WWE champ Liv Morgan is having a killer good time
In 2022, WWE Women’s World Champion Liv Morgan had the opportunity to turn her horror movie fandom into a guest-starring role in the "Child’s Play" media series. A longtime supporter of the franchise, she joined Chucky in a makeshift living room to quickly cover some of the key plot points of the second season of the franchise's new show. Then she reached just a little too deep into Chucky’s emotional well, causing him to bait her into placing him on her lap, where after removing a comically large knife from the pocket of his overalls, he stabbed her repeatedly, giving Morgan one of those on-screen horror deaths she’d loved over the years.
The notion of crossing over used to be a non-starter for female professional wrestlers, with the film industry generally dismissing them as being “too big” for the profession. But the shift in WWE’s ideology, encouraging synergy between programs and brands, coupled with Morgan’s enthusiasm for on-screen violence and intensity, were too big of a moment for everyone to pass up.
"I’m so happy that I got to be murdered by Chucky,” she says with a laugh. “We are friends till the end, and I'm sure this is not the last we will see of him.”
Today, 10 years after first signing with WWE, Morgan has hit the apex. After competing in some of WWE’s most groundbreaking matches in the women’s division, most notably the Elimination Chamber and the Money in the Bank Ladder matches, Morgan stands tall as a two-time Women’s Tag Team Champion, as well as a two-time and current Women’s World Champion. For the generations before her, female performers rarely were afforded that kind of tenure, let alone the opportunity to get to the top of the ladder after so much time. But to Morgan, everything’s happening exactly as it should, and when it should. “I'm happy and I feel good”, Morgan says, her Women’s World Title over her shoulder and her megalithic Crown Jewel Championship ring testing her finger’s mettle, “and I feel like it's been a long journey, but I've definitely earned my way here. It makes it that much sweeter.”
Growing up in a single-parent household with five siblings, playing with — and off of — others was a skill Morgan, 30, developed early, so it's no surprise that some of her brightest spots have come in tandems or trios, with her current role as female figurehead of the Judgement Day weaving in some of those past relationships. Like many fans, she wasn’t really aware that you could just try out for WWE. The idea was presented to her in 2014 by former WWE wrestler Enzo Amore, who she met while waitressing. Her first big role in WWE came as one-third of the Riott Squad, running roughshod over the women’s division alongside the unconventional veteran Ruby Riott and wild-child powerhouse Sarah Logan. The team commemorated their union by getting matching tattoos reading “11-21-17,” the date of their "WWE Raw" debuts, and became regular challengers for the Women’s Tag Team Titles, but never quite captured them.
Morgan's first and second title wins were then shared with Raquel Rodriguez, who serves as her current heavy in the Judgment Day to offset the imposing physicality of Rhea Ripley. The pair won the Women’s Tag Team Titles twice, and will likely pursue a third run while doing what they can to preserve Morgan’s singles title for as long as they can.
But it’s the Judgement Day, the unit that’s been the focal point of "WWE Raw" for the better part of two years, that’s really allowed Morgan to solidify herself as one of the best talents on WWE television.
After trading injuries with then-champion Ripley, Morgan took Ripley's title, her faction, and her on-screen romantic interest in Dominik Mysterio. (“Daddy Dom,” according to Morgan.) She’s in the fold with veterans and newcomers alike: Traveled, tested all-time talent Finn Bálor and his protégé JD McDonagh, Ruthless Aggression era standout Carlito, along with her partner Raquel and love interest Dominik, the latter of whom is the son of WWE legend Rey Mysterio and may be the person currently garnering the biggest weekly boos across the brand. All the different paths her team has taken to get to this mountaintop aren’t lost on Morgan, and there’s something different she pulls from those experiences.
“They've traveled around the world, [and have had] such a different experience than what I have,” she says, pointing to Bálor, McDonagh and Carlito all owning significant international experience outside of WWE. With Dominik, who she works with even more closely than the rest, there’s a different kind of respect. What he lacks in in-ring experience, being little more than four years into his in-ring career, he makes up for in preparation, having been involved in contentious WWE stories almost his entire life. “Dominik grew up with wrestling in his life since the day he was born," Morgan says. "And so I do feel like I'm surrounded by a bunch of people that know more than me, which is what you always want, so you can learn. And I feel like I learn from them all the time.”
In Morgan’s assessment, defeating Ripley in their title rematch this past August at "WWE SummerSlam" is the high point in her career, with all of her personal growth, and the team she’s built coming together to solidify her spot. Leading up to that moment, she ran a play dubbed “The Liv Morgan Revenge Tour,” first injuring Ripley and forcing her to vacate her Women’s World Championship, then winning the vacant title at "King and Queen of the Ring" with the aid of Rhea’s on-screen love interest. She successfully usurped power from Ripley in Ripley's Judgement Day faction, excommunicating her and former World Champion Damian Priest. Finally, with the aid of the returning Rodriguez, she exorcised the Ripley demon that had been eating at her over the past year. “I feel like I've done a ton of great things leading up until then, I've had awesome moments," Morgan says, "but I feel like SummerSlam was really my 'if you didn't already know, I'm here' [moment].”
In-ring success tends to afford outside opportunities. Morgan loves the outside work, like her cameo on Chucky's couch or her role in 2023’s Uma Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson led film "The Kill Room," and eventually won't be against filling her trophy case with a few Emmys and Oscars to go along with WWE’s yearly awards, appropriately titled the Slammys. It’s been a difficult path to follow, with John Cena, The Rock and Dave Bautista being the former WWE Champions to really shine in Hollywood, but with the company’s willingness to support outside endeavors, there may be room for even more of these success stories. “I think these crossover opportunities are amazing ... it brings new viewers to each of these products that are involved," she says.
"I audition regularly. I would love to be involved in more film, television, media. I just want to see what I can do in that space, and for WWE to be involved in that and to be supportive of that and to be helping me, guide me through all that is really amazing and cool too. But I just want to see what I can do.”
Style-wise, Morgan’s favorite matches also venture toward the violent, and they’ve allowed her to solidify exactly what she presents week in and week out. A backyard wrestling aficionado in her youth, she carried aspects of that over to her professional career, never afraid to take on the craziest moves in the biggest moments. When Morgan competed in her first Elimination Chamber match in 2019, teaming with Logan to challenge for the Women’s Tag Team Titles, she provided one of the biggest highlights of the night, diving onto her fellow opponents from the top of one of the participant pods. She had one of the most impressive eliminations of the 2022 version of the match, powerbombing Piper Niven off the top rope for a pinfall elimination. And her path to the top of the mountain started at the top of a ladder, winning 2022’s women’s Money in the Bank ladder match. After defeating Ronda Rousey for the Smackdown Women’s title via surprise cash-in the same evening, Morgan began incorporating a more extreme style to her matches, regularly utilizing weapons and tables to keep her title.
“It was just maybe a tipping point in my journey, where it was just like, ‘I'm going to do whatever it takes, even if it hurts me. If it's going to hurt you, I am willing to do it,’" Morgan says. "And just a more unhinged version of what you typically saw from Liv Morgan. And also, I grew up watching WWE. I loved the TLC matches (tables, ladders and chairs), the Hell in a Cell matches when they first introduced Elimination Chamber. I loved all the hardcore matches, the really extreme physical matches is what I really gravitated toward.
"So being able to channel that into this new progression of myself was really cool, because I feel like it was just an ode to what I really loved in wrestling growing up.”
Seemingly overnight, Morgan finds herself both an elder stateswoman and newly minted star.
Having been in the WWE fold for as long as she has, Morgan credits her development to the widest range of talents possible: Divas Era superstar and Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor Eve Torres, American women’s wrestling pioneer Alundra Blayze, Fabulous Freebird Michael Hayes and one of WWE's original light heavyweights, Sean Waltman, to name a few. She’s a Four Horsewomen contemporary, coming into WWE around the same time as Charlotte Flair, Bayley, Becky Lynch and the former Sasha Banks. Through their matches and title victories with and against each other, the group is properly assigned credit for WWE’s willingness to push women’s wrestling to the forefront of its programming. But unlike many of her peers, the majority of Morgan's big moments have existed outside of their immediate ecosystem.
Now wearing the badge of the one to “retire” Horsewoman Lynch, she’s never felt the need to compare herself to their level of influence and success. "They definitely have paved a new path for all of the other women in the locker room and on the roster," Morgan says. "For me personally, I feel like ever since I started with the WWE, all I really wanted was to give myself the opportunity just to see how good I could become, or how great I could become — just to give myself the opportunity to see what I can do and what I could accomplish. And so I don't necessarily feel pressure to follow a specific lead, but more so just wanting to see how great I can be."
As one of the focal points of weekly WWE programming, flanked by WWE’s biggest heat magnet, Morgan shows no signs of slowing down. But there’s an understanding that while her position is new, it’s paramount for her to maximize it, to continue to show exactly why she deserves to be there. Fighting back from multiple injuries in 2023 to rise to the apex WWE’s flagship show is no small feat, and while the story of the Judgement Day isn’t going into its eight film or fourth spinoff show, it has had major twists and some of the biggest turns of any WWE tale. Morgan may not have the raspy, Jodeci-tinged vocal delivery of Chucky's own love interest played by Jennifer Tilly, but she absolutely possesses that sweet sadism that’s won over fans and ruined families all at once.
“[I want you to feel] that we gave you all of your favorite things about WWE," Morgan says, "and maybe in that moment, maybe you didn't appreciate it enough, but looking back on it, I think everyone could agree that we gave you your favorite moments of WWE television.”
