“Road Dogg” Brian James was the special guest on this week’s episode of X-Pac 1 2 360. The D-X stable mates and Hall Of Famers talked about his new role in NXT and how the brand has been able to step it up on a high level. James says he believes NXT has been consistently performing at such a high level that the brand’s only competition is to themselves, and they’ll continue to outdo themselves:
“Well yeah, the question is can you top yourself? I think that’s the age-old question. I firmly believe the only competition NXT has is themselves being a better NXT than they were yesterday. And so far what I’ve seen over the past five years, is they have done that consistently, so whether we believe as viewers or we believe on the inside that it can be done, I think they’ll prove that it can be done when it’s Takeover 26. The talent down here seems to challenge themselves and kinda challenge each other in a competitive team spirit where you have to step up and you have to say, ‘follow that!’And the next guy out follows it, you know what I mean? The high tide rises all ships and I believe these guys down here have so much talent and man it’s not just the guys on TV right now. There’s guys in the bullpen that have got a ton of talent too, so will they continue to top themselves at NXT? You’re damn right they will.”
James also talked about his new role at the WWE Performance Center teaching promo classes, and explained why some talent is scripted while others are just given bullet points. He went to say some guys just need to be scripted because it’s not their strong suit, while others like Daniel Bryan are just so advanced where it doesn’t make sense for a writer to script something that sounds out of character for a particular talent.
“And the biggest thing to me and I tell these people like ‘fail, fail at a hundred miles an hour, fail big, go out on a limb, don’t be afraid to make a fool of yourself, that’s endearing. Don’t be afraid to act a fool, too many people and too often, everyone tries to be strong, and everybody tries to be cool. Well guess what if everybody is like that nobody is strong and nobody is cool. ’So step outside the norm, think outside the box…. I don’t think it’s a separate page, I think it becomes a trust issue with who can cut a good promo and who can’t cut a good promo. And then it’s about trusting who can and who can’t. So do I have to script out the promo for the individual and then kinda be a stickler for sticking to the verbiage that was written? Or do I trust the guy to give him bullet points and the message he needs to deliver and then trust that he can go out there and make that verbiage his own, make that message his own but still stay on story? It’s very easy to go online, and go ’ this sucks, that’s great’.
There is so much more that goes into this industry than anybody out there knows that isn’t in the know. It’s very important to have that trust with an individual. Daniel Bryan, you can tell Daniel Bryan the message you want conveyed and he can go out there and deliver that message and do it in his character. The big thing for me is that you have to earn that trust, but to develop that relationship where you can trust your talent and trust that you pick out which ones. Hopefully you can trust them all, it’s easier to just give them bullet points and let them deliver it in their own individual voice. So, the Road Dogg would not say something that way but Daniel Bryan might say it that way so Road Dogg writing it is not smart because then I am stepping on Daniel Bryan’s character, I need to give him bullet points and let Daniel Bryan put that message together. But some people are not so brilliant at it and so you gotta script their promos for them.”
The full episode is available to watch below; X-Pac 1 2 360 is also available on iTunes and Spotify.
