On April 18th 2011 Monday Night Raw took place in England. A lot of things happened that night, but specifically what we’ll be taking a look back on was R-Truth turned on his friend John Morrison, or John Morrison turning on R-Truth depending on your perspective.
R-Truth kicked off RAW that night heading to the ring with a microphone in his hand saying how happy he was to finally get a WWE Championship match after overcoming so many obstacles in his life. As such R-Truth wanted to celebrate his number one contender status which he earned the previous week with the crowd.
While R-Truth was doing this John Morrison, R-Truth’s alleged friend, interrupted him. John proceeded to call R-Truth old and said that he wasn’t in the best of the shape. Morrison arranged for a clip on the Titantron to be shown where Truth was drinking some water during the gauntlet match which took place the week before. Then R-Truth’s so-called friend singled him out for being a smoker and then tricked him into putting his number one contender status for Extreme Rules on the line against him right then on the spot against him, but not before calling Truth lucky repeatedly. This really gave R-Truth no choice but agree to the match.
Justify!
The two of them had a competitive match that John Morrison won. After the match John Morrison went to shake R-Truth’s hand while he was in the corner recovering from the match. R-Truth did not shake Morrison’s hand, instead he started attacking him. During the beat down R-Truth kept telling Morrison that “you made me do this” and he was right for several reasons.
What kind of friend calls a friend both old and lucky? What kind of friend interprets a celebration to call the person hosting the celebration out of shape? What kind of friend calls out a friend singles out another one for choosing to smoke? The answer is simple a bad friend, a friend like John Morrison. At the end of the day John Morrison got what he deserved.
Some "Friend"
The following week R-Truth said that being popular among the fans was getting in the way of his dream of one day becoming WWE Champion. While Truth’s decision to turn his back on the fans that have supported him over the years is not a popular one, if the past is any indicator sometimes when a wrestler turns his or her back on the fans it can advance or in some cases prolong a career. There are two great examples of this. After JBL turned his back on the fans he became the longest reigning world champion in the history of Friday Night Smackdown and became the United States Champion. After Hulk Hogan turned his back on the fans and formed the nWo with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash at Bash at the Beach 1996 it rejuvenated his career to the point where he is in TNA today, over a decade later. And you certainly cannot blame R-Truth for wanting to prolong his career or to one day become WWE Champion.
On May 1st 2011 at Extreme Rules, when Morrison was about to win the WWE Championship R-Truth interfered after getting in the cage, and attacked Morrison. It is arguable that R-Truth’s action cost John the win. However, Truth is to be commended for this because Morrison cost him the WWE Championship after leaving him no choice but to put his number one contender status for Extreme Rules weeks earlier. Truth simply did to John Morrison what he did to him weeks earlier. Besides, if John Morrison was any kind of competitor he would’ve dug deep within himself and found a way to defeat both The Miz and John Cena that night to become the WWE Champion.
The next day R-Truth attacked John Morrison to the point where trainers needed to help him get backstage. However, this was only in retaliation for what John Morrison did to him on April 25th. On that date Morrison attacked R-Truth as he was explaining his actions to the crowd.
At the end of the day John Morrison started this feud and keeps prolonging it out of perceived notion that he was wronged by R-Truth. However, the fact of the matter is this: John Morrison brought this all on himself, which is why R-Truth is completely justified in his actions.
