MVP does not think you need to have laced up a pair of boots to teach someone how to cut a promo. He is less sold on some of the advice NXT head writer Johnny Russo gave at a recent WWE tryout.
On the latest episode of Marking Out with MVP and Dwayne Swayze, Swayze brought up footage of Russo coaching tryout hopefuls to speak in complete sentences instead of phrases, avoid asking questions with no one there to answer, and avoid being generic. Jim Cornette and Brian Last mocked the advice on Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru, arguing that it describes the kind of promos NXT already airs.
The footage comes from WWE’s SummerSlam week tryout in Minneapolis in early August, which WWE documented in a behind-the-scenes video on its YouTube channel. Russo addressed a group of independent wrestlers and athletes attending the camp alongside NXT coaches, including Steve Corino.
MVP was upfront that he does not know Russo, does not watch NXT and had not seen the clip. He also rejected the idea that only a wrestler can teach promo work.
“No, you don’t have to have been a wrestler to teach somebody how to cut a promo,” MVP said. “If you’re an actor and you can recite a compelling monologue, then that’s part of it. So if you have that talent and ability, then yeah, I think you could teach somebody how to cut a good promo.”
MVP said he sat in on promo classes at the Performance Center while rehabbing a knee injury during his WWE run, and singled out Mick Foley’s son for the advice he was giving.
On Russo’s specific points, MVP fully backed one of the three.
“The generic thing, I strongly agree with that. Stand out some kind of way,” MVP said. “You don’t just want to be, hey, I’m Bill, and I came to fight. Nobody cares for that.”
He disagreed on questions, saying rhetorical questions can work in a promo if they are built toward a single answer, and gave an example of a challenger asking who has the desire and ability to become NXT Champion.
The “complete sentences” instruction lost him entirely.
“Speak in complete sentences and not phrases. What does that mean? Isn’t a phrase a sentence? I don’t understand,” MVP said. “I’m not disparaging the guy. I don’t know him, but I don’t know what he meant by that. I didn’t see it, so out of context, I can’t say. But in pro wrestling, catchphrases have become a thing. You want a catchphrase that catches on.”
The full clip answers that question. Russo was not talking about catchphrases. After telling the group not to talk in phrases, he demonstrated what he meant with a slow, chopped-up delivery, one word at a time, and told them to just talk normally. His point was about cadence: wrestlers trying to sound important breaking their speech into fragments. His example of an unanswered question was an opener along the lines of asking the audience whether they want to know something, followed by silence. On being generic, he pointed to lines about wanting to be the best and working hard, and asked how that was unique to the person saying it.
MVP also drew a line between writing dialogue and delivering it.
“Just because you write dialogue doesn’t mean you can deliver dialogue. There are lots of people that are writers, but they’re not actors,” MVP said.
Still, he gave Russo some credit for his position.
“If he’s a head writer, at least he knows content. But on the delivery, how to deliver it, I don’t know what he knows,” MVP said. “But I do know that you can ask questions, and phrases, you want phrases. But don’t be generic.”
MVP has managed Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin in AEW as The Hurt Syndicate since the three arrived in the company in 2024, after leading both as part of The Hurt Business in WWE.
