10 Times Wrestlers Refused To Break Character For The Media

As fun as it is to see your favorite wrestler act like a real person and answer legitimate questions, it is invariably a million times more fascinating to see them answer legitimate questions in character. These sorts of interviews used to be a lot more common, where a wrestler is shipped off to interview with a baffled talk show host that doesn't follow wrestling and has no idea what's happening. These days, you're more likely to see Miz or Sheamus or Big Show exchanging pleasantries and being generally charming, but that's a terrible use of an interview with a wrestler. It's no fun.

Wrestling characters are great specifically because they're larger than life, impossible people, which is exactly why it's fascinating to watch professional conversationalists attempt to engage with them. Who wants to see wrestlers have humanizing small talk when we could be seeing them throw furniture, or, God willing, terrifying or even maiming an unsuspecting civilian?

Each entry will be accompanied by Immortal Dialogue, which is a real, out-of-context quote from the wrestler (or manager) in question. These have been chosen for both their humorous potential as well as their ability to exemplify the trainwreckieness of the interview as a whole.

They just don't make 'em like "Ravishing" Rick Rude anymore. He was the eightiest sex symbol of all time, a double-swarthy Tom Selleck with a gigantic perm and a porno sax soundtrack he could verbally summon from anywhere on Earth. He habitually made out with ladies until they were unconscious. Now, imagine this deranged satyr being presented to an audience of 100% bored housewives, and you are approaching the wonder that was Rick Rude's visit to Live With Regis and Kathie Lee.

Rude spends the entire segment staring intently at Kathie Lee like a cat about to pounce on a bird. Hilariously, Regis seems more fascinated with the Ravishing One than his co-host, constantly drooling over Rude's physique and, more than once, impatiently asking when the robe was coming off.

Rude kisses an audience member into a coma, but the real main event is his reveal of Kathie Lee's gigantic face airbrushed on his groin, which causes her to flee the studio in embarrassment. Regis, meanwhile, was predictably tickled to find himself emblazoned on Rude's backside.

Immortal Dialogue: "The fact of the matter is this, that when I was very young, my mother taught me that love is a thing to be spread."