Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 09:02:09 MST From: Scott Keith Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated Subject: Why Scott Steiner is a [lousy] interview -- A quasi-essay Okay, there seems to be a few people on here who don't seem to understand why everyone constantly bitches about WCW's interviews recently, so here's a Wrestling 101 course for you: The Interview. The purpose of the interview is to establish the character and then (and more importantly) sell the match. WCW interviews have tons of the former and noneof the latter. Specifically, Jim Cornette once said that every interview can be defined by three distinct parts: 1) Motivation 2) Intention 3) Hype. Those are my words, not his. He tends to be more verbal about it. :) 1) Motivation. Why is the person being interviewed doing the interview? Well, in the case of Nitro, it's usually to waste time, but in the more classic sense, they're generally upset at someone else. Now, if you assume that for every show there's at least 10% of the audience who haven't seen an episode before, then it becomes important to summarize what the issue at hand is, IN NO MORE THAN TWO SENTENCES. This is really important because anything more than that and the interview will lose all coherence right off the bat as the wrestler goes off onto multiple tangents. Some like Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, and Steve Austin can go longer, but most cannot. Okay, for example, Chris Jericho has cheated and screwed DDP out of the US title at some point in the future. DDP is upset about that, so he comes out and opens his interview by saying "Chris 'Scumheart' Jericho, last week you stole my US title." (This is very basic, yes, but bear with me.) Traditionally the announcer (Mean Gene et al) have opened the interview by saying something like "DDP, last week you were robbed by Chris Jericho!", thus allowing the interviewee to go off however they want from that. But it should be short and to the point and should clearly establish that one person is Good and one person is Bad. 2) Intent. What does the person in question intend to do about the injustice? This is where creativity tends to come into play, as the interviewee is free to call his opponent all sorts of names and let his imagination run wild. For now, we'll stay bare-bones and go with the prime Steve Austin intent: "I'm gonna whoop your ass." Doubt the effectiveness of the "intent" portion of the interview? Ask any casual fan before a Steve Austin match what Austin is going to do to his opponent and 99 times out of 100 he'll answer "Austin's gonna kick his ass!" Why? Because Austin has clearly established his intent in countless interviews. You know WHY he's [mad] and you know WHAT he'll do when he's [mad], the only question remaining is WHEN ... 3) Hype. The most important. The best interview is meaningless if it doesn't build to a match. A 10 minute soliloquy is wasted if it's not finished by saying "I'll see you at the pay-per-view!" or something similar. The entire point of wrestling is to sell tickets, and that's where the interview comes in. The motivation creates interest in the characters, the intent creates interest in the resolution, and the hype tells the people where to buy the tickets to see it. And that is why Scott Steiner (and countless others today) are such a lousy interview. Steiner spends 20 minutes on the motivation (Big Poppa Pump is your hookup, nWo 4 life, etc) but never declares intent or challenges an opponent. Chris Jericho spends 10 minutes on intent (Goldberg 0, Jericho 4, etc.) but he has no angles, and thus no motivation, and thus no reason for the fans to care. As well, he is unable to actually challenge Goldberg, so there's no hype and no payoff. Thus, Jericho (post-TV title) is a pointless interview, sad but true. Ditto for the WWF: Val Venis is loads of motivation (I'm screwing your wife, what are you gonna do about it?) but no intent (we never really know WHY he'd bother fighting them) and rarely does Venis challenge anyone himself ... he's a very reactionary character. On the other hand, there are currently some wrestlers who employ the basic skills terrifically (most of them from the "old school"): Goldust -- Motivation (You destroyed my family), Intent (You will never forget the name of Goldust), Hype (Meet me at Breakdown) Raven -- Motivation (I hate myself), Intent (I'm taking it out on you), Hype (If you can beat this Flock member...) DDP -- Motivation (Bret Hitscum Hart stole my US title), Intent (You will feel the BANG!), Hype (I'm jacked for World War III). This is not to say that the "bad" interviews listed above are bad interviews in general, they just don't utilize the basic interview form enough to be a well-rounded interview. And the reverse holds for the "good" interviews listed above -- DDP *only* uses the basic interview skills, for instance, which is technically sound but gets tedious very quickly. Anyway, just something to think about the next time an nWo C-Team member gets 14 minutes to ramble on about whatever on Nitro next week. You can make youself sound smart by saying "Well, he hardly declared his intent at all, and the hype was all wrong!" Well, maybe not. Scott Keith, moderator rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated and all-knowing keeper of the Pro Wrestling FAQ.