Seth Rollins recently spoke with Sports Illustrated about cutting promos in front of empty crowds, how he’s spending the quarantine with Becky Lynch, and what alignment he prefers.
Check out highlights below:
On wrestling in front of no crowd:
It’s weird. It’s weird. It’s taking me back to my days wrestling in front of eight people. I’ve been there before. I’ve grown accustomed to Monday Night Raw, 10,000 people. It’s a whole different vibe. Everything’s somber. We all want to get through this, but we’re all trying to figure this thing out together. When the whole thing started to develop here in the States, I purposely didn’t tweet or Instagram anything about wrestling because I didn’t feel right about it. Then I got out there and I cut this promo on Monday Night Raw and I got back and I had this sense of relief almost.
On if cutting a promo is more difficult than wrestling with no crowd:
I would say cut a promo. You don’t have crowd reaction to play off of. A promo, when you’re having a conversation with the crowd, it really feels like you are talking to somebody. It feels as though they are part of the conversation. If you don’t have that, there’s a lot of pressure. And also not having the ability to do multiple takes. Monday Night Raw is live, so that’s a one-take promo. That’s a one-take monologue. I don’t get the opportunity to cut-and-paste that thing together. It’s not like a movie. Wrestling, on the other hand, is fluid. It’s in the ring and it’s moving around. There’s a lot of you can do. There are a lot of changes you can make. A promo is nerve-wracking. You can hear everything. There’s no audience to drown anything out. You can hear cameramen shuffling. You hear everybody whispering in the back. It’s really eerie in a way.
If he prefers being a heel or face:
I very much enjoying being one with the audience. There’s no feeling in the world like having a massive roar when you win a match. That’s an incredible thing. There is something fun and easier about being a jerk. I think it’s easier in 2020 to be disliked for saying your piece than trying to be liked because somebody is always gonna complain about something. I can’t think of an athlete, actor entertainer alive that is universally loved in this day and age. There is always someone trying to tear you down. If your job is to get torn down, then that makes life a lot easier for you. There are positive and negatives to both sides. It’s hard to pick one. Luckily for me, I’m good at both.
What he’s been watching with Becky Lynch:
I’ve spent a lifetime watching professional wresting and WWE, so I’m certainly not watching any WWE while I’m off. If you’re a student of the game, and you want a lesson on how to cut a promo, watch Edge and Randy Orton over the last few weeks. That’ll be my WWE recommendation. We’re in the middle of Tiger King, which I think everybody is watching. That’s pretty mad. We’re going to watch 1917. We watched a great movie that Shia LeBeouf wrote and directed and starred in called Honey Boy, which is a take on his life, which I thought was incredible if you’re down for a good movie. I made Rebecca watch the classic, highly underrated Danny DeVito-directed film, Death to Smoochy starring the late Robin Williams and Edward Norton, which I think we should all watch. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a dark comedy, but it’s really funny and it tackles some issues that were ahead of its time. I think it came out in 2002. My next goal though is to try and get her to watch Game of Thrones. She’s never seen it and this is the perfect time.
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