W. Morrissey (formerly Big Cass) has detailed his struggles with alcoholism, which had him hit low points in 2018 when he suffered a seizure and 2019 when he was involved in an incident with Joey Janela at WrestlePro.
Diamond Dallas Page reached out to him following the seizure and offered help, which led to a friendship and eventually DDP helping Morrissey get through rehab.
Morrissey has found a home in IMPACT Wrestling since April 2021 and made his AEW debut on Wednesday as MJF's hand-picked opponent for Wardlow.
Appearing on Busted Open Radio, Morrissey's partner in WWE and friend Enzo Amore (nZo) praised his friend for everything he's been able to overcome.
"It's no mystery that my tag team partner William Morrissey, as presented on AEW television, went through a hell so real that most people don't understand until they see it, where they have it and it affects them and their lives. I saw it at its absolute worse, at a time where the world thought me and Big Cass were no longer friends and we hated each other, they had no idea what Cass was going through and that I was there to witness a lot of it. We never really spoke about it in public, but he made his fight very public and he made a DDPY [DDP Yoga] video to inspire people. That's the point. Here's a guy who inspired people. Here's a guy who tried to kill himself. When I say he tried to kill himself, one time I went into a hotel that I had to convince the security and the people at the hotel to let me in the fucking door of that room because Cass was back there trying to kill himself. There were 30 empty beer cans and bottles of wine and liters of Jack Daniels, completely fucking empty. I threw him in my car and we drove because he couldn't make it on a flight from Chicago to New York City and we had to stop at hospitals because he was withdrawing. We stopped and we went to Notre Dame. I figured, 'Fuck it, Cass, I don't know what I can do for you, but I want to help and you need to help yourself. You need Jesus, brother. I don't know what you need, but maybe Jesus needs to get involved and we need to pray.' I drove to Notre Dame and went to the chapel," said nZo.
nZo stated that he had always wanted to visit Notre Dame for a football game and didn't imagine this would be his first trip there.
An emotional nZo continued by saying, "Cass is stumbling around, we go to church, and we pray. I'll never forget that day. We got back to New York City, he checked himself into a hospital and he went off to rehab and he dealt with a disease that is as real as anything I've ever seen, to a point that I couldn't fathom. Here's a guy who wanted to kill himself and now he's on TV. I don't care what happened when the bell rang, when he came through the curtain, I don't care about the reaction. I need people to realize what that man went through."
Though Cass lost to Wardlow, the bout between the two is the most viewed video on AEW's YouTube channel.
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