Renee Paquette on her journey from the WWE to working for AEW and the Cincinnati Bengals — and soccer journalist Grant Wahl from Qatar
Sports Media with Richard Deitsch
Audacy
4.5 • 757 Ratings
🗓️ 6 December 2022
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Episode 260 of the Sports Media Podcast features two guests. First up is Renee Paquette, who was recently hired by AEW (All Elite Wrestling) as a host, interviewer and producer. She also hosts her own podcast — The Sessions with Renée Paquette — and does video content for the Cincinnati Bengals. She is followed by Grant Wahl, the longtime soccer journalist who is covering the World Cup in Qatar. In this podcast, Paquette discusses how she ended up at AEW after her long run with WWE; what her responsibilities are at AEW; how she anticipates she’ll be used in the next few months and how that role will evolve; working as a producer at AEW; her fandom for the Bengals; the differences in how segments are done in AEW versus WWE; how she feels about any potential storyline with her husband, Jon Moxley; the importance of providing the audience with a visual response during interviews; the genius of Paul Heyman and Sami Zayn; what she hopes to accomplish with her podcast and how she chooses guests; maintaining friendships with WWE people including Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch, and much more. Wahl discusses how his access has been during the World Cup; being stopped by Qatari officials for wearing a Pride shirt; how he sees the rest of the tournament progressing; the brilliance of Kylian Mbappe, and more.
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Transcript
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| 0:29.9 | It's little things too. |
| 0:31.7 | If I'm bringing on a heel that I don't have a good relationship or something, I may take |
| 0:36.6 | a little half step away from them |
| 0:38.5 | when they walk into the frame. Or, you know, just kind of looking at them to different. And same with |
| 0:43.6 | the baby face. A baby face does this really great baby face promo. I'm going to be kind of smiling at |
| 0:47.4 | them, encouraging them like that kind of a situation. Or if I have to duck out of a of a scene, if I'm in the middle between a baby face and the heel, |
| 0:55.1 | the heel walks on. |
| 0:56.0 | I feel like some shit's about to go down and I've got to get out of Dodge. |
| 0:59.0 | I will always exit to the side of the baby face. |
| 1:02.7 | So it's stuff like that that you kind of think about that I think just makes sense. |
| 1:07.7 | And that stuff that I, you know, I think that I can sort of, you know, pass along to other people that are going to be stepping into that similar role. |
| 1:15.8 | But it is a lot of stuff like that that you have to think about. |
| 1:18.1 | And it's little things. |
| 1:19.1 | And to me, little things make all of the difference in the world, not only for myself, but I think for those characters as well. |
| 1:34.8 | Yeah. not only for myself, but I think for those characters as well. Hey, everybody. This is Richard Deich, and welcome to the sports media podcast. My producer is Patrick |
| 1:38.5 | Antonetti. Two guests this week. I really enjoyed both conversations. Very different, but two |
... |
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