Randy Orton recently appeared as a guest on The Maggie and Perloff Show for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling and WWE.
During the discussion, “The Viper” gave his thoughts on the controversial Netflix series, “WWE: UNREAL.”
“The old school in me doesn’t love it,” Orton admitted. “But, I had to learn over the last few years especially, you gotta change with the times. I think there’s a large amount of fans out there that are very curious and they want to know behind the scenes and how we do what we do and make it look so effortless, two, three, four nights a week, live television. But, there’s a part of me that also misses just the magic. When I was a kid, the number one thing that people would ask my father and kids at school would ask me, ‘Is it real? Is it real?’ Of course, everyone knows now it’s entertainment and we’re not trying to say that it’s not.”
Orton continued, “But, my job is to go out there in that ring and get you to kind of suspend your belief while you’re in that arena and make you believe that what you’re seeing, that there’s real emotion behind it and I think that there is real emotion behind it in most cases. We’re like actors in that sense where you find that place and you get to that place before you go through that curtain and I know at least I do but, it’s hard and honestly, I don’t love the idea but I’m also — it’s intriguing and I think that there’s a large group of fans that are gonna love seeing what it takes to put on a WWE show.”
(H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.)