WWE NXT Champion Bobby Roode recently spoke with Team Rock and below are some interview highlights:
Comparing a Pro Wrestler to a Rock Star:
“It’s a lifestyle. We’re on the road a lot, 200/300 days a year depending how busy you are, traveling in buses or in cars, flying everywhere – the correlation between the two in that aspect is quite similar. You’re obviously a different person outside of the ring, but when you’re in the ring you’ve got to get into that moment and that character just like a band like Kiss does. I don’t think Gene Simmons walks around his house with face-paint on sticking his tongue out – or maybe he does, I don’t know! [Laughs]”
His entrance theme:
“I started out with a different type of music before I made my debut, then a couple of weeks before my debut they gave me the song to listen to. Triple H (NXT creator), Michael Hayes (WWE agent/producer), a lot of important people in WWE liked the song and I had the chance to listen to it. It was completely different to the original song that I had picked out, but it kind of fit with the character I was trying to portray. I thought it could have gone two ways – either it sucked or it was great – and luckily for me it’s been really great. When you have a great entrance song it really helps the process. When you look at other songs in our industry – John Cena obviously has that song, Steve Austin has the glass shattering. When the song hits and you get a big reaction, half of the battle is already won.”
Having the mentality to be a wrestler for the long haul:
“NXT was always looked at as a developmental territory until the last year or so, but now we’re doing our own events and traveling all over the world, coming to [the] Download [Festival] two years in a row. We’re touring all the time, we get home on Monday then we’re home for a day and a half then we’re back on the road again. It’s a crazy business, I’ve been doing it for almost 20 years, and you learn a lot along the way and a lot of guys don’t make it this long because mentally they can’t handle the stress or travel. I love the business, I have a huge passion for it, I see myself doing this for the rest of my life.”
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
