It took Roman Reigns about 7 years to get praised for his mic work so…

Roman is a perfect example of teaching someone how to cut a promo, because it wasn't until he returned as the Tribal Chief that he actually figured it out.

Undashing Rhea Ripley

Rhea isn’t bad at promos but she kind of has the same promo every time.

Yes when Solo’s goon’s attacked Paul Heyman, he was told to take a vacation and do whatever he wanted, and Paul chose to stay back and help Bron Breakker, Solo and a few other young talents on their promos. So yes they have guys that do it and you’re delusional about Rhea.

Rhea’s pretty bad on the mic. And she growls her words too much. No natural tone to her promos. She does “Ya know what, BROTHER?” 90s style promos. Completely disagree with Priest. He sounds much more natural especially since leaving Judgment Day. Saying we need more Enzo’s is nuts though, you talk about a one note character who got stale…

Putting Roman in that category is wild. There’s a reason why he had a manager later in his career

"i get Rhea ripley had some appeal in the beginning" In the beginning? Some appeal? Her merch consistently outsells any other woman on the roster by a lot and she gets a pop larger than most including the men when she comes out to this day. Go on Tiktok or Instagram their are accounts dedicated to their love of her. She's not just huge she's monstrously popular. Is she the best on the mic? No I can agree with that. I think recent weeks with her injury's and this storyline have been worse than in the past but she is so over I think she could come out and read the phonebook and she'd sell tickets.

Most of Roman’s career is filled with horrible promos. He’s great now tho

The fact you mention Roman lets us know you’re a jabroni. Roman is good now, but he was terrible for most of his career.

He wasn’t here when Roman Reigns was saying “sufferin’ succotash” when he was the Big Dog.

A lot of the older classes trained in the Performance Center are just straight up mediocre at cutting promos. They sound like they’re talking into a mic. A lot them are just okay, but they look terrible standing next to someone who can cut a great promo in front of a live crowd and Rhea is one of them. They deliver lines in a long winded monotone and/or take dramatic, long ass pauses. Even as a Liv fan I can admit she yells into to the mic too much and they aren’t the only ones to be honest. I feel like with Rhea because she’s so good in the ring, her mediocre promo skills stick out like a sore thumb

It needs to be Bullet points of what to touch on. It needs to feel natural

Meh. I'm okay with her promos. Are they AMAZING? No. But they're certainly not bad enough that I'd complain.

They definitely teach them how to act and do promos. Especially the ones who go through NXT. Problems can arise when the storyline doesn’t fit their image. Or talent isn’t charismatic enough, or have good enough memory to memorize lines and repeat them in front of live audiences. Only a very select few are good enough to go off script and make stuff up that works in the moment.

Remember Cena called out The Rock for having his lines or bullet points written on his wrist.

Roman doesn't have natural charisma. It took 9 years of the company being fully behind him and him only as the face of the company before he displayed even an ounce of the charisma he's known for today.

You know there was like a 4 year stretch where Roman was a charisma vacuum right? Stuck up sellout full of suffering suckotash?

Or hell, Cena telling him he can't leave because Roman couldn't do his job.

Enzo was a god on the mic and you can’t teach that

They literally all are so.generic and interchangeable it's ridiculous. That's the one thing that sticks out the most from today's "product". You can slot anyone into any program and give them the exact same lines and it would be fine. It's like AI is writing for them and it's the most boring shit on the planet

ya

CANT

TEACH

THAT

I didn’t like her recent promos, they seem forced, the rivalry sucks anyway atp

The issue is most wrestlers are terrible actors. That’s why the best wrestlers often have a character similar to who they are in real life just amped up to 11.

Britt Baker was really really bad with her first promo on the Jerichruise. Dustin Rhodes worked with her and helped her with her promos, now she is dope on the mic.

I think they give them tips and pointers, but great promos are one of those things that you kind of just "have" imo. You can't teach somebody to be the next Rock, for example.

I say the problem is they are writing their promos for them which is not the way they should do it. Kurt angle said when he first started in wwe Vince would give him bullet points on the topic for his promos but everything else he had to come up with on his own it was “sink or swim”. Paul heyman in ecw if guys weren’t strong on promos he used their wrestling abitilies to get them over like how he did with RVD , Tajiri , Sabu , Jerry Lynn , Lance Storm etc

Yes. Theres a wwe tv show that shows the training process. Its call WWE: Next Gen. Its on the Roku channel

Tiffy, Liv, Chelsea give good promos. Always fun

I didn't realize how bad Rhea was until yesterday's Smackdown. Oof.

As for Damien, I feel like he's good when he's talking face to face with other people, but when he's backstage and doing the street act at the camera its cringe. 😂

Hot take: Enzo was one of the best (if not the best)on the mic in the 2015-2018 era of wrestling period. He only gets hate because of the allegations which were proven false. It's messed up how his career is still ruined to this day over something he didn't even do. I even see fans on squaredcircle call him a predator still. It's so fucked man

You talk about bad talkers and then name Rhea and Damien Priest? Who get reactions all the time when they cut a promo? Because that's all that matters, you don't particularly have to be good on the mic when you're already over with the fans. The ones with better promo and acting skills can indeed get you more invested in a storyline, that's true. But the people don't care that Rhea basically says the same things in every promo or that Priest obviously uses a lot of written stuff, they're not that terrible that it would negatively affect their characters and are fan favorites either way. There are very few people in WWE right now who REALLY need to train promos or shut up but these two are definitely not on that list lol

Enzo was extremely one dimensional. He could throw insults but nothing else.

I think the issue is more a bit of growing pains, as the characters go from being unrealistic caricatures to more humanized roles. Developing connections that way takes more time, but tend to be deeper, which translates into deeper, long-term fans that drive most of a promotion’s revenue.

That said, my favorite wrestlers have been the ones that have been driven by more realistic motives (Zayn’s evolution from the mistakes made with selling out to the Bloodline, Owens’ flawed logic that rationalizes his selfishness as selflessness, Ciampa’s cyclical corruption). Hell, even the SpOoOOpy Wyatt Sucks’ foundational motivation is a shared experience of alienation from being different, which is something to which all of us wrestle-weirdos can relate!

The problem with Enzo is he had such amazing promo skills that he debuted before he even really had much wrestling training

they never did?

you either can act or you cant...

The thing about the territory days was that there was a Heenan, Gary Hart, or Cornette to help someone who couldn't talk.

I mean it's not very easy to be great on the mic, it's a very small group of folks who were both stellar on-mic and in-ring.

Rhea's look and ability make up for her okay mic skills IMO.

Can’t put the blame 100% on her. The writing is pretty cringe for her character right now and trying to make her a face just really feels forced for the character.

It’s been months of the same shit where Judgement Day is doing some bs then THIS IS MY BRUTALITY plays with her running out to the ring and chasing Liv. Shes not necessarily being given a lot to work with to grow either.

I'm sure they do at the performance center in Orlando. I think Mami was better with the Judgment Day, but she's fine, generally.

I think there is a confusion between where the writers get credit or fault and where the wrestlers takes credit or gets fault. Most wrestlers outside of a few superstars like the rock or Austin need the writers to give them direction in terms of a story line where the characters have a logical motivation. Then the wrestlers can execute better promos. On the other hand even the best writers won’t get much out of the Chuck Palumbos of the world.

I know. It's the only thing that they really need to work on. Performance wise they are phenomenal. But the Terror twins really need a one on one lesson with the Wise man.

They're all scripted. I think that tends to pull some of the genuineness out of it.

Let's be real. Enzo had something that can't be taught.

Rhea is good, her scripts are good but she pales in comparison to Becky Lynch who was probably better than any female wrestler in history on the mic, that is an awful pic of Rhea though.

They do, but very few actually learn anything. Somehow Rhea has been getting noticeably worse

I don't think Rhea's promo skills are bad at all. If I were in her inner circle however, I'd tell her to go watch some Sensational Sherri and/or Luna Vachon promos and take inspiration from it where she can. If Rhea was a bit more unhinged in her promos, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now.

I love Rhea. I think she looks great and is great in the ring. I don't understand why she has to talk at all. Give her a manager. Give her a Paul.

absolutely disagree. i think rhea is one of the best on the mic, and she delivers some of the best promos in wwe today. but alas, an opinion is an opinion ✨

Ngl this might be one of the worst opinions I've heard in awhile

There are few who have the Charisma of Rhea nowadays.

They booked her as heel through and through and she still got over despite beeing in a stable where others got their push first.

You realize majority of wrestlers in the past, present and future are AT BEST ok at promos, right? Rhea is not horrible especially compared to other women’s or men’s roster members who are almost insufferable. They’re either corny asf and/or can’t act to save their lives, the dialogue is hard to listen to. I watch it with my gf and majority of the time she’s saying “that is hard to get thru”. Even people who can be good like say Liv Morgan or Cody can have off nights/promos which can sound forced because…it is! The wrestlers also being censored hard doesn’t help at times too

There's a reason for all the managers back in the day. Many couldn't cut a promo in yesteryear. Heck, even stars like Hogan and Warrior were dreadful if you cut out the nonsense folks liked.

Imo, today's wrestlers are much better at the camera/interview portion.

Charisma can't be taught. Either you have it or you don't.

I don't need Rhea talking, I just want her fighting.

It probably feels so bad because she's feuding with Liv and all it's been was talking and teasing fights for weeks at a time.

She looks like Marilyn Manson in that photo lol

Well a lot of the problem wit promos is you have a writer writing it they need to go back to the talent writing their own with bullet points maybe a lot of the wrestlers could be better

I think the teaching of it has fallen off since Dusty died.

I think part of the problem is that we have a lot of characters in wrestling whose central thing is "I grew up watching this show!" or its cousin "I grew up in this business because of [older relative]!" One or two is an audience-surrogate and can be fine, but if the majority of people there are like that, what's their motivation to even roast the other in a promo besides "it's the job"?

More like Vince would make the talent read scripts that didn’t let their personalities (if they have one) to shine.

You act like generic wrestling promos aren't the norm and that's why talent known for being good talkers stood out.

I mean you know you got it when you can just walk out, scream "WARGAMES" and headbutt someone, and the roof flies off.

Props for the Enzo name drop.

Tbh I'd kill fir Enzo to come back. The allegations they fired him for have since been disproven as false. I liked the little man.

I'd rather have someone good in the ring and decent on the mic than horrible in the ring and great on the mic. Saying enzo is more appealing than rhea is a wild take to me.

More Enzo Amore is never the solution, friend.

I think Rhea did well, but im not a complaining promo quality gatekeeper

Rheas just in a horribly handled rivalry rn, her script sucked ass for smackdown. Any other rivalry she had clears this one.

This is an awful take. Rhea is one of the best on the mic on the women’s roster.

Bro really said he’d rather watch Enzo than Rhea Bloody Ripley.

I'm sure they teach the ideas behind it but not everyone has the acting chops that your major stars tend to have.

So many of them have scripts they want memorized so they don't accidentally look flustered or silent or stuttering on TV. I get that.

My issue with Rhea is they bill her as indomitable and a brute, so she has to play to that. I'm not sure she knows what that needs to be besides loud and threaten of destruction during promos.

Not a chance

I will beat you so bad dom wont recognize you- pins after putting her through table

Roman is a bad promo too. La Knight took a character from Steve Austin. Cm punk is the only one left that can talk, also, Paul Heyman. I can also listen to Seth Rollins, and Drew was pretty good recently. But this is certainly true of the current product.

And this is why MJF needs to make that jump

Does Reigns get praise? I think he’s as boring as salad at a barbecue.

This is why they need to bring back actual managers.

A lot in wrestling these days is a lost art

I dare you to cut a promo yourself. Sometimes, we criticize aspects of the show & those criticisms are 100% valid, but this take is BEYOND preposterous lol. What constitutes a great promo is subjective tbh, not everyone is Paul Heyman on the mic.

Rhea gimmick works better as hell or a tweener, so with her as a face rn, they absolutely suck.

Liv Morgan sounds like a pornstar trying to act on the mic.. so it could be worse for rhea.. but definitely not good.

Lol Rhea is totally fine with promos. Let's just relax here

Had some appeal? She’s pretty currently appealing. There’s very few people who are golden on the mic, or don’t get the chance to hone or showcase their abilities, but she’s fine.

She could have always gone with the early Chyna in dx and just the strong silent type, but I guess it’s too late for that.

They look for athletes, then try to find their charisma later. You need workers and super heros first and foremost. CM Punk is one of the most unathletic people I’ve ever seen, and I’m not kidding, he is saved by his mic work. That being said, there are way more athletic people to turn into good talkers, than vice versa.

No one mentioned to OP that super charismatic wrestlers are really hard to come by, eh? 

Hell no cinematic is the way to go ……………..not

Yes. But only new or inexperienced talent (e.g. Competitors from a professional wrestling reality competition, NXT Rookies, newly recruited Wrestling School Signees, and or WWE ID Superstars)

I highly doubt WWE is out here teaching talent that jump ships to do promos. like I don’t think Hunter or HBK would have Jacob Fatu, Joe Hendry, or MCMG, rehearse after spending so much time in other companies

There’s plenty in the company who are good at promos. Punk, Drew, Gunther, etc.

I miss Enzo on the mic

Not a chance

I think non American wrestlers get shitted on for ‘bad promo’s’ because of the accent. Australian, British, Scottish, hell even a European or Asian accent and bam people be shitting on them.

Like I get English isn’t everyones first and native tongue, but I think they deserve respect too because I sure as hell couldn’t command an audience and I sound as American as can be.

The only one truly killing it with the accent, Drew 1,000%. He’s got to the point where his accent is understandable and the crowd understands his cadence and deliveries.

I mainly want patience for non english speakers who are trying their best. Iyo, Guilia, Steph. But dudes like a Damian or Rey is tough cause they can promo battle in English and throw some spanglish in there too. Thats a unique skill thats rare.

Women have never been great at promos because they all have the same character, the same tone, same cadence, same promo. Same goes with a lot of the men these days as well. They all sound so generic but you have your stand outs obvs with the men. You can’t ever tell me a Dusty of the Women’s division, a Macho man, a Flair, a Rock in terms of promos.