Ricardo Rodriguez reveals Vince McMahon's creative input with Alberto Del Rio
Former WWE Star Ricardo Rodriguez has gone into detail about Vince McMahon's creative input for himself and Alberto Del Rio during his run with WWE.
Speaking to Lucha Libre Online, Ricardo Rodriguez revealed that Vince McMahon was heavily involved in shaping the character and storylines of Alberto Del Rio, as well as arranging some very specific promos to help the Stars' overall character presentation.
Ricardo Rodriguez also revealed that his on-screen character of Del Rio's personal ring announcer was only supposed to appear once, but that McMahon loved it so much he chose to stick with the character.
“Well, at first, it's like anything else, nerves, because you want to impress and you want everything to go well. You have Vince McMahon there. He was very behind everything that was happening with Alberto. He (Vince) had a lot of the ideas. Even back then, he had hired actor Freddie Prinze Jr to be the writer for all of Alberto's promos. He was already there, but he was direct only for Alberto. So having him, Vince and everyone behind the project of what Alberto's character was, it will obviously make you feel nervous. So you have to do it right. Especially since the role of Ricardo was only for one time. Nothing else but for Alberto's debut. Just that. But Vince loved it a lot and that's why I stayed. I stayed there for almost 5 years." H/T Lucha Libre Online.
Ricardo Rodriguez was approached for advice from other stars
Having been with the company for a number of years at this point, Ricardo Rodriguez also revealed that he became known as an approachable character backstage and someone the other wrestlers and Stars could fall to for advice.
"Later, with time, they already knew what I’m able to do and they knew that I can wrestle, and it was all more friendly and easier. I no longer had to be so nervous and also all the wrestlers trusted me. I knew that I would be there for the details. I was also there giving ideas or if they got stuck in anything, they asked me. ‘Ricardo, what do you think of this?’ Then I gave them my opinion or an idea and more things came from there”.
Ricardo Rodriguez remains one of the more memorable ringside faces in WWE history.