Born Sean Morley in 1971, Val Venis was trained by Dewey Robertson since 1991. Venis originally wanted to be a helicopter pilot, and was supposed to attend the University of Colorado State for aeronautical science, but in the summer he took off after finishing high school to England and found that wrestling is what he wanted to do. He wrestled in England with the British Wrestling Federation for a year by the name of Scott Borders, and then he went to Ozarks Mountain Wrestling for eight months, then Puerto Rico for the World Wrestling Council for five years.

In Mexico, Venis wrestled under the masked name of Steel; his mask looked like steel and he went over very well in Mexico with this identity. Venis had his first tryout for the World Wrestling Federation in the summer of 1997. After this he went to two more tryouts and then a training camp. After this Venis was granted a contract in the WWF. The gimmick of Val Venis, a porn star form Las Vegas, came from Vince McMahon and the then writer for the WWF storylines, Vince Russo.

When Venis arrived in the WWF, he kept stealing other wrestler's valets, such as Goldust's manager, Marlena (who is now Terri.) He soon started a feud with Kaientai (a wrestling trio which consisted of Taka Michinoku and others.) He apparently cheated with Taka's sister and then he would be haunted with it for a few months. Venis also tried to steal Ken Shamrock's "sister" Ryan and then he started in a battle with Shamrock.

Venis has won both the Intercontinental Champion and the European Champion in the World Wrestling Federation and even defeated men like Mic Foley (Mankind) and went toe to toe with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Venis, in spite of his tacky gimmick, has been a force in the World Wrestling Federation, but as of late he has been held down within the whole McMahon/Helmsley Regime storyline.