Aaron Paul talks about his WWE RAW appearance and CM Punk backlash

The Chicago Tribune has an interview with actor Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad, Need For Speed), who discussed his guest appearance on last week’s RAW in Chicago. Here are some highlights from the interview:

Paul made his grand entrance on “Raw” behind the wheel of a Ford Mustang with WWE superstar and fan favorite Dolph Ziggler riding shotgun. If this was a strategic move by WWE to win over the audience, it worked. The crowd that had chanted “boring” during a wrestling match earlier in the night and “you can’t wrestle” during a match later on welcomed Paul with a “Jesse Pinkman” (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap) chant, a reference to Paul’s “Breaking Bad” character, as he cheered on Ziggler from ringside during his match. Once backstage and away from the crowd and cameras, a wide-eyed Paul, still on an adrenaline rush, could be overheard saying, “That was fun.”

“I knew (the risk),” said Paul, leaning up against the wall in a backstage hallway minutes after appearing in the ring. “I’m an outsider. I’m not part of the WWE family.” Paul was also warned about the Punk backlash. “Oh yeah, he’s the guy that quit a few weeks ago,” Paul said when asked if he knew about Punk. “I think a lot of people think he’s going to show up tonight. I don’t think so.”

Ziggler was just as excited as Paul about what had transpired. He admitted to preparing Paul for the worst.

“(WWE fans) don’t take too kindly to outsiders coming in, no matter how great your show is,” Ziggler said backstage after his match, his hair disheveled and nose bleeding from what looked like a scratch. “They got the Pinkman chant going, and I go, ‘It’s hard to win these guys over, but when you do, they’ll love you forever.’”