Lana Talks Intentionally Flubbing Her Lines In Promos, Chris Jericho's Influence

Lana is feeling the effects of the quarantine.

Lana appeared on The Matthew Aaron Show and revealed she has increased her social media presence during her increased time at home due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. She said she hasn't seen any of the other female talent since the most recent Saudi Arabia show.

Lana is also feeling the effects during her day job. She is scheduled to accompany Bobby Lashley in his match against Aleister Black at Wrestlemania 36 this weekend, a show that will have no fans in attendance. Lana said she's been watching WWE's recent fanless programming to prepare for Wrestlemania.

She said the lack of fans changes the way the wrestlers perform.

"We have to personalize it so much more, and so what's happening, in my opinion, is that now you really see who's good and who hides behind a crowd," Lana said. "You really see, you're like ' oh that person is indicating, that's such a wrestling promo.'"

Lana gave praise to Edge and Randy Orton for how they've handled their feud during the fanless shows, saying their match is the real main event of Wrestlemania.

Lana also talked about her WWE influences, saying elder statesman in the company like Vince McMahon and Paul Heyman have taught her to take responsibility for her mistakes.

"Just take responsibility when you're wrong, be ready to make mistakes but don't make the same mistake twice," she said. "Understand in life you're going to give it your all and you're going to make mistakes, but you have to take responsibility for it. You have to learn from it, take ownership and don't do it ever again. I think that's... such an important lesson to understand.

"I could go on long details of things I've learned from Vince, but with Paul I've learned so much. It's been great to be able to work with two different incredible showrunners over the years. I worked with Road Dogg, he was our producer the first couple of years when we were on the road, and then he was the showrunner on Smackdown for the two years we were over there. I learned so much from him. Both Road Dogg and Paul Heyman are both incredible on the mic...to be on a show where the showrunner has actually been a talent and has been out there and knows from there own experience, same with Triple H when he was all on Raw and Smackdown, just learning so much like you have to go with your instincts. You have to go with your gut, and at the end of the day when you're out there you have to follow your insticts because there is nothing like it."

She goes on to give more praise to Heyman and said she wanted to be like wrestling's most famous advocate when she was growing up.

"Growing up one of my favorite characters watching was Paul Heyman," she said. "I wanted to be in the wrestling business because of Paul Heyman, 'cause he told a story. That's the thing, people are like, 'What are you? What do you do for a living?' and I'm like 'I'm a storyteller,' because my whole life I've told stories."

She said she asked Heyman to mentor her so she could be more like him and inspire other fans to want to be like her the same way she wanted to be like Heyman.

Lana gave insight on how much input she has when it comes to her character and promos. She said it depends on the segment how much input she has.

"It just depends on the situation," she said. " Sometimes it's very specific. Sometimes it's like Vince wrote it, or Vince will tell you what to say, and that's that. There's been a couple of times, actually the promo that went viral and everyone said, 'oh my gosh she can't remember her words,' was very specific that they wanted me to mess up my words because I was so in love, 'oh my god he has me so flustered!' I was reading it and I remember like Bobby was like 'this should be changed,' like all these different things.

"So I went to Paul, and he performed it for me and I was like 'okay, got it.' It made sense to me. Sometimes I just need it to be explained like, 'okay, I get it now.' So I went and I did it exactly how Paul did it, and it still went viral. Everyone was like, 'you messed it up!' That's why he's so brilliant. Paul is so brilliant 'cause he would do things, and Vince, where they would do things to get people to talk about it, and it was like it was heat. It was heat. Regardless it was heat."

Lana revealed another one of her influences during her time in WWE was Chris Jericho, telling a story of how Jericho disregarded the script for their "RAW Is Jericho” and ad libbed the whole segment with her segment during her first year in the company. She said there is similarities between Jericho and other greats on the microphone.

"Being out there with Chris Jericho, John Cena, The Rock, you know these people that are like so incredible, you know the top people. The couple things that are a common denominator in all of them is, one they listen to the crowd. Like all of them and how that changes. Also, this is where I just think they are good actors, and this is why John Cena and The Rock have crossed over so well to Hollywood, is because they also just listen. So they're listening to the person, like the crowd, they're the person they are doing the promo with. This isn't just lines that they've rehearsed in the back fifteen times over and over again to a mirror without their scene partner. They are actually listening, we're having a dialogue, we're not just having a monologue rehearsed, we're having a dialogue. So on a dime they can switch it if for some reason they feel it's not right."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Matthew Aaron Show with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.