LaVar Ball didn't prepare at all for his insane WWE appearance
Remember LaVar Ball’s ridiculous, semi-bizarre appearance with The Miz on WWE’s “Monday Night Raw” back in June? He walked out with his sons Lonzo and LaMelo, did a weird run at the ring, couldn’t slide under the ropes, and eventually ripped off his shirt. The whole thing was beyond odd (and kind of lame, save for the shirt ripping), but now we know why.
The Miz recently went on the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast and dished about LaVar’s appearance on RAW. And try to hide your shock when you hear this: apparently LaVar didn’t really prepare for his segment.
“I walk into their dressing room to go over the script … And [LaVar] goes, ‘Nah, we’re good.’ … I go ‘Are you sure?’ and he goes ‘Nope, we’re good.’ I go “All right, I guess we’re going to wing it out there, sounds like a plan.'”
Following that comment, host Sam Roberts spoke up with a very apt comparison.
“It really is amazing, and I think it’s unique to wrestling. Because no one would go on SNL and act like ‘Nah, don’t worry, we know what we’re doing.’
That’s entirely true. While professional wrestling is supposed to seem spontaneous and unplanned, while behind the scenes it’s anything but. Just like Saturday Night Live, it’s scripted and choreographed. There’s a plan. And what LaVar Ball did on WWE is like a guest star showing up to SNL on Saturday afternoon and saying “I don’t need to know what we’ll be doing, I’m just going to walk into every sketch blind and play it by ear.” That wouldn’t make for the most compelling TV.
But it’s not like people need convincing that they weren’t following a script. It was pretty obvious when LaMelo said a racial slur on live TV. The Miz, however, didn’t hear him say it, and talked about it on the podcast.
“I didn’t hear it. There’s so much going on, and I think it was during Dean Ambrose’s music. In the ring, sometimes you can’t even hear the person that is speaking to you. I’m literally a really good lip-reader a lot of the time because there’s so much [noise].”
Despite that incident, The Miz had a lot of positive things to say about LaVar. But if LaVar ever decides to do more WWE (or if they ever invite him back), maybe spare a second and take a gander at the script. It might prevent his segment from becoming famous for the wrong reasons — or at least make it vaguely interesting.
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
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