Seth Rollins recently appeared on the Sports Media podcast with Richard Deitsch, and discussed the WWE creative process. Rollins talked about how much of his promos are scripted these days.
“I would say almost 0% scripted in the sense that I don’t write things down on a piece of paper, and read them and memorize them that way. That doesn’t really work for me,” Rollins said. “Scripted in the sense that I have a pretty good idea of what I want to say when I go out to the ring and grab the microphone, but like I said, it’s not written down. It’s almost written in my head on a little tablet in my head. There’s no piece of paper for me, I can’t do that. I’ve tried it. It just doesn’t fly for me. I cannot be authentic in that way.
“Say you’re doin a play, or a TV show, there’s tons and tons of takes, and you’ve got a script that you do, if you’re on Broadway, you’re doing the same thing pretty much every single night. And so you get accustomed to knowing how you should act during certain parts of what you’re saying, but wrestling is different, and it’s different every week and it’s episodic television. It changes so quickly. For me, script wise, almost nothing is written on a piece of paper for me at this point.”
Rollins also explained the process he goes through before he heads out to cut a promo.
“Most times, I’ve run it out loud to myself or to someone that I trust, at least before I go out there because oftentimes before the show, say if the show starts at 8:00 ET and if I just have a promo segment, most of the time is spent kind of writing and rewriting it in my head and coming up with different ideas of what I want to say or how I want to get something across or maybe simplifying an idea,” Rollins explained. “Talking with some people and trying to figure out, does that work? Maybe we should save that for another week. That doesn’t really fit here. What’s the goal? What’s the story I want to accomplish during this promo?
“And then as we get closer to show time, then I’ll start running it. Then I’m in the in the back. I’m in my suit, and I’m running it. How do I want to say these things? What’s my inflection going to be here? What’s my tone? Am I serious here? Am I having a good time? What’s my mood, all that type of stuff. It’s definitely not the first time that you’re hearing the words, at least I’m hearing the words come out of my mouth, but that’s that’s sort of my process. I go over it a good amount of times before I go out and say it but mostly just in my head or from memory.”
Rollins will face WWE Hall of Famer Edge at SummerSlam on Saturday.
(H/T to WrestlingInc for the quotes)
Follow Marc on Twitter at @this_is_marc. Send any news, tips or corrections to us by clicking here.