nZo On W. Morrissey Getting Past His Personal Struggles, Recalls Getting Morrisey Help

W. Morrissey made his AEW debut on this week’s Dynamite, and nZo discussed his friend’s recovery from his addiction and mental health issues in a new interview. nZo appeared on Busted Open Radio on Friday, and you can check out a couple highlights below (per Fightful):

On Morrissey’s personal struggles: “It’s no mystery, my tag team partner William Morrissey, as presented to us on AEW television, went through a hell that is so real, that most would not understand until they see it, or they have it, or it affects them and their lives. I saw it at its absolute worst, at a time when 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’d never really spoke about it in public, but he made his fight very public, and he worked with – doing a DDP video to inspire people. Now that’s the point. Here’s a guy that tried to kill himself. And when I say ‘tried to kill himself’, man, one time I went into a hotel and I had to convince the security and the people at the hotel to let me in the f*cking door of that room, because Cass was back there trying to kill himself. And there were thirty empty beer bottles, cans and bottles of wine, and liter bottles of Jack Daniel’s completely f*cking empty.”

On helping Morrissey at that point: “I threw him in my car, and we drove, because he couldn’t make it from Chicago on a flight to New York City. We had to stop at hospitals because he was withdrawing. But you know what, we stopped, and we went to Notre Dame, and I’m a huge Notre Dame fan and I just wanted to go see Notre Dame, South Bend, and I figured, f*ck it, man, ‘Cass, I don’t know what to do for you? I can’t help you, you’ve got to want to do this yourself, but you need Jesus, brother. I don’t know what the f*ck you need, but maybe there’s some Jesus involved. Maybe there’s something that could help you here. We need to go pray.’ I drove to Notre Dame and I went to the chapel there, and I’d never seen it and it’s so beautiful. It’s unbelievable, and I’m a big Notre Dame fan, so that was weird – I always had dreams to go and see a football game there, and here I am with Big Cass, and I’m just walking around campus.

“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.”