WWE News: Raw Superstar reveals that he regularly goes off-script in promos
What's the story?
Speaking on the latest 'NotSam Wrestling' podcast, Drew McIntyre gave his take on the recent talking point about WWE Superstars having to read their promos from a word-for-word script.
In case you didn't know…
Since leaving WWE in April 2019, Jon Moxley has been very outspoken about the way that his Dean Ambrose character was booked by Vince McMahon and WWE’s creative team.
One of Moxley’s most notable comments came when he said on ‘Talk Is Jericho’ that he was given a “goofy” promo to read which referred to the people of Los Angeles as “smelly”, “foul” and “disgusting”, while he was also asked to say a line about a “pooper scooper”.
When he attempted to change the wording of his promo that day, Moxley said he received the following memo back from McMahon:
“Notes from VKM: Dean needs to understand why he needs to insult the audience. Dean needs to read his promos verbatim and not try to rewrite them.”
As well as Moxley, other former WWE Superstars, including five-time Intercontinental champion Wade Barrett, have mentioned following their departures from the company that they had to read a word-for-word script and they were not given creative freedom to say what they really wanted.
The heart of the matter
Drew McIntyre has revealed that his promos are not memorised directly from a script and he tries to take the John Cena approach of putting his own spin on his character and promos.
He told Sam Roberts:
“As much as everybody reads online that you’re handed these scripts and you have to say everything verbatim and word-for-word, and you’ve got no say in who you are, that’s not really true.”
The former Raw Tag Team champion added:
“Everything I’m giving you, I can assure you, what comes on the screen, especially promos etc, is not exactly what’s on the script. It’s up to me to figure out how I put Drew Galloway in that and make it real to me even though it’s completely a story.”
What's next?
Drew McIntyre is set to face Roman Reigns in one of the featured matches at WWE Stomping Grounds on June 23.