Shane Helms Recalls Gauging Logan Paul's Interest Before Signing With WWE
Shane Helms got quite the first impression from Logan Paul. The social media star competed at this year's WrestleMania event. He teamed with The Miz to take on Rey and Dominik Mysterio. Helms helped Paul prepare for his in-ring debut, and he told ESPN that the WWE star had the right attitude from the start.
"The first session, just right away, I generally try to gauge somebody's attitude," Helms said. "Do they really want to do this? Is this just a money thing? And if it's a money thing, that's fine, too, 'cause that's not my decision to make. I could tell that he wanted to do this, that he was excited and if he's excited, that makes it so much easier on me. So No. 1, his attitude was great. And No. 2, he listened."
Helms called it a "coach's dream" to get a celebrity such as Paul who actually wants to learn what makes a wrestling match work. He said that Paul never gave him a bad vibe during training.
Helms had a hand in getting Paul to train with WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels. He feels that experience was invaluable for Paul.
"That was a huge learning experience for Logan," Helms said. "Some people I've trained, I have to show them something like 40 times. ... Logan just picks it up really fast. ... He comes from a fighting background, so his strikes are already good. ... And he actually has an amateur wrestling background as well out of Ohio. ... I think he's improved leaps and bounds."
Paul will be in for his biggest match to date. He'll challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at Crown Jewel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Saturday.