Former WWE personality addresses the company’s press conferences being a “lightning rod of conversation”

Sami (Zayn) wins the match for Bloodline and all that stuff. I just wanted to ask about the show and I remember asking (Paul) Heyman a question and asking Sami a question. I’m sure you can go back and watch this footage… So I’m just asking a question. I wanted it to be part of something that we put on The Bump. We never end up putting any of this stuff on The Bump. Take that for what you will. But I wanted to just be part of the show. That’s all I looked at this as. It’s a press conference about something that is scripted. We’re gonna ask questions for the most part of the media that was there, because you’re talking about, ‘Well how’d you feel about this?’ And there’s a gray area of kayfabe and what’s real and story and you were getting some real emotions out of people like Sami Zayn. Paul kept it very on the level but Paul’s always been very good at finding that gray area. Bringing that reality to a scripted (setting) and that’s how it started and I remember the media that was in there and I’ll tell you this, just to give you an idea of why I think we see the ‘media members’ get criticized is after I was done, one of the media members came up to me and asked for a picture. Happy to do so but I don’t think you’re giving off the right message to WWE or maybe you are because that’s exactly what they want. They want fans in there, they want people that want to be part of the show, that don’t want to mess with their part of the show. The press conference is part of the show. Does Triple H come out at the end and go, ‘We set all these –’ yeah, sure, that’s the real part. But they want this just to be an addendum to the end of the show, we wrap things up and we let people speak a little bit and show their excitement and for the most part, they want softballs, right? That’s why there have been criticism of some of these questions so I did that a few times. Probably five, six times. The Royal Rumble one last year where Cody (Rhodes) wins and he drinks the Mountain Dew and says, ‘That’s excellent’ because he’s a fantastic politician that way. We all laughed at that. At that very same press conference though… a pretty well-known sports entertainment, wrestling reporter is talking to Cody and literally plugs his website and the price of his website. Right there, I think your credibility goes out the window. WWE is gonna laugh at that and go, ah yeah, he’s just playing along. You don’t see someone at the end of the NBA playoffs when they’re doing press conferences plugging — they identify where they’re from but they’re not going, well, you know, it costs $9.99 to listen to what I do. No. I’ve heard people at press conferences for WWE, I’ve heard people at press conferences for AEW use their stage name or use their nickname. You’re killing your credibility doing that kind of stuff. Then you are playing into everything they want.

Now listen, if WWE wants to have these press conferences and they’re going to invite press in — I was state media. I’m trying to ask good questions to create good content. I work there. I know other people went there for that and they would high five each other that they were covering it. There is a phrase that I’ve lived by for a very long time in my life, ‘Act as if. Act as if you’ve been there before.’ It’s from a movie called Boiler Room. It’s a great movie. But you have to present yourself in a certain way and if you’re gonna come in there talking about your nickname or trying to be buddy-buddy or making jokes, that’s not what the media does. If you wanna be taken seriously and if you wanna just be part of the show, you can be part of the show, because that’s what WWE wants when they get those questions at those shows. They want you to be part of it. They don’t want you to push. I think they could do a better job of prepping Triple H on these so he’s so he’s not saying, ‘Well I didn’t read the lawsuit’ or, ‘I don’t wanna talk — this guy’s not credible.’”