind the proposed angle and was therefore
"demoted" by WWF officials, but both Morley and WWF officials have denied
this and instead stated that Morley's injury was the reason for his slip in
the ranks.
Instead of the "not with my sister you don't" angle, we started to see a new
serious side of Val Venis. His ring attire changed. He cut his hair. He
spent more time on the mic and less time on the one liners. For those of us
who pay attention to such things, it was a change to be watched closely.
Sure enough, it didn't take Val Venis long to get hooked up with Trish
Stratus and her team of Test and Albert. It was an uncomfortable pairing as
Morley was working a serious heel gimmick and Trish's fussing and primping
didn't really fit well. However, Stratus did lead Val Venis to his second
Intercontinental title reign.
Val Venis made it to the semi-finals of the King of the Ring 2000
tournament, going down to Rikishi.
On Smackdown in July of 2000, Venis defeated Rikishi for the
Intercontinental title. He would later lose the title to Chyna when he and
Trish competed in a match with Chyna and Eddie Guerrero. Chyna pinned Trish
and according to the match stipulation, Venis was stripped of the title.
This incident was used to separate Val Venis from Stratus and T & A. He went
on to join another stable, this time the Right To Censor with chief party
pooper, Steven Richards.
Venis has joined fellow repenter, the "Goodfather" and now blames his lack
of success on the distractions of his alternative life style. He remains
slightly separate from the RTC, dressing a little differently and being a
little more vocal. For those reasons I don't see Val as being a long term
member of the RTC, but for the moment he's in a place that sees him working
the stick and working the ring. In short, the fans are forced to pay
attention to Morley's talents, regardless of whether his gimmick is loved or
hated.
Sean Morley has stated that he wants to be a top heel in the WWF and that he
wants to wear the WWF Heavyweight Title. When told of comparisons with the
path taken by Triple H, Morley was quick to say "I don't want to get there
that way". That's an interesting remark to make, isn't it?
At the moment Morley wants to be more aggressive and wants to be taken
seriously and if that's what he wants, he seems to be on the right track.