In my daily search for interesting Pro Wrestling stuff, I came across this interesting blog post that has drawn a lot of attention from those who have been able to find it. The post is a collection of comments from a poster on the WWE board of GameFaqs.com. The poster claims to be a former Writing Assistant of World Wrestling Entertainment. With the way his posts read, he definitely sounds like a former staff member, in that he provides insight into the backstage atmosphere of the company.
Out of the collected posts, here are some interesting highlights:
On backstage pull:
“About as much input as you would expect. Orton, Punk and especially Cena have a lot of say in their stories I think. After Survivor Series, Cena felt he shouldn’t lose clean again (or preferably at all) until Wrestlemania, and so he didn’t. When Jericho was in talks of coming back, it was under the conditions that he work with Punk and put him over at Wrestlemania (Jericho’s demands, not WWE’s). He also came up with the light bright jacket thing and paid for it himself (I heard $10g for the first one). Cody Rhodes said in a recent interview that he had his leather vest cape thing custom made and paid for it himself, so I guess to a certain degree the wrestlers are responsible for their own characters. But on the other hand, Daniel Bryan complained a lot about being put into a story with AJ because his last girlfriend storyline with Gail Kim was so bad, but he couldn’t really do anything about it.
So I guess you could say it varies quite a bit.”
—
On the tag and Divas divisions:
“The thing with Vince is he goes through these weird and seemingly random phases. For a while he’ll be into the tag division, then he couldn’t care less. He’ll want to do Diva storylines, then he doesn’t care if they make it on the show at all. He’ll hire someone like Tamina and not do crap with them for years, then one day ask “Why aren’t we doing anything with Tamina Snuka? She’s a Snuka goddammit!” and Tamina will get a random push.
Right now I guess he’s in the mood for some attention on the tag division.”
—
On the anonymous GM:
“There were a few directions they were considering. The obvious one being Vince, but they also were heavily considering JBL. But Vince killed the story. In fact at one point when the head writers pushed him to at least tie up the loose end some how, Vince suggested to reveal that it was Laurinaitis all along in a “throwaway line backstage.”
The whole thing was dropped though. When Vince stops caring about something, it’s dead.”
—
On Daniel Bryan:
“Everyone knew that DB would not hold the briefcase until Wrestlemania. I don’t know why that became part of his story, but likely it was a promise he could break later to facilitate a heel turn. I heard that Bryan winning MitB was actually a last minute same-day decision. From what I could tell, nobody had much faith in Bryan as a draw while he was a face. Bryan almost had to turn heel, because he wasn’t very good at giving face promos. When he first won the championship and started cutting promos still as a face, he would emphasize the wrong parts and say things in the wrong tone. It actually came out kind of obnoxious and heelish, which probably encouraged the decision to turn him. However when he became champion, Vince and the writing team wanted to do a very “sophisticated” and slow-burn gradual heel turn which obviously worked wonderfully. I think they had a lot of fun with that story. I remember something in the notes that came in once that said something like
* From now on, when Daniel Bryan wins any match he should celebrate like it’s the biggest victory of his life
This is was when he was right in the middle of the gradual heel turn and that’s where YES! was born.”
—
On Brodus Clay’s gimmick change:
“The whole writing team was under the impression that Brodus would come back as the monster heel depicted in the vignettes. It was Vince who saw things differently. When the vignettes were already airing and the writing team asked him when they should debut Brodus, Vince said something like “What’s his character? We don’t have anything for him. I don’t understand who Brodus Clay is. Let’s hold off on his debut until we have a better idea.”
Backstage it was well known that Brodus has a lot of charisma, loves kids and is a great talker. Vince decided he wanted Brodus as a face, and for some reason, despite Brodus having no dancing ability, he wanted Brodus to dance.
They worked on the gimmick for weeks, mainly down in FCW (as dark segments I assume). All of it was completely out of the writers hands and was probably handled by Talent Development instead. The reason his debut was teased so much was because at first we thought he was ready, then Vince would decide he isn’t ready yet. His ring work isn’t up to par, or the choreography isn’t good enough, or the outfit needs work still, or the whole production needs more time, or the timing is off. All kinds of stuff like that.
When Brodus finally debuted, the writers came into work the next day and the reaction was as mixed as it was [on the IWC]. Some thought it was cheesy and a disaster, some thought it was fun and entertaining, some thought it just needed time to get over.
In the end, it was a way more fun and original idea to make him the Funkasaurus than generic monster heel #622978 I think.
Although admittedly after a while we had Laurinaitis tease Brodus’s debut just to get him heat. There was an idea that Brodus would debut as a monster, but then turn on Laurinaitis and break out the dancing character. Or that Laurinaitis would be under the impression that he was bringing in a monster, only to be dismayed when Brodus shows up dancing. There were a few possibilities, but they ultimately decided to drop Brodus and Johnny’s connection all together.”
—
On Zack Ryder’s depush:
“I didn’t feel that the writers had anything against Ryder really. I think Gewirtz feels that he’s a natural underdog, and that’s why people like him. The moment you give him too much exposure or success, he’s no longer an underdog and becomes annoying so they try to stick to that.
Any personal feelings that stop someone from getting more success probably come from Vince himself. Absolutely no major plot points, no title wins or face/heel turns get on TV without Vince’s approval.”
—
On Sheamus as the next Cena and a Cena heel turn:
“Sheamus is being built as the next John Cena. Which is a good thing, because it will free up Cena to do other things in the future, like turn heel. Kids love Sheamus. He moves merch. He’s good at press appearances and talk shows and junk. He’s the best possible candidate to replace Cena as the top babyface. As far as the man personally, I don’t remember hearing anything interesting. He’s just a loyal hardworking guy. Last I heard he wanted to add a cloverleaf as another finishing move.
From what I’ve heard, Cena would LOVE to turn heel. The Thuganomics character was a lot more like his real persona, and I know he feels limited by being a face. It’s the company and Vince that doesn’t want to take the leap until they have an established replacement for him, which is most likely Sheamus. It’s not just the show itself, but they need someone that can do all the Make A Wish stuff, the PR appearances, the sponsorships, etc that Cena does. Cena works his ass off for the company, and nobody else even comes close right now. So there’s a lot of things lost in turning him heel.”
—
On the writers as a group:
“The writers are a lot like [the IWC]. They want stories to be entertaining, deep, and make sense. But sometimes their plans are derailed by what Vince wants to do. Sometimes they’re so busy working on the main storylines that the midcard guys like Primo and Epico fall through the cracks without having a storyline for weeks. They’re doing their best. And I believe Vince has always been the way he is.
You gotta realize that Vince has lived and breathed this company for 30 years. It’s all he thinks about, so he’s a very unusual guy and very disconnected from the “real world.” He has no time to watch TV. He has no idea whats going on in pop culture. He’s never seen most major movies of the last 40 years that everyone has seen. Like I remember making a reference to The Shining, and Brian Gewirtz said “I can guarantee you that Vince has never seen The Shining.” He has to have other people explain these things to him because all he knows is the WWE.”
On the planning process from September onward:
“Tough question to answer. Like I said they had a very skeleton idea of the major feuds and matches all the way through to Wrestlemania. They always work backwards from the PPV card to book the Raws and Smackdowns in-between, so they always know what the end goal is. As far as specifics of matches and promos, that’s usually a week by week basis, with the team planning one week ahead of real time. Some feuds that were story-heavy, like Cena vs. Kane, would sometimes have “grids” which is basically a chart with four columns representing the four weeks until the next PPV. Writers were encouraged to work in that grid style, keeping in mind how one week relates to the next, rather than winging it week by week.”
Post Link – http://www.rspwfaq.net/2012/05/former-writing-assistant-speaks.html?m=1
Original Source – earthquakesundae
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