A: It's rough and it's tiring. I had three hours sleep last night, not because I chose to go out, but because that's what we were allotted to have. We don't have an off-season and we pay for our own rental cars, food and hotels. My expenses are well over $US100,000 ($113,500), sometimes double that. But I spend that so I can work here. They say we are self-employed but, at the same time, we have to be somewhere on time, and we have to dress a certain way. Obviously, I'm a bit of a rebel (Orton grins and tugs on the Gold's Gym singlet he is wearing), but f--- the dress code. It's retarded. The travel sucks, injuries suck but you can't complain because where else do you go to wrestle? Where else do you go to be on TV in tights, with knee pads and shark skin boots and have people go: `Yay!'? Nowhere! You don't bitch because this is the only place to make money doing what we do.

Q: You've been a babyface (hero) and heel (villain) in your career. What are your observations about both sides?

A: Being a babyface sucks, unless you're 300 pounds like Batista, or a character everbody wants to see live, like The Undertaker, or Hulk Hogan, who has charisma. Maybe it's because I'm not good at it, or I'm a d---head in real life. It's easy for me to go out there and be a pr-ck on the show because it's me times 10. And even though you probably don't like me anyway, give me five minutes, and I'll make you not like me more. Being a heel is fun. It comes so natural.

Q: Your character has done some outrageous things. How did you approach the incident, before a match against Rey Mysterio, where you publicly said the late wrestler Eddie Guerrero is in hell?

A: I didn't want to do it because I loved Eddie. Rey and I, even though we were fighting each other, were very, very close friends with Eddie. So we called Eddie's wife and asked if it would be OK. It was heavy stuff. It got people to hate me and Eddie knew it would - God rest his soul. Later, Eddie's wife said Eddie would have wanted me to do it, if it was good for business.

Q: What lessons has the WWE, or you, learned from the death of Chris Benoit? (Benoit, a former WWE champion killed his wife and son before hanging himself in June last year).

A: I guess you never know somebody like you think you do, that's for sure. I never saw him killing his family or himself. Whatever his personal problems, his personal demons were - I can't tell you, I don't know. I don't anyone will ever know except for God and Chris. But it was heavy enough to cause him to do what he did. The lesson is - you don't know anybody like you think you do.