Corey Graves Discusses His NXT Debut, Character Development, More

Journey of a Frontman recently interviewed WWE NXT wrestler Corey Graves. Below are some highlights:

Graves on how characters are developed in NXT: “That depends on the talent, some guys come up with things on their own. I remember watching Bray Wyatt develop when he was down here and almost all of the things that became Bray Wyatt came from his head. He would come every week with a different aspect of the character of. And sometimes it can be a group effort where everyone kind of sees the same thing and everyone chips in a little bit. It can be as simple as one of the talent saying, ‘Hey, why don’t you try that out?’ Next thing you know, someone does it on a promo and a close up and becomes a thing. Like the Bo Dallas thing, that was literally one of the most organic things I’ve ever seen happen. He was originally portrayed as a good guy, as a white meat babyface and the crowd turned on him, the crowd hated him. He just kept going and be evolved in front of the people and then it turned into Bolieve and everything. So it doesn’t always come from one source, there’s no one way to build character. There’s so many different outside influences, it’s just really cool to see all the different ways that happens.”

Graves on The Vaudevillains: “Sometimes a lot of things happen like, ‘Let’s just try something.’They want to throw it against the wall and see what sticks. And I know a lot of people thought that Simon Gotch was very interesting. I talked to both those guys and they first wondered how they could make this work. Then they started trying it out and they meshed really well. Now they’re inseparable. I think it’s one of the most entertaining things on NXT TV, they make me laugh and they truly entertain me every time I see them.”

Graves on what he likes to post about on Twitter: “That is something I started doing more or less to entertain myself. I would make a funny comment about something, next thing you know, I’m getting people from WWE saying, ‘Hey, are you gonna tweet about Total Divas this week?’ And I said, ‘I wasn’t planning on it, but I guess I will.’ I’ve become close with the social media guys here. And next thing you know, it’s become part of my role here, ironically enough. I never planned on it, it was just something that the company values a lot. I seem to have a little bit of a knack for it and I actually have a lot of fun with that. That’s one of the things I have almost free creativity with, no one really tells me what to do or what to say as long as I don’t upset anybody. I’ve always been a fan of standup comedy and having clever little one liners in there is a fun little release for me.”

Graves on filming his NXT debut vignette: “That was really cool. I remember being really excited because for all the years I’ve been around wrestling and as many promos as I’ve cut, it was the first time I ever had any sort of production team behind it. And I remember being blown away that I had a script to read from and I had producers to make sure the lighting’s right and the shots are right with a whole crew. I remember doing it and I remember thinking to myself, ‘Oh my gosh! This is is almost surreal. I feel like this is a real thing, this is a real promo.’ And then I remember the first time I saw the rough cut of it with making my tattoos glow and things like that. All the verbiage was mine, I actually got to write that. I wrote that stuff myself. But as far as letting the production guys and the video guys play with it and put their spin on things, I remember being absolutely blown away. I was so excited when they did that. First thing I did was I sent it to my dad and I was like, ‘Oh my God! I had a real WWE promo!'”

On what his favorite NXT matches are: “Off the top of my head, Sami Zayn and Cesaro from NXT Arrival. That was one of my favorite matches. I kind of make Cesaro uncomfortable because I tell him all the time he’s my favorite wrestler. I’ve known him for a long time, I think he’s absolutely amazing. He and Sami tore it up that night. Also, I was part of a couple six man tags, one was myself, Neville and Xavier Woods against the Shield, the other was Neville, William Regal and myself against the Wyatt Family. Those was a lot of fun. I had a couple matches with Seth Rollins that were a lot of fun as well.”

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