If you are a professional wrestling fan, the name Seth Rollins will be very familiar. Rollins is one of the most accomplished performers working today, a standard-bearer for the WWE, the most well-known wrestling promotion in the United States. On Saturday, Rollins meets up in a storyline against Edge at the WWE’s annual SummerSlam event. This year’s show takes place at Allegiant Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders. The pre-show begins at 7 p.m. ET on Peaco*ck in the United States and the WWE Network outside the U.S.
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Even if you are not a fan of professional wrestling, you can learn a lot from performers such as Rollins about effective communication and modern media. Below, as part of his being a recent guest on the “Sports Media Podcast,” Rollins offered interesting insight into how he views promotion and navigates when some media outlets want him in character and storyline versus others who want to talk about the business of wrestling; talking to mainstream outlets versus traditional wrestling outlets; how he and his wife, Rebecca Quin, who wrestles under the name Becky Lynch, navigate joint press requests; the challenges of having a massive social media following and the real mental health strain of toxic comments, and much more. I think you’ll find this interesting.
So much of what you guys do is about communication — and your ability to connect with an audience. Promotion is obviously a massive part of your business. How do you navigate interviews where some people want you in character and storyline, and then other interviewers want you to talk about the business of wrestling or your career?
The crazy part of our industry is that there’s such a gray area between who we are as performers and who we are as people that it almost trains us to be able to go in and out of it with ease. So to jump from one interview where I am full cackling Seth Rollins into a regular podcast where we want to talk about the inside of the business or just regular personal stuff, it’s very easy for me. Over the course of the last 20 years that I’ve been at this, I’ve just kind of weaved in and out and figured it out. It’s sort of just like wrestling. Sometimes, you have a plan going in and then the audience tells you they want something different, and you’ve got to be able to change it up on the fly. It’s all about kind of reading your audience or your interviewer, and sort of giving what you’ve got in that arena.
That’s interesting. I heard Roman Reigns on a recent Sports Illustrated media podcast where he was answering a question about his promos, and he went seamlessly from talking about the business to saying how John Cena is in for a nightmare this week. He switched in mid-sentence. When I listened to this, I was thinking, “Does Roman even realize his ability to do this?” I wanted to ask you the same thing. Are you consciously aware of where and how you want to take an answer in this dual role?
There is conscious awareness of where you want to take the answer to the question. Sometimes, it changes mid-answer. Sometimes, your train of thought drifts or your stream of consciousness turns the answer into something completely different than where you thought you were going to go. But oftentimes, if I know there is a conflict that I really want to sell, which is essentially what our business is, I will toe the line a little more if you are just asking me about a random performer. You mentioned Rhea Ripley. I have nothing but good things to say about Rhea Ripley because I’ve got no conflict with her. I’ve got nothing to sell when it comes to her. But if you ask me about Edge, I got a lot to say about that guy. It just depends on where we want to take the answer. But there is definitely a conscious awareness of what we need to do in the business and what needs to get done.
How much do you dictate with whom or with what outlet you will speak to? How much does WWE dictate? Or is it a combination of both?
It’s a combination of both. At the end of the day, especially when we have a major event like SummerSlam coming up, they’re putting together as much media as they possibly can to try to promote the show. So it’s on us. They come to us with a lot of requests and it depends on our schedule, the level of the media, if we like the interviewer, stuff like that. There’s lots of stuff going on, but at the end of the day, if I say no, they’re going to come back and say, “OK, this is really important to us,” or “OK, we understand your concern and we will put somebody else in there or get rid of it.” So it’s definitely a partnership when it comes to accepting and rejecting media requests.
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One of the things WWE has done for a long time and done well is to get their content into the quote-unquote mainstream press. As a performer, do you share the same philosophy as WWE corporate does?
It’s interesting because I’m of the belief that our hardcore wrestling fans, which I am one of, and I grew up loving the industry from a very young age and followed it all the way through, we’re going to stick. We’re going to talk wrestling and watch the shows and break them down and talk about who we love and who we don’t love, what segments we like, and what promos were awesome. We will romanticize future possible matchups and old matches that we loved. That will all exist. But with WWE, and especially with our industry, I love trying to push it into the mainstream. I love to take someone who knows very little about what we do, or maybe has no interest in it at all, and kind of give them a bit of an education on what it is. You start to see their whole mindset about what professional wrestling is, or can be, start to change. Once you hook them, they’re in, and they’re a fan for life. I love that aspect of the business. It took me forever to understand that reaching people outside of our bubble was the most important possible thing because I started to travel the world and saw the scope of the type of people that would come to our shows and just how many different types of people we touch and can touch if we choose to go that route.
Maybe at this point, there is not an answer because you’ve been in the business for a while. Is there any media outlet that you’ve always wanted to talk to or be profiled by that you have not at this point?
Gosh, that’s really tough. I don’t know, man. I’ve been so fortunate to have done a lot of different types of media over the years. ESPN is always cool to me. I love that. I was on “The Daily Show” and I got to do an angle with Jon Stewart, which is incredible. I got to do the “Today” show. Things like that are pretty wild. I’ve got to jump on some red carpets, not for my own movies, but (John) Cena had us on a red carpet for “Dr. Dolittle” a couple of years back. I think maybe more of the Hollywood stuff just to see what that’s all about. I have to ride my wife’s coattails on that, though. She’s going to be the star there. Not me.
I’ve had Paul Heyman on this podcast many times and one time, he took me through his philosophy of doing promos, how he does it, how much is improv versus script, how he sort of thinks about them philosophically. Between scripted and improvisation, where are you at this point in your career when you do things in front of an audience?
I would say almost zero percent 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. It is 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 a microphone. But it’s not written down. It’s almost like written in my head, like 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 doing a play or a TV show, there’s tons and tons of takes. If you’re on Broadway, you’re doing the same thing pretty much every single night. 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. It changes so quickly. For me, just script-wise, almost nothing is written on a piece of paper, for me, at this point.
Will you practice whatever you’re going to say or think you’re going to say into a mirror before the show or something like that?
Most times, I’ve run it out loud to myself or to someone that I trust before I go out there. Say if the show starts at 8 p.m. ET or whatever, 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. I’ll talk with some people and try to figure out does that work or maybe we should save that for another week or it doesn’t really fit here. What’s the story I want to accomplish during this promo? Then, as we get closer to showtime, I’ll start running it. I’m in the back, I’m in my suit, and I’m just 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 I’m hearing the words come out of my mouth. That’s sort of my process. I go over it a good amount of times before I go out and say it.
Over the last couple of weeks, Roman Reigns and John Cena, to use the wrestling vernacular, did a little shoot commentary into their promos. That means they injected real-life names or reality into a promo. How do you work that into a promo and is there a proverbial line where you don’t want someone to cross with you?
Everybody’s different in that regard. Everyone you have a promo with or talk about is different. The line is drawn in different places for each person. Cena, for example, when I’ve done promos with him, he always told me I don’t care what you say while we’re out there. Anything in front of the camera, I don’t care. I never take it personal. He’s a guy that lets it all fly. Nothing is personal. Sometimes, there are guys or girls who are very protective about certain parts of their life, and they don’t want that to be in the public. You have to respect that as well. The mileage varies from person to person. But I would say most of us have been in this game long enough, especially when we get to the level of John and Roman, where their promos kind of break that wall a little bit. They’ve been in the game long enough where everyone sort of knows it is business. There’s going to be personal jabs in there and if you can’t take that stuff or if your skin isn’t thick enough, then you’re probably in the wrong business. Because, like I said when we started this, it’s all about conflict. Conflict is what sells. So that one little twist of real life can sometimes be the difference between a wrasslin’ story and a real story that people get invested in.
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Do you fall into the Cena camp of when we go out there, it’s all business?
Go HAM. Go wild. I am all for it. I am in the John Cena camp. Whatever you want to say, say it. You have to be tough at the top, especially because everybody wants to jab at you. There’s nothing Roman Reigns is going to say to me in a ring that 6,000 people haven’t said to me on Twitter in the last 24 hours.
For those in this audience who don’t know, Seth is married to, in my opinion, one of the greatest performers in the history of professional wrestling. Rebecca Quin goes by the name of Becky Lynch in WWE. This gets back to what I asked you earlier about choosing media outlets. When you were expecting your first child, you discussed that with People magazine. When the press is about both of you, do you get together to decide what outlet you would be most comfortable with talking to about your personal life?
I don’t even know we have those conversations. They’re not too deep. I’m pretty cool with almost anything. I’m all out there for the most part. She’s a little more protective and her character is a little bit different than mine. There’s a lot demand around The Man (Lynch’s character) than there is around me. So in that situation I acquiesce to her. Whatever she’s interested in doing, if it’s something that she doesn’t want to do, I rarely force it. If it’s something that she wants to do, I’m usually all game. I think it does me no harm to be doing interviews next to her. I’m very proud of her. She’s a genius, as you mentioned. She’s also an incredible person, an incredible mother. So any time I am mentioned next to her, it’s a win for me.
This is fascinating to me because it gets into my granular interest in what you guys do. Rene Paquette is someone I have interviewed many times. One of the things I remember she told me was how challenging it was to be broadcasting on “RAW” when her husband (Jon Moxley, who went by Dean Ambrose in WWE) was on the show. She didn’t know if she was supposed to be a neutral announcer or acknowledge to the audience that in non-storyline she’s married to this dude in real life. It was all very surreal and sort of crossed all these kind of odd places. If Becky returns to performing, and I think everybody hopes that that happens in some form, have you contemplated this, navigating the nexus of real world and storyline?
We did it briefly a couple of years ago. We were dating and it had become public, and people were excited about it. The company came to us and asked us to kind of bring it to screen if you will. We tried to make the best out of it, but I don’t think either of us were terribly comfortable with it. Even though we have incredible chemistry as people, as performers, our characters never really vibed on screen. So I think it’s just kind of one of those things that if she comes back, more than likely we will stay away from it. We just won’t touch on it. I mean, if something calls for it and we’re in the same segment or the same story in some way, I mean, there’s no way you can’t pretend like it doesn’t exist. It’s just not possible. We are too high profile for that. But it’s almost like if we’re in two separate places then no one even thinks about it that much. Do you know what I mean? I’ve almost had to think about navigating it a little bit now because in a couple of my promos and on some of these live events we’ve been doing I’ll get “We want Becky” chants. I don’t know how to navigate that. I’m not exactly sure why people think that’s an insult to me. I’m like, “ Yeah, my wife’s awesome. She’s great. I love her. I get why you want her instead of me. I’m also a bad guy.” I don’t know where the insult comes in here. (laughs). But if that happens, how am I supposed to react to that? Like, what do I say? It’s very interesting. Luckily, I haven’t had to address it yet, but it’s one of those things where I just want to go, “Guys, it doesn’t hurt my feelings.”
You have a massive social media following, including more than 4 million followers on Instagram and millions on Twitter. With that number of people who can theoretically get into your head if you allow it on a day-to-day basis, how do you navigate that world?
It is very difficult, as a person, to deal with scrutiny on that level. The only way I found to be truly numb to it is to put it away. You really have to just keep your eyes off of it because you can find whatever you’re looking for there. You can reinforce whatever you want. If you want to find negativity, you will find negativity. If you want to inflate your own ego, there’s plenty of people on there to tell you you’re great. It can really just put you in a mental bubble and you live in this little cycle that almost takes you out of the real world. It can be very difficult because if you put too much stock in, it can ruin your whole day. I’ve been victim to it and if you allow it to continually stress you out, especially if you’re not happy in other parts of your life or disappointed in your own performances, you can go into a dark place on social media if you really want, and then it can end up really affecting other parts of your life. Truth be told, at 35 now, I got an 8-month-old baby. I got too much sh*t going on and I ain’t got time for all that negativity. I like being happy. I like smiling. I like being around my daughter in a good mood. You just have to put it away sometimes.
I could totally see you working as a heel or babyface commentator down the road. Even if not full time, does that interest you at all?
Rollins: Gosh, I don’t know, man. I watch those guys do it and I’m friends with them. Maybe in like a Pat McAfee role. Pat is great. I feel like the other guys take it so seriously and God bless them because they’re incredible at what they do. Then, Pat just shows up and just flies by the seat of his pants. His energy level is off the charts. So if I could just wing it, that sounds great, but I don’t know, man. I don’t know what my future looks like after I’m done in the ring. I assume I’ll be a part of the business in some form or fashion. I’ve dedicated my whole life to it essentially, and it’s given me a great life, allowed me to provide for my family, start a wrestling school, invest in a coffee shop which has given some people jobs in my local area, and created a cool little culture. So I imagine I’ll probably stick with wrestling in some form. Broadcasting? Who is to say? If I could just wing it every once in a while, why not?
(Photo: Etsuo Hara / Getty Images)
