Throughout her years with WWE, Alexa Bliss has consistently ranked among the best in the company when it comes to microphone work. Now, the former women’s champion will use that talent in a different way when she launches a new podcast as part of WWE’s growing portfolio in the field. The new show, titled Uncool With Alexa Bliss, will debut on all major podcasting platforms on Tuesday, September 22nd. One week after the podcast hits audio feeds, a video version will be released on the WWE Network and WWE’s YouTube page.
ComicBook had the chance to speak with Bliss about her new project in advance of its release. The show is being billed as one that will “transport listeners back in time when Bliss and her guests discuss their most nostalgic, cringeworthy and laugh-out-loud moments from before their fame and success.” We asked Bliss about the development of the podcast.
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“So, it was a long process,” Bliss explained. “I was approached by Brian, who worked for WWE at the time, and he was like, ‘Hey, what do you think of doing a podcast?’ I was like, ‘A podcast?’ Because I’ve never even really thought to do a podcast, but my exact answer was, ‘Look, I mean, I like to talk, and I talk a lot, so I guess it could be fun.’ I didn’t really know what I was in for, and the whole process when we were brainstorming, it became a lot of different things.
“At first, it was going to be a coffee podcast, because everyone knows how much I love coffee, and then it was going to be just a game podcast where we pick one and just play fun games. And then it was going to be something where it was like Between Two Ferns-ish. And then it turned into, we did a couple test episodes with a couple of WWE superstars and we just kind of tried a bunch of things and saw what worked, what didn’t work. And the one thing we loved hearing was everyone’s embarrassing stories. So we were just like, ‘Maybe that’s what it is.’ Maybe the podcast theme, maybe it’s just reliving embarrassing stories from middle school and high school. And it just clicked and it was a lot of fun and we tried the new format and we got some amazing stories from people. And that’s when we were like, ‘All right, this is what we’re going with.’
“And for me, I was in middle school and high school in the 2000. So I was like, ‘What if I interview some people I looked up to in the ’90s and 2000s?’ And it came out great. It’s a lot of fun and I can’t wait for everyone to hear it.”
Is Bliss a big podcast listener herself?
“So I don’t really listen to podcasts,” she responded, laughing. “But this is my first experience with any kind of podcast ever. So I mean, now that I’ve done a podcast and now that I know how it works and how it is, I’m totally down to start listening to more podcasts because I love hearing people talk about stuff in their lives. And I love just hearing people’s backstories. And I think there’s a lot of podcasts that are about that. And now that I know, now that I’ve been in it, I’m totally down to listening to more podcasts.”
The video version of Uncool With Alexa Bliss is something that will give the new podcast an added dimension. From the preview video released by WWE, we see Bliss recording on a set surrounded by nostalgic pieces from the 1990s and 2000s. We asked her tell us about the process of setting up her studio.
“That was a lot of fun,” Bliss said. “I was sitting in the living room and it was right when we were told we were going to start filming from home because of COVID, because we originally started filming on a set at TV at WWE. And we did I think three or four podcasts that way, maybe two or three. And we were told, ‘Hey, we have to film at home now.’ So I was sitting there and I was talking to Ryan (Cabrera) and he was like, ‘Oh, you need a whole set. You need something visual, you need something that shows what it’s about, something that’s your personality.’
“And I was like, ‘You know what? You’re right.’ And so we went to my mom’s house and I started digging out a whole bunch of my old toys, whole bunch of my old stuff from high school and middle school. And that in itself was a lot of fun because we found a lot of interesting stuff that I kept from middle school and high school. And yeah, because that’s the theme of what were you like in middle school and high school and so I was like, ‘This is what I had in middle school and high school and this was my style.’ And so it just kind of snowballed from there.”
As previously mentioned, Bliss’s work on the microphone has been stellar throughout her WWE career, undoubtedly one of the reasons she rose through the ranks to become a multiple-time WWE Women’s Champion and Ms. Money In The Bank back in 2018. We asked Bliss how the challenges of hosting a podcast differ from delivering a promo on WWE television.
“It’s definitely different because with the promo, you only get so much amount of time and you say what you want and then you’re done,” Bliss responded. “And with the podcast, you have to keep the conversation going and it’s actually a lot harder than it looks, especially when you don’t know the person. It was kind of hard thinking like, ‘Hey, what’s something we could talk about?’ Right. How does that transition to this? Let me transition to this. And it was definitely interesting, but it was fun. I realized too that I picked up a lot of my mannerisms when people are talking, I always go, ‘Right,’ or, ‘Yeah,’ and I always mix that up because it sounds like the whole time, I’m just like, ‘Oh yeah,’ or ‘right.’ And there’s a lot that you learn about yourself. I think the hardest part about it is keeping the conversation going for an hour and then having enough content to get it down to 20, 30 minutes and you want to make sure you have enough content, you want to make sure you sound personable and that you don’t sound stuck.”
So what sets Bliss’s new podcast apart and why should we make sure to tune-in when it releases on September 22nd?
“Check out the podcast because it’s actually going to be a lot of fun and it’s so cool to hear how the people that I looked up to and the people that we idolized were just like us growing up. And it’s a lot of embarrassing cringe worthy moments, but at the end of the day, you’re going to just laugh during the whole podcast. That was my goal for sure,” Bliss said.
You can subscribe now to Uncool With Alexa Bliss on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check back with ComicBook in the coming days as we will have more from our discussion with Alexa Bliss, including thoughts on her recent storyline with “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt. Until then, you can give me a follow on Twitter @ryandroste for all things WWE.