Wrestling - WWE: What's Snooki got to do with it?

John Morrison began his WWE career in 2002 as a contestant on "Tough Enough," a reality show on which he won a WWE contract. Since then, he's worked his way up the WWE ladder, winning numerous titles and eventually embracing his resemblance to the Doors frontman Jim Morrison by adopting a rock star-like persona. After strong showings in the Royal Rumble, the King of the Ring tournament and a hard-fought (though unsuccessful) battle against former tag-team partner the Miz for the WWE title in recent months, Morrison seemed to be on the brink of main-event status. But in an odd twist of fate, he is now teaming with legendary diva Trish Stratus and "Jersey Shore" star Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi at WrestleMania against Dolph Ziggler and Lay-Cool.

This won't be your first WrestleMania match, but it could be the most unique one for you. What are your plans for your match and how did you end up involved with it?

To be honest, I wasn't particularly excited about the idea at first. But after meeting Snooki and seeing her in the ring, I'm kind of pumped about it now. She's really excited and has a great energy about her. Because of that, I think the match is going to be fun for everybody involved and fun for people to watch, too. I've been brushing up on my "Jersey Shore" vernacular and I'm going to start calling Vicki Guerrero a "grenade" and Michelle McCool and Layla "old cabbage." When you say "cabbage" in Jersey, no one knows if you're saying "cabbage" or "garbage," which I think is pretty cool. But in their case, it's both.

You started your WWE career on a reality show, trained Kevin Federline when he came to WWE a few years ago, held tag-team gold with former reality show star the Miz, and are now teaming with Snooki. How did you become WWE's go-to guy for celebrities-turned-wrestlers?

I think sometimes luck, opportunity and chance have a lot to do with things. It is a crazy coincidence that that kind of has been my career trajectory. But I know what it's like to be on a reality show, so I can relate to what they've gone through. I enjoy working with different people and interacting with people during the creative process and all that blah blah blah bullshit. I really think it's a good opportunity and it's more of a coincidence than anything. But if you look at anybody's career, a lot of things seem so planned and conscious. It's like a numerologist proving that he predicted the earthquake in Japan by looking at the data after the fact. In life, there's a lot of coincidences that we don't realize until after the fact when we can correlate everything.

You've had recent victories over King of the Ring winner and current United States Champion Sheamus and had good showings in the Royal Rumble and the King of the Ring tournament. After a respectable challenge to the Miz's WWE title, this Snooki thing could sidetrack you a bit. What do you have planned to try to break on through to the main-event picture after WrestleMania?

I think I'm a future main-eventer, and after WrestleMania I'm going to set my sights on winning the WWE Championship. In the meantime, this is going to be an entertaining match that will get a lot of mainstream publicity, and it's going to be fun showing Snooki the ropes and teaching her about the squared circle. And I'll get to learn some stuff about what it's like on the Jersey shore.

In addition to your WrestleMania match, you also take part in the WrestleMania Art Auction each year. What do you have in store for this year's art show?

I'm looking forward to it. It's a great event every year. This year we've got Jerry "The King" Lawler and Booker T creating art there live. I've seen some of Jerry's sketches and he's a fantastic artist. He does comic book-style drawings. I hear Booker T paints, but I have not seen any of Booker T's art. So I'm very interested to see what he's painting. I have no idea what he's going to do, but it's going to be something very cool to see.

I don't want to spoil the surprise, but I've got a piece of art that I think speaks to the synergy of the human race and the environment in which we live, the people of the earth living in synergy together and in harmony with one another. I think it's something that will cast shadows upon the tragedies of members of the WWE Universe's lives and put smiles upon the faces of the human race.

That sounds pretty deep.

Yeah, it's actually just some crap I made yesterday.