Comedian Brad Williams Joins Seth Rollins In-Studio

Brad Williams walked into the studio, took one look at guest host Seth Rollins, and admitted he almost did not recognize him without peacock feathers coming out of him. From there, the comedian and Rollins found the thread that runs through both their careers: the pop, the crowd, and the years of dues you pay before either one arrives.

Williams, a Denver Broncos fan and a Los Angeles Lakers fan, is heading into a summer off the road to be with his family before his Tall Tales tour picks back up in the fall with an international run through Scotland and Ireland. But the conversation kept circling back to the strange kinship between stand-up comedy and pro wrestling.

Rollins is preparing for a singles match against Roman at SummerSlam in Minnesota, and Williams marveled that two performers featured as prominently as Rollins and Roman have been in WWE for fourteen years have met one-on-one on pay-per-view only a handful of times. Williams, a Chicago Bears fan, also worked in a Minneapolis story. He did broadcasting for a Vikings game on Christmas Day and was one of the few on the panel to pick the underdog Vikings to win. They did, and Williams figured that bought him some goodwill with the city.

The heart of the interview was Williams explaining how he became funny. He grew up in Orange County, the only dwarf in an average-sized family, and his father, a defense attorney, understood his son would get bullied. So he trained him. The two would write comebacks and jokes together. On the first day of kindergarten, a kid told Williams he was little. Williams fired back a joke sharp enough to get him sent to the principal's office for having the better line. "That's when I knew, oh, this is a fun superpower," he said.

The professional origin story came at a comedy show he brought his father to on Father's Day in 2004. A comedian on stage started making jokes, spotted Williams in the crowd, and pulled him up. Williams answered honestly, said he worked at Disneyland, then told the room, "Shut up, I'm not one of the seven." First joke, first laugh. He was hooked.

Williams and Rollins traded notes on being working dads on the road. Rollins described how his schedule lightened in 2023 when the company shifted to televised events, letting him fly out for Raw and come home the next day. Williams talked about his wife working the same touring life, his mother moving to Los Angeles to help with their daughter, and the small mercy that his kid simply tells people, "My dad is silly."

The wrestling bug has bitten Williams before. He recounted a match on Chris Jericho's cruise where he squared off with fellow little person Hornswoggle, hit him with a Stone Cold Stunner, and heard the boat erupt. "This is why you guys do this," he remembered thinking.

Rollins floated an invitation. Monday Night Raw comes to LA on July 27th as the go-home show before SummerSlam, and he offered Williams a little face paint and a Dracula cape to run out as a Danhausen-style character. Williams, a self-professed fan of comedy wrestlers, was all in. He took the summer off to be with his kid, he said, but for one bump in the ring, he would make an exception.