'Funny doesn't draw money' - Vince McMahon's blunt advice to Ken Anderson revealed
Ken Anderson, AKA Mr. Kennedy, was a guest on Sportskeeda's UnSKripted with Dr. Chris Featherstone. The former WWE Superstar spoke on various topics, including his recent backstage meeting with Randy Orton, the infamous Undertaker chair shot and much more. Sportskeeda's senior editor Alan John Jose had the opportunity to ask Ken Anderson about the advice that the Superstar received from Vince McMahon during his stint with the WWE and the experiences of working with the company boss.
Vince McMahon's advice to Ken Anderson
When Anderson had debuted in the WWE, the Superstar recalled Vince McMahon telling him to drop his comedic approach in his promo delivery.
Vince McMahon outrightly told Anderson that 'funny doesn't draw money', but the former MITB winner had a counter-argument.
Anderson cited the example of The Rock to Vince McMahon as The Great One was known for cutting hilarious promos. Vince McMahon responded by explaining that once a Superstar delivers a promo in a particular style and it gets over, the fans expect the talent to cut similar promos every night, which is not possible as they have way too many shows in a year.
While Anderson felt that humor is needed at appropriate occasions, the comedy gimmicks, unfortunately, end up being perceived as secondary characters.
Here's what Anderson revealed about Vince McMahon's advice during the UnSKripted Q&A session:
"One of the things that stands out to me was early on when I first debuted, I was really over-the-top, and sort of comedic in my delivery of everything, and I remember him (Vince McMahon) trying to tell me like, you've got to stop trying to be funny and entertaining. I remember thinking that isn't that the point of what we're trying to do here, to just be entertaining? He was like, and I said well, with all due respect, 'He goes funny, doesn't draw money'.
And he goes, 'nobody ever drew big bucks being funny, goofy and doing comedy stuff.' And I was like, with all due respect, but I'm a huge fan of The Rock, and it feels to me that almost every one of the Rock's promos were funny. And he said yeah, but the thing about The Rock was that he sort of hamstrung himself when he started cutting those funny promos, like he did that, one of my favorite promos ever was The Rock talking to Billy Gunn about The King of The Ring, you remember that? I know it verbatim so I could do it, I've seen it so many times.
It was really, really funny, and he said that, after he did that, it's like fans always expect you to do that and now you have to deliver that, you have to have that delivery every single night. It's just really hard to do when you are running 52 weeks a year. So, I think that was an interesting piece of advice. There were times I think where funny is appropriate, but overall, the comedy characters, unfortunately, always seem to be secondary characters."
If you use the above quotes, please credit Sportskeeda.