John Morrison Says JBL Told Him to Steal Justin Roberts’ Passport

In Justin Roberts’ new book, he revealed that someone stole his passport and never returned it while he was on a WWE UK tour.

JBL then went on Twitter and denied that he took his passport.

I won't answer Net rumors-but I didn't take Justin Roberts passport. Could have been anyone/he was hated by the whole crew. He's an idiot.

— John Layfield (@JCLayfield) April 7, 2017

Hours later, a story came out on Deadspin where John Morrison, now wrestling as Johnny Mundo in Lucha Underground, said that JBL asked him to steal Roberts’ passport. Morrison said that he didn’t do it, but thought about it because he hoped it would get JBL to stop bullying him.

“JBL asked me and my partner to steal [Justin’s] passport, and we didn’t,” John Hennigan (Lucha Underground champion Johnny Mundo) told Deadspin. At the time of the incident, he worked for the WWF as Johnny Nitro, teaming with current WWE producer Joey Mercury as “MNM.” “JBL was one of the main event guys at the time,” he recalled, “and I don’t remember exactly what Justin Roberts did to become the target for the hazing of this specific oversea trip, but JBL asked me and Joey to snag Justin’s passport.”

Under the circumstances, they had to think it over.

“I remember it ‘being a thing,’ you know? We were looking at Justin, he was a few rows ahead of us on this plane, sleeping. We were like, ‘What do we do?’” MNM had become a target of Layfield’s, as well, and they realized that if they went along with the abuse, which JBL presented to them as being a great prank, there was at least a decent chance that they would be left alone. Some of the abuse they endured included having the sleeves being cut off their ring robes—not only doing property damage, but getting them in trouble for not having the robes. “It’s enticing,” he said of going along with the plan.

“Ultimately, we considered the options, and wound up deciding to not do it,” he explained. “This is a weird thing for a wrestler to say, especially in that era, but I usually went by the golden rule. I wouldn’t have appreciated someone doing that to me, especially someone I considered a peer.” Johnny described how he ended up having to deal with Layfield’s torment on and off for several years, eventually being left alone after he had enough and shoved the larger wrestler. It wasn’t just about hitting his breaking point, though: In 2009, when this happened, Johnny (then working under the name John Morrison) was being used as one of the top wrestlers on the company’s SmackDown show. He knew he wouldn’t get in trouble for fighting back.

As for Roberts, though, there was a moment in Tuscon, right after he returned to the States from the passport mess, where it became clear to him that what he was going through was a lot bigger than John Layfield. “I was sitting in the production meeting, Vince [McMahon] is running the meeting, and when it ends, he’s the first to leave,” Roberts recalled. “I was sitting there, and as he walked by me, he just whispered to me: ‘Don’t forget your passport! Ha-haa!’ and walked away. That’s when I knew there was no sympathy in that company. This stuff is encouraged.” To wit, in this week’s edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, editor Dave Meltzer notes that “everyone knows how tight Layfield is with Vince McMahon” and “the belief across-the-board is Layfield’s weeding out those who can’t take it comes from above.”

“They like humiliating people. They like laughing at people,” concludes Roberts. “The way wrestling is entertainment to us wrestling fans, humiliating people was just entertainment to the bosses.”