Matt Koon shared William Regal’s “dos and don’ts” of professional wrestling during the second to last edition of the Gentleman Villain podcast. Here are the highlights:
Developing detail and emotion in promos:
“Practice your talking skills. Use a mirror and film yourself, and work on every detail: facials, eyes, and mannerisms. Learn a one-minute promo and perfect it. Now do the same promo with the same words, but in as many different emotions as you can. Happy, mad, sad, glad, grateful, on the verge of a breakdown, indifferent, et cetera. Now when you get good at this, you’ll be able to interchange several emotions in one promo. The key to getting good at this is to not change the words.
I can watch a foreign language film and not understand it; but I can understand which emotion they’re portraying if it’s done well. My gold star to a good promo person is if they can recite a nursery rhyme and emote whatever I am asking them to do.”
Looking for character inspiration:
“Look to the world to find things that you can use to develop your character. Films, TV shows, anything else.”
Learning to read people’s emotions:
“Learn how to read people’s emotions. This tip is invaluable. People don’t just boo or cheer. You have to learn how to make them. Only one in a million has the “Elvis factor.” If you truly have that quality, then you can get away with anything. But the majority of us don’t. So don’t take your skills for granted. I believe that the more time that you put into learning the details, the better and longer your career will be.”
Quotes via 411 Mania