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Speaker 2: Now, PW Torch and Spreaker bring you the Wade Keller
Speaker 2: Pro Wrestling Podcast. It's time for this week's Interview Classic,
Speaker 2: where Wade Keller interviews one of pro Wrestling's newsmakers.
Speaker 1: Ten years ago. This week I interviewed John Piermarini, a
Speaker 1: frequent guest during this era of my podcasting. He is
Speaker 1: an ex creative team member from around the twenty ten era,
Speaker 1: and he shared a ton of insights about his time
Speaker 1: in WWE, and he continued to follow the product and
Speaker 1: gave insights through the lens of somebody who worked alongside
Speaker 1: Vincickmann and some of WWE's top stars. This episode included
Speaker 1: his thoughts on what shouldn't be assumed about the leaked
Speaker 1: raw script that week, also his experience dealing with Stephanie
Speaker 1: McMahon backstage, how promos are actually written, planned and practiced,
Speaker 1: His thoughts on roman arrange his push and specifically what
Speaker 1: could accelerate his growth as a character. How would Triple
Speaker 1: H run WWE differently, creatively than Vince McMahon. Well, let's
Speaker 1: see how accurate he was as we listened back to
Speaker 1: this from ten years ago. Also what's missing from the
Speaker 1: Bree Nicky Angle so far and much more so fascinating
Speaker 1: two plus hours of insights sharing first hand backstage experience
Speaker 1: from his time working around Vince hook Mann, John Cena
Speaker 1: and others of that era. This originally live streamed on
Speaker 1: September fifth, twenty fourteen, and it is today's Wade Keller
Speaker 1: Pro Wrestling Podcast Ten years Ago Interview Classic for Thursday,
Speaker 1: September fifth, twenty twenty four Here we.
Speaker 3: Go now, Welcome to thep W Torch Live cast. I
Speaker 3: am Wade Keller, editor and publisher of the Pro Wrestling
Speaker 3: Torch weekly newsletter since nineteen eighty seven, back when a
Speaker 3: man named Ronald Reagan was president of the country, and
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Speaker 3: A big MMA weekend, so it's a good time to
Speaker 3: go to MMA torch dot com if you haven't before
Speaker 3: and check out our top shelf coverage of the sport
Speaker 3: of MMA. It is Friday, September fifth, twenty fourteen, and
Speaker 3: I am joined by John Piermarini here for interview Friday.
Speaker 3: John is a semi regular guest here on the show
Speaker 3: and ex WWE creative team member. John, was it two
Speaker 3: thousand and eight through two thousand and nine or two
Speaker 3: thousand and nine and twenty ten that you were part
Speaker 3: of the company.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was two thousand and nine and twenty ten.
Speaker 3: Okay, yep. So John is back and he is always
Speaker 3: There's so much has happened since last time you're on
Speaker 3: at the beginning of June. John, I am really curious
Speaker 3: to hear your thoughts on many things. But we also
Speaker 3: invite callers to call in if you have a question
Speaker 3: about today's WWE or some behind the scenes happenings. Back
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine, and twenty ten. The right
Speaker 3: guy is on the show to answer your questions. So
Speaker 3: you can call six four six seven two one nine
Speaker 3: eight two Weights or email p W Torch Live Cast
Speaker 3: at gmail dot com. It's simply the name of the
Speaker 3: show at Gmail. So PW Torchlivecast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: Quick programming note before we go further. Though we had
Speaker 3: advertised Evan Bourne or Matt Sidel for today's show, he
Speaker 3: ended up with a scheduling conflict both this Friday and
Speaker 3: next Friday, so we weren't able to reschedule Eaven for
Speaker 3: next Friday. So what we've done at switch Days, so
Speaker 3: James Caldwell and Greg Parks will be hosting next Friday interview.
Speaker 3: Friday moves to Thursday next week, which happens on occasion.
Speaker 3: I've done that two or three times in the past.
Speaker 3: So Matt Sidel, known as Evan Borne in WWE, he
Speaker 3: will be joining me next Thursday and expected to be
Speaker 3: a really good interview, and he told me today that
Speaker 3: he'll have something that he can announce by then. Also
Speaker 3: that'll make his appearance more relevant, So tune in that
Speaker 3: it should be a really good interview and I am
Speaker 3: looking forward to that one, John, I'm trying to think,
Speaker 3: I don't have I should know the day right now.
Speaker 3: If Evan Bourne was active while you were there, wasn't.
Speaker 5: He he was?
Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, let's start with that. What did you think
Speaker 3: of Evanborne's potential and what was he viewed like by
Speaker 3: people more powerful than you, and what was he viewed
Speaker 3: for viewed as by you?
Speaker 5: You know, it was a little bit different in you know,
Speaker 5: two thousand and nine, twenty ten as far as the
Speaker 5: mid card and undercard was considered, because today it seems
Speaker 5: like they're more utilized than they were. When I was there.
Speaker 5: It was mostly we had the A story, maybe a
Speaker 5: B story, and that was it, and then everything else
Speaker 5: was just filler. So Evan Bourne just kind of fell
Speaker 5: into that. Well, you know, he's exciting, he gets a pop,
Speaker 5: and so we'll find a place for him somewhere on
Speaker 5: the card. But outside of that, there was never really
Speaker 5: any effort put into creating, you know, a compelling story
Speaker 5: for him, or really diving into his character and trying
Speaker 5: to find a way to evolve it or really get
Speaker 5: it involved. For the most part, I think it was
Speaker 5: after I left that they finally started pushing him with Kofi.
Speaker 5: I don't know the timeframe on that. It might have
Speaker 5: been right after, it might have been a couple of
Speaker 5: years after. But yeah, he wasn't the you know. And
Speaker 5: again he might have been seen as, you know, a
Speaker 5: potential big star. I don't think so, because there was
Speaker 5: never a point where even someone like Kochie Kingston where
Speaker 5: we thought he had some sort of potential and we
Speaker 5: wanted to push him right at least that was discussed
Speaker 5: and we gave it an opportunity. But with Evan Bourne,
Speaker 5: I don't remember his name really ever coming up as
Speaker 5: far as you know, really trying to come up with
Speaker 5: something for him.
Speaker 3: He's what Triple Ah would call our he filled our spot,
Speaker 3: monkey's slot on the rock. Yeah, let's let's let's keep
Speaker 3: those internet fans happy. You like to go to those
Speaker 3: shows row and flip flops and jumps around, and that
Speaker 3: we got Evan Morn so we don't need we don't
Speaker 3: need anybody else like him. You know. Stuff like that
Speaker 3: is kind of thing that I think, you know, toally
Speaker 3: just known to say so, Yeah, I mean, Evan is
Speaker 3: Evans all of those guys. I've been a huge, huge
Speaker 3: fan of his work. I saw his first Roh tryout
Speaker 3: match ever in person, and just he was remarkable. And
Speaker 3: I was backstage when when Gabe Spolski greeted him right afterwards,
Speaker 3: and Gabe said, you're hired. Will you come with us
Speaker 3: tomorrow to Chicago? And he was like, yeah, yes, So
Speaker 3: he's really impressive at first sight.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I was a fan of as well. I
Speaker 5: actually worked with him very briefly with the I always
Speaker 5: forget the name of it, but when I was at
Speaker 5: MTV with the MTV Wrestling show that we did, he
Speaker 5: was one of the talent on there. I actually don't
Speaker 5: think he was used too much. Again that that whole
Speaker 5: time is kind of foggy with that whole promotion, but
Speaker 5: I do know he was on the pilot episode at least,
Speaker 5: and he had a valet and I think he went
Speaker 5: by Matt Sidell. But yeah, I liked him. I was
Speaker 5: a fan. But you know, and we've discussed this at
Speaker 5: length in previous interviews, but there were certain guys that
Speaker 5: you know, you would you would attach yourself to or
Speaker 5: see potential in and really kind of die on a
Speaker 5: mountain to try to get that person over and get
Speaker 5: that person a story. And then there was guys that
Speaker 5: you just kind of knew. I mean, I could come
Speaker 5: up with something for him, but odds of it actually
Speaker 5: taking off or slim, and I kind of felt that
Speaker 5: same thing kind of applied to Evan Bourne.
Speaker 3: If you're just joining us, John Pierremarini is the voice
Speaker 3: that you just heard. He is an nex WDWE creative
Speaker 3: team member in two thousand and nine twenty ten. And
Speaker 3: we are live on the air at five thirty eight Eastern,
Speaker 3: two thirty eight Pacific time and Ryan Central Time four
Speaker 3: thirty apm on Friday, September fifth, and this is the
Speaker 3: PW Torch Live Cast. We are live every single day
Speaker 3: Monday through Friday and sometimes Sundays after major pay per views,
Speaker 3: and you can check our schedule at PW torch livecast
Speaker 3: dot com. But generally speaking, the show is on the
Speaker 3: hour before Raw on Mondays and then live at five
Speaker 3: thirty Eastern Tuesday through Friday. We also have East Coastcast
Speaker 3: dot com, which is a sister wrestling podcast hosted by
Speaker 3: Travis Andre and sometimes you'll hear Travis here on the
Speaker 3: live cast on Mondays with Bruce Mitchell. He hosts his
Speaker 3: own show and that is available to you on Wednesdays
Speaker 3: at Eastcoastcast dot com. Final plug of our sister podcast
Speaker 3: here at blog talk Radio MMA Torch live cast. It
Speaker 3: is available at blog talk radio dot com slash MMA Torch.
Speaker 3: You can check that out at a weekly show with
Speaker 3: a lot of talk and live calls similar to this
Speaker 3: on the World of M M A. John, I want
Speaker 3: to go to an email question that we got here
Speaker 3: because this was in the news. I think it was
Speaker 3: yesterday when imager and it was probably other places too.
Speaker 3: Another raw script popped up and a listener Will from
Speaker 3: Jersey says he's listening live now, but he wanted to
Speaker 3: give us question by email. You or John believe the
Speaker 3: leaked the leaked scripts could be coming from a writer
Speaker 3: inside who wants WWE to be criticized so that they
Speaker 3: can be forced to shake up the writing. Thanks hmm.
Speaker 5: I don't know how that would. I mean, maybe you
Speaker 5: could understand where he's coming from better.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 3: I guess maybe throw throwing a script out there for
Speaker 3: people to see, like what is written down for the
Speaker 3: wrestlers to do my I mean, my problem with the question,
Speaker 3: I guess is what's more embarrassing than a bad final
Speaker 3: product that airs the script? You know, why to script
Speaker 3: make it worse to me? A script getting out, it's
Speaker 3: kind of you know, it's a kind of inside baseball
Speaker 3: or it's kind of you know, exposing the mechanisms of
Speaker 3: how the show works. But you know, Triple H's on
Speaker 3: there talking to Chris Jericho on Jericho's podcast about you know,
Speaker 3: how vincic Man called him up after Vince Russol left
Speaker 3: and said, you know, you know you you offered to
Speaker 3: help out. I want you to help out, give me
Speaker 3: some ideas and and I don't know, I mean, I
Speaker 3: guess they just you know, Jericho and Triple H talk
Speaker 3: about working in the ring together. I just don't think
Speaker 3: there's a lot of secrets left. So I don't think
Speaker 3: WWE would care all that much about a script getting out.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's probably some ind there's probably a feeling
Speaker 3: inside the company that they'd prefer they not get out
Speaker 3: after the fact, and they might, you know, put some
Speaker 3: numbers on the scripts from now on or something, or
Speaker 3: figure out a way to try to keep people from
Speaker 3: distributing out. But I don't think it's a big deal.
Speaker 3: I don't think it was a big panic on vinscc
Speaker 3: manter triple ahious part this week that oh my god,
Speaker 3: people saw the draft of what people said that aired.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't. I don't necessarily we know that that
Speaker 5: a writer would do that. I mean, I know, the
Speaker 5: whole landscape of writers has changed. You know, there's so
Speaker 5: many people there now compared to when I was there.
Speaker 5: But when I was there, it seemed like, you know,
Speaker 5: everybody was afraid to lose their jobs. No one was
Speaker 5: gonna mess up, no one was gonna speak up too loud.
Speaker 5: So I can't imagine that there would be a writer
Speaker 5: there who felt like they would leak a script and
Speaker 5: they'd be a backlashed to the writing and things would
Speaker 5: get shaken up. I think the better chance of happening
Speaker 5: is that someone leaks that script and someone gets fired.
Speaker 5: And I don't think anyone would take that chance. But
Speaker 5: I mean, just to go along with this question, like
Speaker 5: you said, I see, and that was going to be
Speaker 5: my original answer was the final product isn't going to
Speaker 5: be what is going to cause Vince to shake things up?
Speaker 3: And the good Yeah will I seen to us live
Speaker 3: And I just got a chime that said he followed
Speaker 3: up here he says, yes, way, that is what I mean, like,
Speaker 3: so rains, for example, could maybe be cut some slack
Speaker 3: forest promost because now you can see that he's just
Speaker 3: repeating what's written for him, and so he's listening to
Speaker 3: us and wanted to clarify. So I again, yes, I
Speaker 3: mean if people see, oh, it's not Roman Reigns's fault,
Speaker 3: he doesn't say very much, he's just doing what he's
Speaker 3: told to do, then maybe that would cause a shake
Speaker 3: up because people start blaming the writers instead of the wrestlers.
Speaker 3: Same thing I guess would apply when we criticize announcers.
Speaker 3: And you know, when I criticize JBL, people go, well,
Speaker 3: it's JBL is just saying what he's told. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: when I criticize JBL, I'm not going after John necessarily,
Speaker 3: I'm going after the product of JBL the commentator. And
Speaker 3: sometimes it's him, sometimes it's Vince. Sometimes it's a combination
Speaker 3: of factors. So when I criticize JBL, I'm just saying
Speaker 3: JBL the announcer that product is hurting the product. And
Speaker 3: here's why, as opposed to it's all John's fault. And
Speaker 3: I wish someone would step in and stop him. Because
Speaker 3: of course a lot of what the announcers say is
Speaker 3: is Vince McMahon headsets.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I think that Again to the emailers question,
Speaker 5: I think that it would benefit Roman more than you know,
Speaker 5: because I mean, that problem has to get approved through Vince.
Speaker 5: So Vince is happy with whatever it is that's on
Speaker 5: that sheet of paper, and if he wasn't, he'd write
Speaker 5: it himself. So if there's a a script that's going
Speaker 5: to get leaked, sure it might help Roman in the
Speaker 5: sense of Man, I know he could do better, but
Speaker 5: this is obviously what he's been given. He's not that bad.
Speaker 5: I don't know that Vince is going to recognize that
Speaker 5: and make any changes. Again, and I've said this so
Speaker 5: many times on your show, Vince is going to make
Speaker 5: changes when it affects his wallet, and ultimately part of
Speaker 5: that is the ratings and buy rates. So if you're
Speaker 5: not happy with the product and he sees a swarm
Speaker 5: of people leave, that's when there's going to be a change.
Speaker 5: But it's not going to be because you know, a
Speaker 5: script got out and people thought, wow, the writing on
Speaker 5: that show is horrible because it's the same writing that
Speaker 5: showed up in the final product.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, we're about to go to a commercial break.
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Speaker 3: I mean, I get that WWE might not want the
Speaker 3: script for Raw to get out and it's only happened
Speaker 3: a few times, just because it just feels like a
Speaker 3: little invasion of privacy. It's like they want a little
Speaker 3: mystique left in terms of how much detail is provided
Speaker 3: to the rest, in terms of what to say versus
Speaker 3: you know, what is in the charge of producers or agents,
Speaker 3: in terms of you know, you know, and fans can
Speaker 3: I'm sure a lot of people who got the script
Speaker 3: went back and watched Raw and looked word for word
Speaker 3: at how what the differences were between what was in
Speaker 3: the script and what was said. And that's fascinating to them,
Speaker 3: and that's fine, and that's a microcosm percentage wise of fans,
Speaker 3: or it's a you know, small flights of fans that
Speaker 3: should say. But at the same time, I mean, I
Speaker 3: think it strips away a little bit of the last
Speaker 3: mystique when you kind of see how the sausage is
Speaker 3: made in paper form, and so when you watch wrestling now,
Speaker 3: it just drives home the fact that the wrestlers aren't
Speaker 3: speaking from the heart. They're speaking from a memorized script,
Speaker 3: and I think that takes a little of the mistique
Speaker 3: and a little of the fun away from watching wrestler's
Speaker 3: talk when you think, well, those aren't even their words,
Speaker 3: and it's proven now because the script got out right.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think even I don't know if it
Speaker 5: was improvised, But if you're talking about the script from
Speaker 5: last Monday, and you kind of had that moment with
Speaker 5: Jericho and Triple h you know, talking about the tie
Speaker 5: and the scarf, that's where you watch it as a
Speaker 5: fan you kind of go, oh, okay, like I wonder
Speaker 5: if these guys actually don't like each other or they're irritated,
Speaker 5: or maybe H didn't like that with that a jab
Speaker 5: bat and now is their heat Like that's one part Now,
Speaker 5: I don't know if that was written in there. My
Speaker 5: guess is that something like that probably wasn't. But that's
Speaker 5: the part that it could take away from because I think,
Speaker 5: for the most part, wrestling fans that are educated are
Speaker 5: the ones that are seeing that script. I don't think
Speaker 5: a casual fan and maybe they'd come across it, but
Speaker 5: I doubt they'd even really look it over. So I
Speaker 5: think that the people that are seeing that are the
Speaker 5: ones that are already educated enough on the product to
Speaker 5: know that Chris Jericho is scripted to say what he said.
Speaker 5: But you know, and if they see that that part
Speaker 5: with him and Triple H wasn't and there, that makes
Speaker 5: those moments that much more special because it gives that
Speaker 5: element of I wonder if they actually really don't like
Speaker 5: each other. But then again, Jericho and Triple H go
Speaker 5: on a podcast and talk about how much they love
Speaker 5: each other and respect each other and all that, so
Speaker 5: WW is definitely doing their part to take away the
Speaker 5: mistique of the product.
Speaker 3: Yes, and when I hear Triple H and Jericho spend
Speaker 3: a half hour talking about how much they really get along,
Speaker 3: it makes me think they don't get along very well.
Speaker 3: It's it's that that would out protest too much, the overcompensive, overcompensatory.
Speaker 3: It was what was a phrase that Paul Hayman uses
Speaker 3: Steve Austin on the podcast, Oh right right, thank.
Speaker 5: You, overget it, overcome compensatory.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. I felt like they were kind of a
Speaker 3: little in overcompensatory mode about how chummy they were. And
Speaker 3: all I wanted was when I'm listening to that, I'm like,
Speaker 3: what I really want our thought bubbles. I want to
Speaker 3: say Triple H and Jericho, And as Triple H talks
Speaker 3: about you know, Chris, oh you were the best back then,
Speaker 3: it was just a pleasure working for you, I just
Speaker 3: want to hear Jericho like with a thought bubble going, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, screw you. You buried me every chance he had,
Speaker 3: and then Jericho goes, oh, yeah, I was great working
Speaker 3: with you, Triple Ah, those those are great men. And
Speaker 3: then Triple H's thought bubble is, oh, it's great being
Speaker 3: boss because now I got this guy who doesn't like me,
Speaker 3: you know, endorsing my own bs on the air. This
Speaker 3: is pandamic like, and I don't know that's necessarily true,
Speaker 3: but it's still I want to see what was really
Speaker 3: going on in their heads, because it did feel a
Speaker 3: little like a It felt like a really long handshake
Speaker 3: to try to prove to everybody to get along, right.
Speaker 5: I think they both had their motives as why they
Speaker 5: felt like they should really put the other person over.
Speaker 5: I think with Jericho it was, hey, I want to
Speaker 5: be able to come back whenever I want because it's
Speaker 5: a sweet paycheck. And I think with with Triple H,
Speaker 5: I think it was the same thing, Hey, we need
Speaker 5: you sometimes, you know.
Speaker 3: I think with replaced too, John, it's because he wants
Speaker 3: to be popular with the internet fans, and Jericho was
Speaker 3: like top three right right, it's you know, pr wise,
Speaker 3: he knows a lot of people think he tried to
Speaker 3: bury Jericho, who never gave him a fair chance, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, you can really make a good argument for it.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say it's true, but there's a compelling
Speaker 3: argument out there, and that Hunter was pretty ruthless as
Speaker 3: far as that went. In the early two thousands and
Speaker 3: so the reputation is they don't get along so and
Speaker 3: that there's a lot of tension there and resentment. So
Speaker 3: Triple H is gonna go out there and make it
Speaker 3: look like, hey, come on, you know Internet, because I
Speaker 3: think the Internet ken has some influence in steering the
Speaker 3: online you know, feeling about the network for instance, and
Speaker 3: you know the general tone of the general quality of
Speaker 3: WWE that I think it matters somewhat. It's not overwhelmingly important,
Speaker 3: but it's a matter somewhat and enough for I think
Speaker 3: Triple H to go. I want to make sure fans
Speaker 3: see me and Jerich are getting along so that you know,
Speaker 3: to me, it's like a president and vice president like
Speaker 3: John Kerry and John Edwards who could not did not
Speaker 3: get along when they ran, you know, they think along
Speaker 3: at all. And Carrie had to plug his nose when
Speaker 3: you know, making the decision to go with him in
Speaker 3: set a get part. Yet they had to go on
Speaker 3: camera and convince Democrats and and swing voters that they
Speaker 3: were a great team. And again, I don't want to
Speaker 3: over I'm Jericho and Triple H might have buried the
Speaker 3: hatchet and you know in the last few years, and
Speaker 3: that might be more genuine than I'm giving them credit
Speaker 3: for all I'm saying is I'm somewhat skeptical John that,
Speaker 3: like you said, really well, there's a little maybe some
Speaker 3: mutually mutual motives going on, or they each had their
Speaker 3: motives for wanting that, you know, and.
Speaker 5: Just to kind of stay in this vortex ur just
Speaker 5: for a second, you know, on your show too. I've
Speaker 5: always been a big defender of Triple H in the
Speaker 5: sense that while he may have done his part in
Speaker 5: whether it's burying someone or holding people back or making
Speaker 5: himself look great, you know, in the two years that
Speaker 5: I was able to he was in all the production meetings.
Speaker 5: You know, he said it right there on on Jericho's podcast,
Speaker 5: him and Sean until Sean left, they were both in
Speaker 5: all the production meetings. Triple H was in them one
Speaker 5: Seawan left. And I kind of look at it as, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm guilty of it. Every writer is guilty of it.
Speaker 5: Vince is guilty of it, Kevin Done's guilty of it,
Speaker 5: Sean's guilty of it. All these people have done the
Speaker 5: same exact thing Triple H has done in the power
Speaker 5: that they were given to be able to put someone
Speaker 5: over or bury somebody. And I feel like he just
Speaker 5: gets it so much more than everybody else, and I
Speaker 5: can see why he kind of wants to go out
Speaker 5: there and defend himself a little bit without saying, hey, guys,
Speaker 5: you do realize Sean Michaels did the same thing and
Speaker 5: you adore him, you know, and there's other people that
Speaker 5: do it. But I just don't. I didn't see him
Speaker 5: as that guy that went in there and just purposely
Speaker 5: buried guy. So I feel like in a situation with
Speaker 5: Jericho and going back, and I know nothing about the
Speaker 5: story of if he was trying to bury him or
Speaker 5: whatever it may be in the early two thousands, but
Speaker 5: part of me maybe feels like, you know, again, maybe
Speaker 5: it was in a time when you're fighting with a
Speaker 5: fully taker Austin Rock and your parents say against Jericho,
Speaker 5: and you're trying to hold onto that top spot. Maybe
Speaker 5: part of you goes, look, personally, I don't see him
Speaker 5: as a huge star, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 5: Some of us do, some of us don't. And I
Speaker 5: need to come out of this thing looking as strong
Speaker 5: as possible, because, like Triple H said on the podcast,
Speaker 5: I need to be that Darth Vader to the Stone
Speaker 5: Cold and the Rock and I need to come out
Speaker 5: of this looking strong enough to be able to compete
Speaker 5: against those guys. And maybe I don't feel Jericho is
Speaker 5: the right guy to be putting over in a sense,
Speaker 5: maybe not for the one two three, but just in
Speaker 5: the sense of the storyline, because I need to be
Speaker 5: over enough to go up against these top guys. Now, again,
Speaker 5: that's just pure speculation. Again, it's defending Triple H. But
Speaker 5: I've seen multiple guys bury people for the wrong reasons backstage,
Speaker 5: and I've never seen Triple H do it without either saying, hey, look,
Speaker 5: I maybe don't like this guy, but it's because I
Speaker 5: think this guy is in a better position to do that.
Speaker 5: And everybody did that backstage. Did he do it more
Speaker 5: or more deliberately when I wasn't there, I don't know,
Speaker 5: But I can only speak for what I know, and
Speaker 5: I know that it's more than what everybody out there
Speaker 5: him have seen, you know, and it's all based of
Speaker 5: what they read or speculation. And I'm not I'm not
Speaker 5: even saying you right, just saying wrestling fans in general,
Speaker 5: he gets a bad rap, and from from my perspective,
Speaker 5: I don't think that he deserves it any more. Than
Speaker 5: anybody else on top. I mean, wasn't it didn't stone
Speaker 5: cold not want to work with Jeff Jarrett, so he
Speaker 5: essentially buried a main event run for Jeff Jarrett at
Speaker 5: one point.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, there were you know, personal issues. There are
Speaker 3: some deeply personal issues and political issues that both played
Speaker 3: into that at the time. And I you know, I
Speaker 3: wrote about the tortune order. V IFP members can read
Speaker 3: a lot of what I wrote about that when that
Speaker 3: happened at the time, because we were actually the first
Speaker 3: to report on that, I got some some I got
Speaker 3: some pushback from within WWE when when the details of
Speaker 3: what was planned and what was rejected got got out.
Speaker 3: And you're right, I mean, it does happen. I have
Speaker 3: defended Triple h H more than just about any you know,
Speaker 3: prominent promising reporter commentator for exactly what you said. What
Speaker 3: I think, First of all, I think Triple AH gets
Speaker 3: blamed a little bit because he associated with Scott Hall,
Speaker 3: who just was this miserable human being to be around
Speaker 3: so much of the time. Admittedly so on his part,
Speaker 3: you know, just he just felt awful and he just
Speaker 3: he just brought everyone in the room down. But Scott
Speaker 3: was a really smart, perceptive guy. So he'd find something
Speaker 3: that's wrong with somebody and have a real caustic way
Speaker 3: to point it out, but masked with humor. Kevin Nash
Speaker 3: not nearly as miserable to be around as Scott Hall,
Speaker 3: But Kevin Nash super one of the smartest guys I've
Speaker 3: ever gotten to know when wrestling over the years. But
Speaker 3: he was, you know, he was really perceptive of weaknesses
Speaker 3: and other guys. But and so, but he was very
Speaker 3: willing to speak on it. And I think Triple H,
Speaker 3: because he was with that group, kind of inherited some
Speaker 3: of the reputation. He earned some of it, for sure,
Speaker 3: because but the thing is is, this is where I
Speaker 3: give Triple H credit. I don't think Triple H ever
Speaker 3: buried somebody with a false accusation in order to get ahead, right.
Speaker 3: My issue with Triple H is that he has a
Speaker 3: too narrow He has too narrow of a vision of
Speaker 3: what makes a money drawing wrestler. And he also dwells
Speaker 3: too much on things that I think are not particularly
Speaker 3: relevant to a fan base, part of the fan base
Speaker 3: that feels left out when they watch the product. And
Speaker 3: so Triple H is a guy likes to sit front
Speaker 3: row with men wearing g strings, flexing muscles, and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of fans who would much rather go to
Speaker 3: an indie show to thee Evan Boorne wrestle, and Triple
Speaker 3: H is just he just has different things that appeal
Speaker 3: to him that he would like to do with his
Speaker 3: free time than a lot of fans who feel left
Speaker 3: out of the WWE product, who aren't just in a
Speaker 3: massive bodybuilding. So I think that that because he's super
Speaker 3: Triple H is super smart, has a really sharp buy
Speaker 3: for people's strengths and weaknesses. But what he thinks qualify
Speaker 3: somebody for a push and disqualify somebody for a push
Speaker 3: are things that I think that I don't always agree with.
Speaker 3: And I think sometimes because of the level of power
Speaker 3: he attained because of his as he talked about with Jericho,
Speaker 3: his willingness to get up earlier than anybody else in
Speaker 3: go to production meetings, to sit in the production booth
Speaker 3: and oversee a video on himself because he's willing to
Speaker 3: do those types of things, and he's smart and a
Speaker 3: student of the business. He just his strengths and weaknesses
Speaker 3: I think got a larger were more scrutinized because they
Speaker 3: took on more power because he was so ambitious and
Speaker 3: so hard working. So anybody else who wasn't sleeping in
Speaker 3: and went to those production meetings might have gotten their
Speaker 3: opinion heard also, and therefore their opinions would be more
Speaker 3: heavily scrutinized for bearing people.
Speaker 5: I compare it to this. It's a doctor that goes
Speaker 5: to school and he's taught how to treat people with
Speaker 5: pharmaceutical drugs, and when you go to him and you say, hey,
Speaker 5: I read something online, or you go to a dermatologist
Speaker 5: thing you go, I read something online that says it's
Speaker 5: actually the products that are in the what is it
Speaker 5: called it like suntan lotion that causes skin cancer not
Speaker 5: necessarily on and they go, you're crazy, use use you know,
Speaker 5: the lotion. And then you go to more of a
Speaker 5: holistic person and they're gonna go, yeah, don't use that
Speaker 5: vitamin Jesus. And that I compare it to that in
Speaker 5: the sense that he was educated under Vincent Mann, Kevin Nash,
Speaker 5: Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall, and and that's what he's the
Speaker 5: philosophy that he's learned. And I think that he's probably
Speaker 5: slowly learning the other side of it and beginning to
Speaker 5: appreciate the other side of it, whether it's Daniel Bryan
Speaker 5: or the product that he's working with in NXT, because
Speaker 5: there isn't a lot of those you know, freaks of
Speaker 5: nature or the you know, superhero body characters or individuals,
Speaker 5: not so much of the characters that are coming through
Speaker 5: the system at this point. I mean, he needs to
Speaker 5: learn and he probably is to appreciate the semi Zins
Speaker 5: and the the Dean Ambroses and the Seth Rawlins of
Speaker 5: the world. And I think that he is.
Speaker 3: I would hope you'd appreciate Seth Rolins, since when Seth
Speaker 3: Rollins stands next to TRIPLEH on stage, Seth is taller
Speaker 3: than Hunter or you know, very much just right there
Speaker 3: with him, you know. Like I think people think Seth
Speaker 3: is like this small guy only because he does moves
Speaker 3: that only guys smaller than him, like Kevin Bourne can do.
Speaker 3: And I think that has been used against some people
Speaker 3: where all you have to do is like a really
Speaker 3: good athletic spot and a big, more lumbering, muscular wrestler
Speaker 3: will look at you and just disqualify you as a
Speaker 3: main eventor because oh, you're just one of those spot
Speaker 3: monkeys and I jealous, Yes, yes, And I think what
Speaker 3: you said is absolutely true that he's kind of a
Speaker 3: student of the people that have been in power around him.
Speaker 3: That's part of what gets passed along. The successful promoter
Speaker 3: passes along his philosophy, and there's this inertia to it
Speaker 3: where that style wins out. If a promoter who promoted
Speaker 3: smaller wrestlers was the one that, through whatever connection or
Speaker 3: break or ambition, went national, got the deal with NBC,
Speaker 3: got to deal with USA Network, and had the right
Speaker 3: funding and the right exposure, then then wrestling would be
Speaker 3: a lot more athletic, and the muscular guys would be
Speaker 3: more kind of sideshow gimmicks and not the centerpiece. And
Speaker 3: with or if tag If a promoter who really made
Speaker 3: a lot of money with tag teams in addition to heavyweights,
Speaker 3: then that would be a much bigger part of national
Speaker 3: wrestling today. Tag teams would be something you could made
Speaker 3: event roll with and nobody would even think it was weird.
Speaker 3: You know, you're just oh yeah, of course Rock and
Speaker 3: or Expressman that express they're gonna headline a they can
Speaker 3: headline a house show, or a TV show. So I
Speaker 3: think there's room for both absolutely that.
Speaker 5: You know. I think that's a person who is maybe
Speaker 5: just a fair Weather casual wrestling fan might stop the
Speaker 5: famil changing win Raws on if they see rock Lessner
Speaker 5: and Big Show in the ring and go okay, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna watch this, and then they they turn it off
Speaker 5: if it's anything else, you know. I think that then
Speaker 5: there's the wrestling fans who just appreciate what Daniel Brian
Speaker 5: does in the ring, and they're gonna go, I don't
Speaker 5: want to see, you know, Big Show versus Mark Henry,
Speaker 5: It's going to be the same thing. It's boring, it's slow.
Speaker 5: I want to see Daniel Bryan versus Seth Rawlands. And
Speaker 5: I think that what Triple A should probably learn to
Speaker 5: do is know that there's a place for both of
Speaker 5: those and both of them can be a huge draw.
Speaker 5: I mean, you can even look at at boxing. You know,
Speaker 5: heavyweights is what used to carry boxing. But here was
Speaker 5: the Ostar de la Joyas and the Sugar Ray Leonards
Speaker 5: that they realized, Man, these smaller guys can draw. I mean,
Speaker 5: Floyd Mayweather right now is the biggest draw in boxing.
Speaker 5: Look at UFC. I mean, you have brock Lessner was
Speaker 5: the biggest draw, but then you've got guys like George
Speaker 5: Saint Pierre, who I think is probably up until he left,
Speaker 5: was the biggest draw in UFC, and he was near
Speaker 5: the bottom of their weight division.
Speaker 3: And BJ, Yeah, I mean BJ Penn drew more money
Speaker 3: than Tim Sylvia, you know, I mean it's right.
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Speaker 3: So yeah, no, absolutely, And you know what ty riven
Speaker 3: around this or my perspective on it, I think Triple
Speaker 3: H is much more appreciative of diverse styles and body
Speaker 3: types than vinsick Mann, But I think on a scale,
Speaker 3: he's still in the top quadrant of heavyweights draw and
Speaker 3: smaller guys are you know, there's a slaughter two for
Speaker 3: them for those fans who like to see that stuff
Speaker 3: in the opening match. I still think there's too much
Speaker 3: of that in him, but there's no but there's no
Speaker 3: doubt in my mind. If it's a man is at
Speaker 3: ninety eight percentile, Triple H is at seventy two, and
Speaker 3: I think he's moving downward, you know, I think he's
Speaker 3: moving more to that healthy middle zone of appreciating all
Speaker 3: styles and Dad's good. I mean I get asked, you know,
Speaker 3: decent amount of the time by people by E Miller
Speaker 3: even on the show, is WW gonna better off or
Speaker 3: worse off when Vincent Man steps away and Triple H
Speaker 3: takes over? And I mean, we don't know. It's a
Speaker 3: real mixed bag, John, because there's things Vince has an
Speaker 3: instinct for that no one's gonna appreciate till he's gone.
Speaker 3: But there's things that will go away, like this horrible
Speaker 3: announcing that we're getting now, worst announcing of any era
Speaker 3: in any promotion maybe ever, and it's hurting the product.
Speaker 3: Bruce Mitchell wrote about that Tord senior columnist practice going
Speaker 3: on twenty four years writing for The Torch top Analyst,
Speaker 3: top analyst in all of pro wrestling, and he wrote
Speaker 3: a column in this Week's person Torch weekly newsletter is
Speaker 3: in every week just about and he wrote about JBL
Speaker 3: and he was just like, there is an easy way
Speaker 3: for WWW to make get more network subscribers, and it
Speaker 3: one costs another penny. And he laid out what JBL
Speaker 3: is doing wrong and what he could be doing instead
Speaker 3: that would make a huge difference. And so there's things
Speaker 3: that when Vince goes away, everyone would be like, oh wow,
Speaker 3: I didn't even realize how good something could be. That
Speaker 3: was so awful, but now it's different, and Triple Ah
Speaker 3: would be sitting there going, thank God, I don't have
Speaker 3: to fight Vince every week on this or I haven't.
Speaker 3: I don't have to just close my mouth because it's
Speaker 3: a losing battle. There'll be so many changes that that
Speaker 3: would cause it. So John, how about you, I mean,
Speaker 3: do you have an inclination of do you think WWE
Speaker 3: if Vince step down tomorrow, would in three years WWB
Speaker 3: be in better shape of Triple Ah running. And then
Speaker 3: if Vince stays in power for three more.
Speaker 5: Years, yeah, you know, I think it's kind of like
Speaker 5: a seesaw effect. I think that, you know, majority of
Speaker 5: the bad is on the heavy end with Vince running
Speaker 5: in at the moment, but I feel like it let's
Speaker 5: say he left tomorrow again with the commentating, I think
Speaker 5: that would change. I think there's certain aspects that would change.
Speaker 5: But again, just going off of what you said, the
Speaker 5: gut instinct of Vince, some of those things will do appear,
Speaker 5: so you might while you might see that seesaw sort
Speaker 5: of go heavy on the good, I think it's going
Speaker 5: to even out, and I think you're gonna see that
Speaker 5: there is a lot of genius Convince and and the
Speaker 5: people that he surrounded himself with, and if Triple H
Speaker 5: has a brand new team, I think you're going to
Speaker 5: see a lot of positives, but you'll see some negatives
Speaker 5: that you wish that we're still around, but he's decided
Speaker 5: to go a different direction. What those are exactly, I
Speaker 5: don't think anybody knows, but Triple A and and they
Speaker 5: they may turn out to, you know, bring on a
Speaker 5: new boom period in wrestling, or in my opinion, I
Speaker 5: just think it's going to even itself out where you're
Speaker 5: gonna go he brought in these uh, these three guys,
Speaker 5: these the best commentators since Jim Ross. But uh, if
Speaker 5: you asked me, if you were to if I were
Speaker 5: to have to guess, and I don't really watch NXT.
Speaker 5: I do when we do the specials, the takeovers, I
Speaker 5: do enjoy those, and I thought that the whole would
Speaker 5: be like that, But it seems that it's just kind
Speaker 5: of a one and I don't even know how often
Speaker 5: they do it. But any other time I've watched it, honestly,
Speaker 5: it's it's been kind of painful for me to watch.
Speaker 5: I don't like the characters. I think it's it's cheesy storytelling.
Speaker 4: And if that, if NXP is.
Speaker 5: Just going to be what RAW is going to be,
Speaker 5: I don't know that i'd be a big fan. I mean,
Speaker 5: I don't like the Adam Rose gimmick when I watch NXT.
Speaker 5: I'm not a big fan of the guy that they're pushing.
Speaker 5: That's like a male model.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 5: There's pros and cons to NXT, I guess, is what
Speaker 5: I'm saying. So I think it's going to even out.
Speaker 5: I don't think it's going to be a superior product.
Speaker 5: I think it will in some aspects, but I think
Speaker 5: in others it's going to be worse than what is
Speaker 5: on there right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and part of you know NXT is just throwing
Speaker 3: stuff against the wall, you know, the rest comes up
Speaker 3: with an idea. I think part of NXT is like
Speaker 3: step away, don't don't get in the way of what
Speaker 3: somebody wants to try to see if it works. And
Speaker 3: I think that's where like Adam Roal stuff comes from,
Speaker 3: and then it gets promoted the main roster. Evince thinks
Speaker 3: there might be a you know, potential in it. But
Speaker 3: I think if if Triple H were in charge of Raw,
Speaker 3: there's things that about NXT that he would just filter
Speaker 3: because it's not experimental, it's the final product.
Speaker 5: When don't you think that that filter should be they
Speaker 5: should be going through that on the way to being
Speaker 5: on raw because I feel like outside of the shield
Speaker 5: and the only one that popped in my head is
Speaker 5: Adam Rose, So I apologize, but maybe there's more than
Speaker 5: I'm wrong. But the Adam Rose one is exactly the
Speaker 5: same character that was on NXT, and it didn't go
Speaker 5: through a filter and adapt to the main roster with
Speaker 5: the NXT character, right, and that.
Speaker 3: And that could just be a matter of just yeah,
Speaker 3: it just was a character that was destined to not
Speaker 3: work either nx T or the main roster, but it
Speaker 3: was kind of the last chance, you know, to to
Speaker 3: get something out of him since he's in his mid thirties.
Speaker 3: And it got immediately good, good reviews. It was like, whoa,
Speaker 3: this this, this might work. But you know, we've we've
Speaker 3: dissected on this show, and I think you might have
Speaker 3: even back last time you're on in the sense that
Speaker 3: we don't you know, Adam Rose is all ring entrance,
Speaker 3: and once the bell rings, it's like fanser is ready
Speaker 3: to move on because we've never and again this is
Speaker 3: part of partly the bad announcing. We don't just know,
Speaker 3: we know nothing about him. He doesn't seem to take
Speaker 3: his job seriously. He's like he's all ring entrance, no substance,
Speaker 3: and they haven't taken the character beyond the initial vignettes,
Speaker 3: and so it's just it's just a confetti show for
Speaker 3: how for an early house show match to you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, that's all it's just it's just it's just
Speaker 3: glitter and there's no substance and it's just there for
Speaker 3: house shows. It was it was what I was gonna
Speaker 3: say PM News, I was going way back a brotus Clay.
Speaker 3: When I think of brotus Clay, I think a Pan News.
Speaker 3: I don't know why, I do know what, So you
Speaker 3: know brotos Clay was I mean, I said the second
Speaker 3: I saw his character, it was this is vincement Man's
Speaker 3: slot for a high energy We don't take ourselves too
Speaker 3: seriously lower card house show gimmick and it's not going
Speaker 3: to have upper mobility, and it'll be replaced in a
Speaker 3: year or two with something else. And that's kind of
Speaker 3: what I saw Adam Roseaz once it became pretty clear
Speaker 3: there was one layer to him and nothing more.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think the end result is always that they have
Speaker 5: to get in the ring and compete, and that character
Speaker 5: gives me no reason to want to see him do that.
Speaker 3: Agreed. Agreed. If you're just joining us, this is the
Speaker 3: PW Torch Live cast. We are on the air live
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Speaker 3: and as I said earlier, Matt Sidel Evanbourne my guest
Speaker 3: next Thursday. On the PW Torch Live cast. On Wednesday,
Speaker 3: ROAs Champion Michael Elgan was with Pat McNeil on interview Wednesday,
Speaker 3: Pat McNeil's interview on Wednesday was Michael Elgan. The week
Speaker 3: before it was Camala the Ugandan Giant with Pat McNeil
Speaker 3: on the Wednesday show. So check that out when you
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Speaker 3: go vip ex Wwe create a team member. John Piermarini
Speaker 3: is my guest, and it is time to go to
Speaker 3: the phone mines and see what colors want to bring
Speaker 3: up to us. And we'll begin with a VIP member,
Speaker 3: speaking of which Luis from New Jersey. Is this you?
Speaker 8: Yes, it is hold on let me turn off, of course, yes, yes,
Speaker 8: if I actually have three things, do you want me to
Speaker 8: ask them.
Speaker 3: All at once, or you use your best judgment. If
Speaker 3: they're complicated, give us some one at a time. If
Speaker 3: if they're you can rattle them off. I'll take notes
Speaker 3: and we'll just hit all three.
Speaker 8: Okay, now I'll actually yeah, I'll have them all three,
Speaker 8: all three at the same time.
Speaker 3: So take some notes. Sure, all right.
Speaker 8: My first question is about Okay, look, I'm actually a therapist.
Speaker 8: On the off side, I can't help like when you
Speaker 8: when you talk about all that creative stress, you know,
Speaker 8: the creative team stress and not getting your efforts recognized
Speaker 8: and whatnot. That usually a lot of job stress creates
Speaker 8: a lot of gossips. But then gossips, of course, can
Speaker 8: get you in trouble. So my question is, you know,
Speaker 8: how like how much did the creative gossip? Whatk with
Speaker 8: some common topics and the light? How scared were you
Speaker 8: guys that you guys were gonna get cars? That's not
Speaker 8: three part question, but it's it's fairly simple. The second
Speaker 8: question that I have is I just want to know
Speaker 8: it seemed like to me and WrestleMania twenty six, it
Speaker 8: seems like just last minute see punk and Raymond Cio
Speaker 8: Junior kind of just got thrown in there because they
Speaker 8: wanted a match for both of those guys to be put.
Speaker 7: On the car.
Speaker 8: So I just want to know, like what was going
Speaker 8: on with that if it was actually just put together
Speaker 8: last minute, the last but not least.
Speaker 9: I just want to know what wrestlers do you remember?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 8: I'm actually no, no, it's not that question. And I want
Speaker 8: to know whether or not there is a chain of
Speaker 8: command in the writing teams, like a or an unofficial
Speaker 8: chain of command where like, hey, you know, like if
Speaker 8: you're blowsty on the total pole, if you're the new
Speaker 8: creative writer, like you don't touch a certain match or
Speaker 8: you don't touch a certain wrestlers. So that's my three questions.
Speaker 3: Cool, John, you're you ready to tackle those? Uh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean we got there with the third one.
Speaker 3: Oh, go ahead. I want to start with the doget
Speaker 3: either way, yep, go with whatever's fresh in your mind.
Speaker 5: All right, I'll start with the third one, which is
Speaker 5: a chain of command. Uh, in the way that you
Speaker 5: asked it, there's a yes and no to it. And
Speaker 5: if I'm going to pitch a story, yeah, absolutely. If
Speaker 5: I want to pitch a story with if I'm brand
Speaker 5: new if I pitch a story for John Cena, it's
Speaker 5: not like they tell you, how dare you pitch a
Speaker 5: story for John Cena? Why aren't you coming up with
Speaker 5: TuS or Kokie Kingston.
Speaker 3: So, but yeah, he's the go to guy when you're
Speaker 3: talking about some lower mid card guys.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: Sorry, there was when.
Speaker 5: I was there, and I know that there's like thirty
Speaker 5: guys there.
Speaker 10: Now.
Speaker 5: I don't know how it's determined who does what. But
Speaker 5: when I was there, and I was on the raw
Speaker 5: team and then there was SmackDown in ECW and then NXT,
Speaker 5: so it's all separated and the hierarchy went Brian go Wurtz,
Speaker 5: Dave Kapoor, me, and then we had an assistant, Ryan
Speaker 5: Ward and to say that, yes there was a chain
Speaker 5: of command and you don't touch some guys. When I
Speaker 5: first got there, I would get the low level undercard
Speaker 5: talent if they had a promo or even a dark
Speaker 5: match promo. It was all just to kind of see, okay,
Speaker 5: let's see what you got. And then as time goes by,
Speaker 5: while I never surpassed Dave Kapoor, Brian the Wurtz. Yeah,
Speaker 5: there were times I worked with Sina. There was times
Speaker 5: I had the main events segment. There were times that
Speaker 5: you know, I had if if the words put himself
Speaker 5: with somebody and then Kapor had the level down, then
Speaker 5: obviously I'm going to get the guy below that. But
Speaker 5: then there was there was times when we would go
Speaker 5: to SmackDown and while I didn't and this kind of
Speaker 5: answer the question for the cmpunk Ray mysterio, so I'll
Speaker 5: bleed into that one. While I didn't necessarily know long
Speaker 5: term plans so much for SmackDown, I would be given
Speaker 5: a SmackDown talent to write for and it varied from
Speaker 5: again undercard to main event. So so no, it's not
Speaker 5: you can't touch this person. But if you showed up
Speaker 5: and it was your second week on the job and
Speaker 5: you know that there's a let's try Roman Reigns Randy
Speaker 5: Orton promo in the crossover segment from our two to
Speaker 5: three and you say, hey, let me have that promo,
Speaker 5: I mean, you have to have a pretty good explanation
Speaker 5: why you believe you should be the writer on that.
Speaker 5: But then the CM punk Ray mysterio story, that was
Speaker 5: all a SmackDown story. Going into WrestleMania, again we were
Speaker 5: still separated. We worked on the Row stories. They worked
Speaker 5: on the SmackDown stories and at TV, while I might
Speaker 5: be assigned CM punk during WrestleMania season, I was just
Speaker 5: going off based on what it is that they had planned,
Speaker 5: and sometimes I didn't even know what they had planned
Speaker 5: the next week. So it was hard for me to
Speaker 5: really push that story, which is a complaint that I
Speaker 5: always had. And that's where you see inconsistencies in the
Speaker 5: stories because you have a guy like me writing for
Speaker 5: the cmpunk Ray Mysterio story and I have no idea
Speaker 5: what's happening next week or three weeks down the line.
Speaker 5: But that was always a match we had planned for
Speaker 5: a long time. It's so long ago. I can't give
Speaker 5: you details on it, but I can tell you that
Speaker 5: it wasn't something that we threw together. Maybe it came
Speaker 5: across that way in the storytelling.
Speaker 1: Anytime you're watching WWE Raw or SmackDown, or AEW Dynamite
Speaker 1: in particular, send us an email if you've got thoughts
Speaker 1: on the show or a topic you want us to
Speaker 1: address or a question for us. Wadekellor podcast at pwtorch
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Speaker 1: anything else going on in pro wrestling that you want
Speaker 1: us to address on our main podcast during our mailbank segments.
Speaker 1: That same email applies Wade Keller podcast at pwtorch dot com.
Speaker 1: We invite that interaction, let us know what you think
Speaker 1: of what we're saying, and let us know what you
Speaker 1: want us to talk about and ask us specific questions.
Speaker 1: Wadekeller Podcast at PW torch dot com.
Speaker 5: But that that was the mak max I think for SmackDown.
Speaker 5: I think that was the number two, maybe the number
Speaker 5: three as far as priority on the SmackDown brand for
Speaker 5: Restlemania at the time. And then gossip, I mean, there's
Speaker 5: God everywhere. I don't know if you know from the
Speaker 5: standpoint that you're talking about that it was the stress
Speaker 5: that caused it. I just think that it was you know,
Speaker 5: when you're in high school, that's your entire world. That's
Speaker 5: all you know is high school. So I think it
Speaker 5: was like that with WWE. We all lived in this
Speaker 5: bubble and there was nothing else surrounding us except for that.
Speaker 5: So when it came to girls, when it came to friends,
Speaker 5: when it came to enemies, when it came to shooting
Speaker 5: the shit, I mean it was all about that people
Speaker 5: in that bubble. So I don't think anyone ever, I mean,
Speaker 5: there would be things where hey, I saw this or
Speaker 5: I heard this, and you know, don't repeat this because
Speaker 5: I don't want it to get back to me because
Speaker 5: I was then guy in the locker room. But yeah,
Speaker 5: I saw this happen, But I don't think it was
Speaker 5: ever anyone was, you know, telling secrets and saying hey,
Speaker 5: you know, I can't even think of an example, but
Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't think that there was more
Speaker 5: of that there than there would be anywhere else really,
Speaker 5: unless I just wasn't that involved in it. I mean,
Speaker 5: most of the gossip that I had was a lot
Speaker 5: of like when I'm on wage show, A lot of
Speaker 5: what I say on this show, minus things that I
Speaker 5: kind of don't reveal, is the same thing that would
Speaker 5: happen on the car rides from Raw to SmackDown, where
Speaker 5: it was dissecting the show and talking about what we liked,
Speaker 5: what we didn't like, what we wish they would have done,
Speaker 5: what we could have done differently ourselves, for hey, you know,
Speaker 5: to really go this direction or can you believe that
Speaker 5: then shut this down?
Speaker 4: Or this?
Speaker 5: You know, Brian didn't approved me saying writing this for
Speaker 5: swagger or whatever it may be. So yeah, no, I
Speaker 5: don't think that. I don't think if you walked in
Speaker 5: there as a fly on the wall that you would
Speaker 5: really get too much gossip from the writing team, the wrestlers,
Speaker 5: I don't know, the divas. I don't know. I guess
Speaker 5: the divas. Yeah, I mean there was always there was
Speaker 5: always some story worry that that one of them would
Speaker 5: would say to get themselves in a better position over
Speaker 5: the other ones, because at the time those girls were there,
Speaker 5: there was cheez I don't know, a dozen or more
Speaker 5: fighting for three minutes on the show every week, and
Speaker 5: it was usually just two of the girls. So hopefully
Speaker 5: that answers your question.
Speaker 3: How much was there of of just gossiping that you
Speaker 3: observed or heard of who's dating who, who's hooking up
Speaker 3: with who, who's interested in who? Like that kind of
Speaker 3: like the personal life stuff. I mean that just happens
Speaker 3: in any work on those writers, Like do there were
Speaker 3: when you were there among the writers, was there talk
Speaker 3: about oh did you hear this guy is dating this
Speaker 3: girl this diva?
Speaker 5: No, I mean the only time anything would ever happen
Speaker 5: would would be like if if someone would flirt with
Speaker 5: you and then you you'd hear it for weeks upon
Speaker 5: weeks on how that girl was flirting with you, or
Speaker 5: you know, Steph, Steph was nice, so you're now you
Speaker 5: know Steph's boy or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but.
Speaker 5: No, I don't think we ever really talked about was
Speaker 5: dating who.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I know that when I was there, MS was dating
Speaker 5: Maurice and they weren't really telling too many people. And
Speaker 5: then when it finally came out that they had been
Speaker 5: dating for I think like going on two years or
Speaker 5: something at the time, I remember even Brian the Wurtz
Speaker 5: was like, Wow, I mean I was writing a story
Speaker 5: that they were dating and I didn't even know that
Speaker 5: they were dating.
Speaker 3: Wow. That's interesting. All right? Oh, I got another email question.
Speaker 3: This is an interesting one in light of our discussion
Speaker 3: earlier between about Vincent mana Triple H and different styles
Speaker 3: of promoting Tom from the UK emails and says, what
Speaker 3: year in WWE history do you think most fits Vince
Speaker 3: McMahon's idea of a great wrestling promotion? And if Vince
Speaker 3: was guaranteed to make the same amount of money whatever
Speaker 3: creative route they took, would he prefer nineteen eighties Rock
Speaker 3: and Wrestling, Attitude era or something else.
Speaker 5: This would probably shot. But I think right now, I
Speaker 5: think that he has disdained for a lot of things
Speaker 5: that happened in each one of those eras, and I
Speaker 5: think that he's learned and this is just in his mind.
Speaker 5: I think that he's learned from his mistakes in what
Speaker 5: was great about that era and what was bad about it,
Speaker 5: And this is what he sees wrestling being in his eyes.
Speaker 5: I mean, this is the best product right now, because
Speaker 5: Vince McMahon ultimately could make either one of those eras return,
Speaker 5: but this, and there's there's a lot of times too
Speaker 5: where you know, I grew up with with the Hogan era.
Speaker 5: I don't know what they called that era. I mean,
Speaker 5: I guess the whole Commnia era.
Speaker 3: Right, wrestling a little bit, I guess, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I started after Rock and Wrestling. I came in
Speaker 5: like WrestleMania five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So.
Speaker 5: I like using a lot of that storytelling or character
Speaker 5: not not like you know again, not not the goon,
Speaker 5: but you know, having guys have a character and learning
Speaker 5: who they are and and and even the squash matches
Speaker 5: and just just a lot from that era and I
Speaker 5: was a huge attitude era guy too, and a lot
Speaker 5: I watched a lot of WCW, and I took a
Speaker 5: lot from everything, and there would be times where you
Speaker 5: would take something from from that time frame and Vince
Speaker 5: would just be like, that's trite. I don't like it.
Speaker 5: This isn't rastling, you know. And I think that he
Speaker 5: truly feels that the best of every era is incorporated
Speaker 5: in the current era that we're in, and he thinks
Speaker 5: that this is the best product he's had. Now. Does
Speaker 5: he think that he'd rather have Stone Cold, Steve Austin
Speaker 5: and and hul Coogan in their primes right now? Absolutely?
Speaker 5: I think from a talent level, he would probably prefer
Speaker 5: to go back to, you know, when he rated all
Speaker 5: the territories and had everybody's main event talent. But I
Speaker 5: think it's as far as storytelling and dying, this is
Speaker 5: what WWE is, I honestly truly steal he thinks right
Speaker 5: now is the best.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's like if you're a mac and cheese kind
Speaker 3: of sewer, and you had your way of making it
Speaker 3: when you were a kid, and then away in college,
Speaker 3: and then a weigh in your twenties and now you've
Speaker 3: got a family, and you're in your thirties or forties,
Speaker 3: and you make it and someone said, which way do
Speaker 3: you like best? How dumb an answer would it be?
Speaker 7: Is?
Speaker 3: Oh, I liked it best when I was in high school?
Speaker 3: Like why would you make it differently now than the
Speaker 3: best way? You know, like unless you're trying to save
Speaker 3: money or you know, be healthier. I guess there's yes,
Speaker 3: there's a catch to the answer, but the analogy holds
Speaker 3: in the sense of why would Vince McMahon not promote
Speaker 3: what he felt was best? The catch, I guess John
Speaker 3: would be maybe Vince would like to promote differently, but
Speaker 3: he feels as a publicly held company and with a
Speaker 3: PG the PG approach told the sponsors that he's actually
Speaker 3: just white knuckling his way through Rivory Week because there's
Speaker 3: so much he wants to do that he can't because
Speaker 3: he's constrained by his own PG rating or sensors or
Speaker 3: advertisers or usaying that, do you think there's any any
Speaker 3: element to that that goes into what we see on TV?
Speaker 5: Maybe? But I said the whole, the whole PG aspect.
Speaker 5: While I think it had a lot to do with
Speaker 5: Linda running. You know, I think it's if you look
Speaker 5: at and Wade, you you'd be able to answer this.
Speaker 5: But I think that if you looked at the money
Speaker 5: that he makes now with sponsorship in a PG environment
Speaker 5: compared to losing a lot of the sponsors yet going
Speaker 5: back to a raunchy product, or even not even being
Speaker 5: raunchy let's just say an Attitude era product, I think
Speaker 5: that the money would even out if he truly felt
Speaker 5: that that would draw. But I think too is there's
Speaker 5: this love affair with the Attitude era, and I loved
Speaker 5: it as well, But it fits the time. There was
Speaker 5: Jerry Springer, there was Girls Gone Wild.
Speaker 3: We got Jerry spring Monday. But go ahead, I get
Speaker 3: that point.
Speaker 5: There there was the Internet boom where people could watch
Speaker 5: anything they wanted if they you know, there was there
Speaker 5: was poorn, almost everybody. There was YouTube, and I think
Speaker 5: that it fit that time. But I think that today
Speaker 5: it wouldn't wouldn't work as well. I still think that
Speaker 5: there's elements of today that WWE isn't grasping. I think
Speaker 5: a lot of what people are drawn to on TV
Speaker 5: is like the darker side of characters and storytelling. I
Speaker 5: think that that's why they got behind the Shield, they
Speaker 5: got behind Bray Wyatt. I mean, there's no elements really
Speaker 5: of say Breaking Bad or The Walking Dead on WWE
Speaker 5: right now. They're going more so towards shows that aren't
Speaker 5: popular today, but something that Vince can reflect back on
Speaker 5: and go, this is what PG is to me, and
Speaker 5: it's it's, you know, you have a twenty something core audience,
Speaker 5: but you're selling them an eight year old product, but
Speaker 5: that eight year old viewership product. But eight year olds
Speaker 5: don't want to watch eight year old TV shows. They
Speaker 5: want they want to be cool and wants the Walking Dead.
Speaker 5: So I think that maybe Vince Fields handcuffed, you know,
Speaker 5: and and feels like there's are things that he could do.
Speaker 5: But I truly feel like in in Vince's mind, when
Speaker 5: I was there and we were starting to get some
Speaker 5: of these bigger sponsors, he was so proud of that
Speaker 5: and he wanted to get that. And I think that
Speaker 5: he just wants WWE to be part of society, not
Speaker 5: a circus, not what people laugh at. And I think
Speaker 5: that he feels that ww is legitimized and his goal
Speaker 5: has been reached when he can get uh PETSI colde
Speaker 5: you know, these these huge companies, these staples to to
Speaker 5: sponsor his show. So I think, yeah, I think that
Speaker 5: there's you know, I think that you see elements of
Speaker 5: it with with lata Uh talking about when when we
Speaker 5: had the Malaysian airlines and Russia may or may not
Speaker 5: have been involved, and he went right to that. So
Speaker 5: while I think he wishes he could go to that
Speaker 5: well and not be punished or ridiculed for it, I
Speaker 5: think that that's maybe the extent to where he wishes
Speaker 5: he could take the gloves off. But I don't think
Speaker 5: he he wants to run out there and you know,
Speaker 5: do a sable stripping down to just pasties or whatever
Speaker 5: else they did in the Attitude era.
Speaker 3: So yes, the rate at r Sex show with Lead
Speaker 3: and Edge or Mark Henry, and you.
Speaker 5: Know, I think he don't get me wrong, but you know,
Speaker 5: like for example, I remember when we were doing n
Speaker 5: x T the like the original format of it. I
Speaker 5: think it was it was season one. The he pitched
Speaker 5: in a production meeting Let's and it was the day
Speaker 5: of what are we going to do for this episode?
Speaker 5: And it was like a rewrite. He didn't like it.
Speaker 5: He wanted to do brawl for them. He was he
Speaker 5: was in to it, and to be honest, I mean
Speaker 5: I was into it too, just from from the standpoint
Speaker 5: of being a fan. You know, is it great for
Speaker 5: the product?
Speaker 10: No?
Speaker 5: Right, but I have wanted to see it. Yeah, But
Speaker 5: you know, Kevin Dunn shot him down. He was like, ah, man,
Speaker 5: he wanted to do it.
Speaker 3: And who I missed who you said pitched it? Vince
Speaker 3: Vince himself. That's okay, yep, yeah, so Kevin, well, that's
Speaker 3: what I thought you said. And then when you said
Speaker 3: Kevin dunshot it down, I'm like, well, Kevin done went
Speaker 3: to shut down Vince.
Speaker 5: Kevin Dunne does it, and he usually shoot down Vince,
Speaker 5: but I think he's kill Also, I think it might
Speaker 5: have even been something along the lines of, well I
Speaker 5: don't think that's a good idea for X, Y and Z,
Speaker 5: and I don't remember the reason, but hey, if you
Speaker 5: want to do it, but I don't think we should,
Speaker 5: but hey, if you want to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: You know, you know, when you're with someone that long
Speaker 5: and you've learned to kiss somebody's ass, yes, so perfect.
Speaker 5: He knows how to say no without saying no and
Speaker 5: get Vince to go okay, okay, I won't do it
Speaker 5: and it's my idea that I'm not doing it right.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, it's like Triple H says, Vince is really
Speaker 3: good at listening to other people, and you think it's
Speaker 3: a compliment. And then he pauses and then he goes,
Speaker 3: and you know, he listens to a lot of ideas.
Speaker 3: He's really good at that. He'll digest the ideas and
Speaker 3: he'll take a couple of days to think about it,
Speaker 3: and you're like, he's about to say something nice about Vince,
Speaker 3: and then he goes, and then on the third or
Speaker 3: fourth day, he picks the best opinion or the best
Speaker 3: idea and claims it as his own, you know, and
Speaker 3: claims he came up with it. But you know what,
Speaker 3: if you just want the product to be better, you know,
Speaker 3: to a degree, if it doesn't hurt your payroll or
Speaker 3: your job security, you know, if the boss wants to
Speaker 3: kind of take credit for it, and that's the game
Speaker 3: that's played, then so be it.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, you're there to feed him ideas so
Speaker 5: that he can decide what he wants to do with
Speaker 5: his product. So ultimately he pays you for your idea
Speaker 5: so that they can become his ideas.
Speaker 3: Right, yep. That's how three M works. You know, they
Speaker 3: innovate with a lot of cool products, but the people
Speaker 3: who work there get a guaranteed salary to come up
Speaker 3: with night team bad ideas and one that works, and
Speaker 3: three M pays for all the research and all the
Speaker 3: you know, the legal searches to make sure that it's
Speaker 3: not already patented and that kind of thing. And then
Speaker 3: when something gets huge, the person goes, yeah, I invented
Speaker 3: post it notes, and they go, well, what'd you get
Speaker 3: from it? You know, three m's make made billions. He
Speaker 3: goes my sixty eight thousand dollars salary or my eighty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars salary, and people like that to a rip off.
Speaker 3: He goes, well, not really, because you should see all
Speaker 3: the bad ideas that I would have run out of,
Speaker 3: that would have run out of money, try to patent
Speaker 3: a bunch of bad ideas and never caught on until then.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of it. You know. It's like, I
Speaker 3: want your ideas, but in the end, you know they're
Speaker 3: gonna be my ideas, and I'm going to get credit
Speaker 3: or blamed because I approve or disapprove of those ideas.
Speaker 5: Right exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 11: Longing for some nostalgia, or maybe you want to learn
Speaker 11: some wrestling history, don't miss the Nineties Pass cast every
Speaker 11: Friday on the PW Towards Daily Cast Feed. Alex and
Speaker 11: Patrick will transport you thirty years into the past by
Speaker 11: taking you through the Torch issue from that very week.
Speaker 11: Follow news from the WWF and WCW and all the
Speaker 11: happenings from across the wrestling industry in real time as
Speaker 11: The Torch reported it thirty years ago. That's the Nineties
Speaker 11: Pass cast every Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast Feed.
Speaker 3: All right, let's uh, let's go to a phone call here.
Speaker 3: Let's go to Erico three one four. I think this
Speaker 3: is Saint Louis. Please state your name and confirm the city, right.
Speaker 12: All right, this is Daming from Saint Louis.
Speaker 3: Hey, Damien, what have you got for John Drummer any today?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 12: I just have a couple of questions. First off, when
Speaker 12: it comes to how the data actually does pitch ideas
Speaker 12: as it has the final stay though in those ideas,
Speaker 12: how many times do you just figure like okay, and
Speaker 12: especially with the scrip be leaped out loops, and how
Speaker 12: everything from the final product difference from that script who
Speaker 12: you ask think will be we won't have that sense
Speaker 12: or this could of work, the good does not work.
Speaker 12: I'll just try to do your John, did you pick
Speaker 12: that up?
Speaker 5: I'm sorry I didn't get a lot of it.
Speaker 3: It was yeah, David, our connections are great. But just
Speaker 3: in one sentence talking to the phone, I heard enough. Right,
Speaker 3: I can restate it. But is your question? We'll go
Speaker 3: ahead and summarize your question one sentence because I got
Speaker 3: a lot of the bits and pieces, but I'm not
Speaker 3: exactly sure the core questions.
Speaker 9: Okay, in one sentence.
Speaker 7: The right way.
Speaker 9: You was part of the writing team, John, did you
Speaker 9: ever get that feeling like why did you decide didn't
Speaker 9: work or did not work versus what would ended up
Speaker 9: on the final product?
Speaker 5: So you want to know did did we have an
Speaker 5: idea as to why things good or didn't work?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 9: Okay, okay, okay, I just want to work. I just
Speaker 9: want to know what the thought process was, how well
Speaker 9: as that game compared to how it was?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 5: Oh okay, what what?
Speaker 9: What didn't that work?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I don't I don't know. I don't know the
Speaker 5: thought process of the creative team now because I don't
Speaker 5: know what percentage of their ideas are being used compared
Speaker 5: to Vince or or Triple H. But when I was there,
Speaker 5: there was a conflicting thought process, is the way I
Speaker 5: thought it was because I saw a lot of we've got,
Speaker 5: you know, the last few months or a few years
Speaker 5: left of these top guys, and we're going to run
Speaker 5: with them, and and mine and and a lot not
Speaker 5: a lot, but a few other people were, Okay, we
Speaker 5: have a few months or a few years left of
Speaker 5: these other guys, then what because we're in no position
Speaker 5: right now to have guys replace them. And and that's
Speaker 5: ultimately what happened was you had Batista leave, you had
Speaker 5: Jericho leave, you had Sean leave, Triple H stopped wrestling
Speaker 5: on a regular basis, same with Undertaker, and then there
Speaker 5: was nothing. There was just oh, okay, well this guy's
Speaker 5: getting put into a spot. And I think I think
Speaker 5: at that point it was like right back when they
Speaker 5: first started with his push or uh, you know, punk
Speaker 5: even by default, I think kind of just you know,
Speaker 5: he went from a B player to an A player
Speaker 5: just because he was a top the B list. But
Speaker 5: and again I'm sorry if I don't quite understand your question.
Speaker 5: But I think you just wanted to know like the
Speaker 5: booking philosophy at the time. But I don't know what
Speaker 5: you mean by what.
Speaker 3: Worked and how John do Damien?
Speaker 7: Okay, so.
Speaker 9: Okay.
Speaker 7: What I meant by that is Okay, when you're pitching
Speaker 7: that d and it gets shut down, got it?
Speaker 9: Okay?
Speaker 7: Do you always have that feeling like it didn't work
Speaker 7: and it just you just get frustrated amongst your sales
Speaker 7: that that didn't work and they even go with the
Speaker 7: fire aproct of TV. That's what I was asking about.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I mean yeah, I mean that was yeah,
Speaker 5: that was That was my everyday experience at DOWE. Here's
Speaker 5: an idea. I personally think it's good, or I'd run
Speaker 5: it by certain people who would say it's good. I
Speaker 5: mean God, there'd be meetings, or I pitch things to Vincent.
Speaker 5: He'd love it, and you know the next day, if
Speaker 5: Brian go Wertz didn't like it, it just would be
Speaker 5: forgotten and I could go to him and go, hey,
Speaker 5: are we going to go with this?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know we're gonna do this instead? Or and
Speaker 5: what am I going to do over? Brian said knock
Speaker 5: on Vincent's door and say, you know, Byan won't let
Speaker 5: us do this story, but you just have to. You know,
Speaker 5: and I've said this before in your Silvy is eventually
Speaker 5: you know, I.
Speaker 4: Wrote at the time.
Speaker 5: For myself, but also to what I felt could be
Speaker 5: great for the product, and in a sense try to
Speaker 5: revolutionize the product into something that could be great. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's why I went there. I want to do something
Speaker 5: where when I leave, I know I changed the company.
Speaker 5: And you know, a year and a half into it,
Speaker 5: you start going, all right, well, what's gonna get Brian
Speaker 5: to go? Okay, we'll add that into the show. So
Speaker 5: you get beat down and I can't speak for the
Speaker 5: current product or the current writing situation because I know
Speaker 5: that Brian doesn't oversee it at the moment, but yeah,
Speaker 5: you beat yourself up so much that you start going,
Speaker 5: I know this could work, and I know not every
Speaker 5: idea I have is gonna work, but one of these
Speaker 5: is gonna work. One of these. I put so much effort, blood,
Speaker 5: sweat and tears into, you know, coming up with this,
Speaker 5: sitting with the talent, talking with the talent over the pot,
Speaker 5: so much time away from your friends and family and
Speaker 5: going all right, I finally got it.
Speaker 7: This is it.
Speaker 5: I'm ready to pitch it, and then it's ignored or
Speaker 5: it's going, oh you you have in week three this
Speaker 5: guy facing Curtis Axel. Well, we wouldn't do that. So
Speaker 5: it's like, well, so the whole story's dead. Why can't
Speaker 5: we just put another heel in there? And then you
Speaker 5: just start going all right, fine, and you start you
Speaker 5: start pitching for Brian or for this, and ultimately that's
Speaker 5: kind of what led to me going, I throw my
Speaker 5: hands up that I'm leaving. But I don't know how
Speaker 5: it is today.
Speaker 3: Very good.
Speaker 5: But you've had you've had Matt McCarthy on. I don't
Speaker 5: know if he's he said anything similar to that in
Speaker 5: the sense of, you know, he pickes his brains out
Speaker 5: and nothing ever gets used, and he just kind of
Speaker 5: threw his hands up and said, whatever whatever you want,
Speaker 5: I'll write, I'll write it.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, And I think every writer who's been on
Speaker 3: the show has talked about a certain level of frustration
Speaker 3: that kicks in at some point where you you just
Speaker 3: understand that there's a way that things are done and
Speaker 3: you have to have some level of humility that maybe
Speaker 3: there's a good reason for this that I don't understand yet,
Speaker 3: and over time I'll figure it out. And then there's
Speaker 3: also the level of frustration, which is they don't listen
Speaker 3: to any two voice. They're stuck in their ways and
Speaker 3: it's institutionalized and it's bad for the product, and you
Speaker 3: just spend your time trying to figure out is it
Speaker 3: ninety ten or ten ninety? You know, how frustrated should
Speaker 3: I be versus how much should I just kind of
Speaker 3: wait around because someday I'll get it.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like people say, you know, you grow, you're destined
Speaker 3: to be like your parents when you get older, and
Speaker 3: you're like, there's absolutely no way. And then by the
Speaker 3: time you're you know, you know a certain age, you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: now I get why, you know whatever. So it's a
Speaker 3: mix of those two things, and it's probably in any
Speaker 3: corporate culture. When new people show up, they they're bread eye, bushytailed,
Speaker 3: ready to contribute ideas and shake things up. And there's
Speaker 3: a whole institution of people and methodologies that got people
Speaker 3: to the point that they're at that they're scared to
Speaker 3: shake up. And part of a good corporation is finding
Speaker 3: that balance between honoring tradition and introducing new ideas, and
Speaker 3: WWE and physic Mann are probably at fault for, you know,
Speaker 3: being somewhat limited in less their backstory the wall and
Speaker 3: accepting new ideas, and the attitude era was born out of,
Speaker 3: in great part, being scared because the competitor was doing
Speaker 3: a better job than them.
Speaker 5: Two things.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 5: One thing I do regret is I mean, I had
Speaker 5: my reasons for leaving, but you know, sometimes I do
Speaker 5: sit back and think of if I would have just
Speaker 5: stuck it out, and I would have even known that
Speaker 5: this was going to happen, so there's not really too
Speaker 5: much I can beat myself up about. But if I
Speaker 5: would have stuck it out until Brian was relieved of
Speaker 5: his position or whatever it is that they relegated him too,
Speaker 5: you know how much of a difference could I have made?
Speaker 5: How could I have, did you know, put in that
Speaker 5: spot or could at least I could have had a
Speaker 5: better vehicle to get my ideas used. And I still
Speaker 5: sit this day wonder that. But you know, what can
Speaker 5: you do? And I think you do see, at least
Speaker 5: from my perspective watching it as someone who's going, okay,
Speaker 5: how is this pitched? Or whose idea was this or
Speaker 5: you know, does this look like something that they had
Speaker 5: planned or something they just threw together. I do notice
Speaker 5: a lot now that there seems to be a lot
Speaker 5: more involvement with the undercard like that we talked about
Speaker 5: when we first started this conversation, and a lot more
Speaker 5: different types of ideas and philosophies used within the show
Speaker 5: that I do think that they're bringing in these guys
Speaker 5: from from Hollywood that are lasting, you know, three months,
Speaker 5: and these guys are kind of coming in and going, Okay,
Speaker 5: I know storytelling, and I know what I need to
Speaker 5: get across, but I need everybody's help because I don't
Speaker 5: necessarily know wrestling psychology or I don't know how to
Speaker 5: properly lay out a story that you know, the way
Speaker 5: Vince likes it. So I think you see a lot
Speaker 5: of the ideas from a lot of the different writers,
Speaker 5: and it's a guest used throughout the show. And it
Speaker 5: would have been a great time for me when I
Speaker 5: look at it and going, I think I would have
Speaker 5: fit in better now than I did in two thousand
Speaker 5: and nine and twenty ten. And while I'm proud of
Speaker 5: the accomplishment that I was able to contribute to the product.
Speaker 5: I think that I would have been able to accomplish
Speaker 5: a lot more just based on what I see, But
Speaker 5: then again it could be worse now I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, very good. I've got another good follow up email.
Speaker 3: We'll save that for the VIP after show from a
Speaker 3: listener asking tying it into current events and the storyline
Speaker 3: going on with Stephanie, Nikki and Bell. In fact, John,
Speaker 3: we didn't get to pretty much anything that I in
Speaker 3: our email exchange that we were going to get to today,
Speaker 3: so we'll do that in the VIP after show in
Speaker 3: just a couple of minutes. Here, I do want to
Speaker 3: note that we've had just had some great interviews this
Speaker 3: summer since John was last on the show, including Xbox
Speaker 3: Sean Waltman, one of my favorite guests on this show,
Speaker 3: provides so much insight into how WWE operates. He talks
Speaker 3: so freely, talked about his reaction to the streak, ending
Speaker 3: why he was the first to pitch to Triple H
Speaker 3: that Roman Reigns could be a blue chip, top tier player,
Speaker 3: and this was when Rains was frustrated with the lack
Speaker 3: of progress and developmental his reaction to see on Punk
Speaker 3: Silence and more. That was back on June twentieth. You
Speaker 3: can find these shows when you go vip. By the way,
Speaker 3: there's a drop menu on pw torch dot COM's membership
Speaker 3: page pw torch dot com Flash members. There's a drop
Speaker 3: menu and it's just pw torch live cast interviews, and
Speaker 3: when you choose that option, you can scroll through years
Speaker 3: and years and years of interviews and downloader stream whatever
Speaker 3: it is you're in the mood to listen to. Pat
Speaker 3: McNeil in June interviewed Joel Gertner, former ECW announcement. My
Speaker 3: guess you're on the live cast, John, anything you want
Speaker 3: to plug Twitter? Any projects coming up, anything people should
Speaker 3: look for.
Speaker 5: No, not really.
Speaker 3: You don't want people to follw you on Twitter anymore.
Speaker 3: I don't blame you.
Speaker 5: If they want, it's John as himself. Feel free to
Speaker 5: follow me and projects. I mean, yeah, maybe on one
Speaker 5: of the future shows, I may actually have some some
Speaker 5: fun stuff to announce that your viewers might actually be
Speaker 5: interested in, but nothing finalize at the moment.
Speaker 3: Cool. All right, Well, it's been a great discussion and
Speaker 3: it's going to continue now. On the other side of
Speaker 3: the music, we're going to go to the VIP after show.
Speaker 3: I think everybody for joining us, and if we didn't
Speaker 3: get to you on the phone, banks just draw me
Speaker 3: an email right now, especially if you're a VP member
Speaker 3: with your question PW Torch Live cast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: We do not take calls on the VP after show,
Speaker 3: but we do answer email questions. And another perk of
Speaker 3: going VISPS you don't have to listen to my long
Speaker 3: plugs telling you why VIP is so cool. Those get
Speaker 3: edited out of the VIP version along with plugs for
Speaker 3: our sponsors, so that for some of you at this
Speaker 3: specific moment might be a real incentive. So go VIP
Speaker 3: for three thirty three. All right, thank you everybody once again.
Speaker 3: Bruce Mitchell and Travis Bryant to be by on Monday,
Speaker 3: and then next Wednesday, Pat McNeill be hosting with another interview.
Speaker 3: I don't think he told me yet who he's got
Speaker 3: lined up. But then next Thursday, a special Thursday interview
Speaker 3: I'll be hosting and Matt Sidel maybe better known as
Speaker 3: Evan Bourne, will be my guest. Well, now we're not
Speaker 3: going to move to the VIP after show and talk
Speaker 3: about events in WWE, including Lessener Sena hype Getchon's opinion
Speaker 3: on that, should Roman Reigns face triple H between now
Speaker 3: in WrestleMania and if so, under what circumstances, We'll talk
Speaker 3: about the Stephanie Bella storyline and also that email question
Speaker 3: related to that. So thanks again everybody, and thanks John
Speaker 3: Piermarini and on the outside of the music VP members
Speaker 3: whole tight some good discussion yet to come. All right, John,
Speaker 3: I know you told me off there on the VF
Speaker 3: you have to show you had one of the most
Speaker 3: incredible things and stories to share that you had ever shared,
Speaker 3: and that you only wanted to do it on VIP,
Speaker 3: So why don't you go ahead and tell that story?
Speaker 10: Now?
Speaker 3: Well wait, that wasn't you. That was somebody else. Sorry, John,
Speaker 3: all right, You're like, wait a second, No, I just
Speaker 3: did that because now you know, all the non VIP
Speaker 3: members might sign up and then they'll find out that
Speaker 3: I'm unscrupulous in my in my well, you know, there's
Speaker 3: there's gonna be if I keep that in and don't
Speaker 3: edit out, there's gonna be some people who signed up
Speaker 3: just for that reason, be like, oh geez, that's that's
Speaker 3: a trustplate. Ever again, all right, I've done that a
Speaker 3: few other times. No one's complained, so I kind of
Speaker 3: fun with that anyhow. All right, well, let's start off
Speaker 3: with his email, because it's an interesting email from somebody
Speaker 3: who I think was listening to the show here and
Speaker 3: let me I brought it up on my phone. It's
Speaker 3: all righty here, all right? This comes from Devon or Devon.
Speaker 3: He says, My main issue with the Bella Twins storyline
Speaker 3: is that the motivations behind the characters actions are not
Speaker 3: really coherent. When John was around, how much time they
Speaker 3: did the writer spend vetting stories or altering angles to
Speaker 3: make sure that there were no excuse me, that there
Speaker 3: were no holes in Each character was acting logically and
Speaker 3: rationally based on their stated motivation and goals. An example
Speaker 3: of clarify my point is Nicki hates Brie for stealing
Speaker 3: all of her boyfriends and all the other things mentioned
Speaker 3: in the Growing Up Bella segment. Well, if that's true,
Speaker 3: then Bree's a bad sister and Nikki is not really
Speaker 3: the heel here. But if Nicky's lying and making these
Speaker 3: stories up, then why exactly is she mad at Brie?
Speaker 3: Doesn't seem like the current creative team in Vince is
Speaker 3: bothering to make sure their stories actually make sense?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think he just sums up the whole story
Speaker 5: and why okay? Because I thought the same thing when
Speaker 5: I was watching those Growing Up Bella segments. I was thinking,
Speaker 5: all right, so Breeze the heel or is she lying?
Speaker 5: And Bree's gonna have this moment to be able to say,
Speaker 5: you know, all those stories are true, except that was
Speaker 5: you nicky. You know, you almost leave the audience to
Speaker 5: wonder and go, okay, well, I guess I don't really
Speaker 5: like free right now. It was almost like the same
Speaker 5: thing with the Daniel Brian is cheating on bree story.
Speaker 5: It's like, Wow, Daniel Brian's not really that cool of
Speaker 5: a dude because you never had him come out and say, hey,
Speaker 5: not true, guys. I know, I think brief for like
Speaker 5: an interview segment right before match at Summer Slip, I
Speaker 5: think she said something like Stephanie came out and told
Speaker 5: that big, fabricated lie about about Daniel Brian. But I mean,
Speaker 5: how do we notice that that's not Daniel Brian going
Speaker 5: that's a lie and her going I knew it, you know,
Speaker 5: I mean, we had no conclusion to if that was
Speaker 5: a lie or not.
Speaker 1: You don't have to wait for the way Keller Pro
Speaker 1: Wrestling post show to find out what I thought of
Speaker 1: Monday Night Raw and SmackDown. Each week, you can check
Speaker 1: out my reports that are updated live throughout Raw and
Speaker 1: SmackDown at pw torch dot com. I written report. We'll
Speaker 1: tell you what's happening in detail in case you missed
Speaker 1: the show, and it will also analyze key segments and
Speaker 1: give my random thoughts quips on what I'm watching as
Speaker 1: it airs. So check it out every Monday night and
Speaker 1: Tuesday night at pewtorch dot com. That also applies to
Speaker 1: WWE payperviews. I cover those live at pw torch dot
Speaker 1: com with a detailed written report with star ratings, and
Speaker 1: of course you can find other TV reports from other
Speaker 1: contributors to pw torch such as nxt ROH, Impact Wrestling
Speaker 1: and more. Check it out pw torch dot com your
Speaker 1: first stop for TV and pay per view written reports.
Speaker 5: But Yeah, I don't know how I could really add
Speaker 5: anything to his answer, because it's one of those two things.
Speaker 5: Either Bree is the bad guy and you know it's
Speaker 5: horrible storytelling, or Nicky's lying. But why isn't any one
Speaker 5: coming out and disputing these claims unless they're just unless
Speaker 5: Vince Fields or the writing team feels that they're so
Speaker 5: wacky that nobody would believe it's possible.
Speaker 3: Right, But even so, then, why does NICKI not like Brie?
Speaker 3: Why is she the heel? Why did she turn on
Speaker 3: her sister? Because like, yeah, I mean, they probably just
Speaker 3: haven't thought about this, and Vin would be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter. If we just wanted fans to feel
Speaker 3: a certain emotion in the moment and not think too
Speaker 3: hard about it. And for a lot of fans that
Speaker 3: might be enough, but you're leaving some fans behind who
Speaker 3: care about that stuff.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think it was mostly we need a finish to
Speaker 5: this match, and this is the finish, and so after
Speaker 5: that we need to come up with a reason. And
Speaker 5: it seems like an important aspect of the show because
Speaker 5: Stephanie is involved, But typically it would have just been
Speaker 5: just we don't need to give an explanation. It's the
Speaker 5: sixth thing on the list of things that we're trying
Speaker 5: to get across on the show this week. But I
Speaker 5: would think it's a top priority at least for Stephanie
Speaker 5: to try to go, hey, where is this going? And
Speaker 5: who knows, you know, maybe down the line you'll get
Speaker 5: more of a reason, or maybe it's you know, it's
Speaker 5: that pushback where h Stephanie is really into something and
Speaker 5: Vince isn't, and Vince is gonna ultimately win out and
Speaker 5: go I don't I know, I don't want any of
Speaker 5: this set Just go out there, do this, do that,
Speaker 5: and get it over with. But I think if you know,
Speaker 5: the question was, let's try to make some sense of it,
Speaker 5: and I think you could still sort of make sense
Speaker 5: of it in the sense of, maybe, you know, he'lls
Speaker 5: typically believe the bs that they say, and I maybe
Speaker 5: Nicky felt like Bree was the golden child and she
Speaker 5: always did everything right. Nicki did everything wrong. And you know,
Speaker 5: she's jealous that Brie got married, and of course she's
Speaker 5: gonna go, oh, you married that goat based guy, but
Speaker 5: in reality, she's going, god, I really wish that was me.
Speaker 7: And then so.
Speaker 5: Brie, you know, and they went into WWE together as
Speaker 5: a team, and Brie sort of abandoned her for her husband.
Speaker 5: And you know, maybe Nikki could tell a story of
Speaker 5: that situation has come up before, But I always chose you,
Speaker 5: and I think they even touched on that a little
Speaker 5: bit where she was like quit for me and she
Speaker 5: said no, and so it was like I've lost my sister.
Speaker 5: And on top of me losing my sister, she kind
Speaker 5: of stabbed me in the back because I was getting
Speaker 5: my ass kicked for a month and you decided that
Speaker 5: it was more important for you to stand up for
Speaker 5: your husband than to save me, and we were in
Speaker 5: the womb together, and this is this is what I get.
Speaker 5: So yeah, screw you. I'm I'm I hate you because
Speaker 5: I'm jealous of everything and you've turned your back on
Speaker 5: me and you chose somebody over me, and I don't
Speaker 5: have that other person where she might have done the
Speaker 5: same thing with Cina, but she doesn't have that opportunity.
Speaker 5: So yeah, it makes sense to me in a story standpoint,
Speaker 5: if you can get that deep into it and tell
Speaker 5: the story and go. You turned your back on me,
Speaker 5: and I hate you for it. You chose Daniel Brian
Speaker 5: over blood over your own sister, and I hate you
Speaker 5: and it's that simple. And if I never see your
Speaker 5: face again, then so be it. And I'll never shed
Speaker 5: a tear over it. I truly do you ruined my life,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna ruin yours.
Speaker 3: And that's the thing. I think part of what fans
Speaker 3: relate to when it comes to heals is they want
Speaker 3: to understand what made somebody turn on someone. We understand
Speaker 3: why Paula and Doorf turned on Hulkogin, but we also
Speaker 3: think Paula Endorf greatly overreacted due to his own faults
Speaker 3: and insecurities and jealousies. And so with Nikki, she can
Speaker 3: have a reason that it's actually true to turn on
Speaker 3: Bree and she can dwell on it and shine a
Speaker 3: spotlight on it. But the reaction the fans is a,
Speaker 3: you're overreacting to you. You're being petty and jealous and three,
Speaker 3: I just don't like your attitude and how you decided
Speaker 3: to deal with this, and you just need to shut
Speaker 3: up already, Like that's what can turn her heel And
Speaker 3: they're just you know, there's some of those elements are there,
Speaker 3: but you know, Breed needs to and that's something that
Speaker 3: I think Vince is just week on. Babyfaces need to
Speaker 3: actually be given a chance to say this is this
Speaker 3: is not true, and here is the truth, and and
Speaker 3: you know, give some proper attention to giving their side
Speaker 3: of the story, and it's strange, but sometimes that does
Speaker 3: get left out.
Speaker 5: I think two and again just to play Devil's dad,
Speaker 5: but get to Vin or Stephanie or whoever it is
Speaker 5: in charge of the story. Is that you know? I
Speaker 5: think that if you took this story and you said,
Speaker 5: is the goal to make three a huge star in
Speaker 5: the Diva's division or just in the company in general,
Speaker 5: And that's where you think that they're going, they're doing
Speaker 5: a horrible job. But it could also be that we're
Speaker 5: gonna use Breed to make Stephanie a bigger heel, and
Speaker 5: we're gonna we're gonna ultimately use Nicky in an effort
Speaker 5: to help Stephanie in whatever way. And so if we
Speaker 5: if we crap all over Brie, so be it. That's
Speaker 5: not our goal here. Our goal is to build stefinitely
Speaker 5: Stephanie to ultimately I tried to say two words in one,
Speaker 5: uh get hers against somebody else, you know, And while
Speaker 5: I don't necessarily one hundred percent agree with that, I
Speaker 5: can at least see the philosophy. Why are we going
Speaker 5: to invest letting Brie kind of get over on Stephanie
Speaker 5: when ultimately we're saving that for somebody else. And I
Speaker 5: think you can like compare that to if you watch,
Speaker 5: you know, a movie or a TV show and you
Speaker 5: see your top heel get over on a D list,
Speaker 5: or maybe not a D list, but like the fourth
Speaker 5: I'm trying to think of an example as I'm talking,
Speaker 5: and I can't think of them. But you know, the
Speaker 5: the the first babyface in the movie that the heel
Speaker 5: comes across, they're just gonna wipe that person out, you know,
Speaker 5: And it's and it's to build to win Spider Man
Speaker 5: or whoever it is, finally gets to that heel at
Speaker 5: the end, and that the babyface at the beginning might
Speaker 5: shine a little bit, but you're not gonna get too much.
Speaker 5: It's more so to showcase the heel. And maybe that's
Speaker 5: just what they're doing. And I think that I could
Speaker 5: be wrong and they could just be completely messing it up,
Speaker 5: but that's where my guess would be. And if that's
Speaker 5: the case, I would be okay with it because I
Speaker 5: think ultimately, if you look at the performance that Brie
Speaker 5: is giving, she's not winning anybody over as far as
Speaker 5: breaking out, and it's the whole goal was to have
Speaker 5: her break out of this. Nicky's the one. I'm not,
Speaker 5: by no means am I endorsing Nicki as being amazing
Speaker 5: in this story. But she's showing a lot more than
Speaker 5: Brie is.
Speaker 3: She's surprising people with her ability. I mean, she's kind
Speaker 3: of maybe she's landed in the groove that she's good at,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean that these kind of pre recorded
Speaker 3: segments looking at the camera and making these preposterous petty
Speaker 3: claims are you know, it's it's up rally more than
Speaker 3: whatever it has been asked for her before. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm curious to see where this goes the long run.
Speaker 3: You know, I teased giving you know, this incredible you know,
Speaker 3: backstage story and all that I want. I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: make it. I totally made it up, but I want
Speaker 3: to make good on this on giving a couple of
Speaker 3: backstage insights on how Stephanie's perceived behind the scenes, because
Speaker 3: I think that's fascinating as she's put herself out there
Speaker 3: on TV. I commented with Jason Powell on Tuesday's live cast.
Speaker 3: I think Stephanie is either really good to spectacularly good
Speaker 3: on air, and then there's this whole vast middle zone
Speaker 3: that she never hits. And then there's time I'm where
Speaker 3: she's just awful, channelducing, awful and completely unself aware and
Speaker 3: I think counterproductive. And it's just weird because she's doesn't
Speaker 3: really fall in the middle very often. And there's times
Speaker 3: where I'm like, that was good, she belongs on TV
Speaker 3: more of that, and then like two weeks later should
Speaker 3: be on and I'll just be grown and going, my god,
Speaker 3: she has no self perception of what her strengths are
Speaker 3: and that would just totally undercut everybody and and everybody
Speaker 3: she's in the ring with, and she just you know,
Speaker 3: sucked the oxygen out of the room. Your opinion on
Speaker 3: Stephanie's performances, you can react to that, but also perception
Speaker 3: of Stephanie as a boss but also somebody who puts
Speaker 3: herself out there as a performer. Do people walk around thinking, ah,
Speaker 3: Steph's cool, I work under her, but she's you know,
Speaker 3: she's relaxed and it's relaxing to be around her. Or
Speaker 3: is everyone just really you know, like at maybe her
Speaker 3: wish on edge around her and treating her like you
Speaker 3: better not sneeze in the right you know, better not
Speaker 3: sneeze around her and look at her the wrong way. Like,
Speaker 3: what's the backstage interaction and perception among people who work
Speaker 3: for her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, when I was there, she had just had gosh,
Speaker 5: what was it like, her third child, and so she
Speaker 5: was in the office all the time. She was never
Speaker 5: on TV.
Speaker 7: And then.
Speaker 5: Probably I don't know, after about being there a year,
Speaker 5: she started coming to TV more often and getting more
Speaker 5: involved backstage with producing backstage segments and kind of working
Speaker 5: with the divas. But as Faart like I think it was,
Speaker 5: it was she was seen different by different people, and
Speaker 5: I think for the writing team, I got along with
Speaker 5: her great, loved working with her. You know, her door
Speaker 5: was always open. I'd always you know, run things by her,
Speaker 5: ask her opinion and things, and I always thought the
Speaker 5: experience with her was great. But then you'd hear other
Speaker 5: people who just could not stand her, and you know,
Speaker 5: I don't, I don't know why. And you know, they
Speaker 5: had every every reason they gave. I had the exact
Speaker 5: op said experience with her. So I don't know. But
Speaker 5: as far as you know, at the time, she was
Speaker 5: Stephanie McMahon, she was a boss, she was part of creative.
Speaker 5: I think it was more so a title at that
Speaker 5: point than actually contributing to the creative.
Speaker 3: Team, but.
Speaker 5: The talent. I mean, anytime I worked with anybody and
Speaker 5: Stephanie was involved, they were always nice to her. I
Speaker 5: never heard anyone say anything bad behind her back. But
Speaker 5: again it could be because I was there, or it
Speaker 5: could be at the time that you know, they appreciated
Speaker 5: her and now they don't if those have changed. But
Speaker 5: sometimes it's hard for me to kind of speak for
Speaker 5: other people, and I can only speak for myself and say,
Speaker 5: but from a creative standpoint, I don't know. She never
Speaker 5: really contributed creatively as far as here's some ideas. She
Speaker 5: would walk into the room sometimes and sit us all
Speaker 5: down and go, okay, let's talk about this, but it
Speaker 5: was never here's ideas I have. So creatively, I can't
Speaker 5: really say. As a performer, I think she's great, and
Speaker 5: I think she's one of the better performers on the show.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's times that she just she just knows
Speaker 5: what she's doing out there, and sometimes I think that
Speaker 5: she takes away from the other performers that are out there,
Speaker 5: and I think that that hurts them. But I think
Speaker 5: she's great both personally and on air, so I don't
Speaker 5: i'd be a bad person to kind of like break
Speaker 5: down her flaws or things that I didn't like about her,
Speaker 5: because I honestly could tell you eight I never had
Speaker 5: a bad experience with her personally or professionally.
Speaker 3: Yep. No, Well that's that's great. Another question about current events,
Speaker 3: because I want to be able to hit these that
Speaker 3: I teased Roman Reigns. Your thoughts in the last few
Speaker 3: months now on the progress of Roman Reigns, clear leading
Speaker 3: physicians of the top guy even money on raw wh
Speaker 3: Johnsena was supposed to prove Triple A she's ready to
Speaker 3: fight face brock Lesner scene. It takes out let Rains
Speaker 3: get you know, get the finish and get the pin
Speaker 3: and Sina just you know, went to ringside the job
Speaker 3: with Triple H and now you know, match against Shorrton,
Speaker 3: rematch against th Whorton, a feud with Seth Rollins. Is
Speaker 3: do you think Roman rains is on, is being promoted
Speaker 3: at the right pace and is doing what's asked of
Speaker 3: him well? Or is he falling short or is a
Speaker 3: writing falling short?
Speaker 5: I think they're doing all right with what they have.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't know realistically what more they could
Speaker 5: do from a storytelling standpoint. I mean, they're pretty much
Speaker 5: making this guy a monster. He's running through the top guys,
Speaker 5: he's put in in key spots. But I think the
Speaker 5: one thing I would change is promos. Personally, I truly
Speaker 5: think that someone needs to be dedicated to him and
Speaker 5: him only. And let Range choose that writer, like, go
Speaker 5: to him and go, look, do you have a guy
Speaker 5: on this staff that that you feel you click with
Speaker 5: or that you respect creatively, or you know you're just
Speaker 5: in sync with, And and let him say, yeah, you know, John, Okay,
Speaker 5: John is your writer. I mean, you have thirty freaking writers.
Speaker 5: You have enough for almost one guy can be dedicated
Speaker 5: to one one wrestler, and you'd have everybody compensated for, so,
Speaker 5: you know. And I take that guy, and I think
Speaker 5: that that guy should do nothing but work with Rains,
Speaker 5: find his voice, find out who he is, and and
Speaker 5: literally just concentrate on Roman Rains and his promos and
Speaker 5: and and that entails showing up to the arena and saying, hey, man,
Speaker 5: after you go of your match, let's sit down, let's
Speaker 5: let's cut this promo, let's go over it. Let's let's
Speaker 5: find out who it is you want to be, you know,
Speaker 5: give me give me an inspiration. Okay, my inspiration is
Speaker 5: I'm I have such a hard time referencing someone, but
Speaker 5: my inspiration is star Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, so you want to emulate that type of character.
Speaker 5: All right, well, let me do some research and i'll
Speaker 5: get back to you and you do the same, and
Speaker 5: let's come together next week with some ideas. And I
Speaker 5: think you'd see him grow so much quicker if if
Speaker 5: he had that. And it's also too you know a
Speaker 5: lot of these guys sometimes, even when I was there,
Speaker 5: they have ideas but they don't know who to go
Speaker 5: to with it. Or you know, Roman could sit here
Speaker 5: and be like, man, I got this, I got this
Speaker 5: kick ass promo. But let's say he comes up to
Speaker 5: me and he goes, hey, man, I'd like to say this, Oh, Roman,
Speaker 5: I don't got I don't have your promo tonight.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 5: If you did it to me, I'd be like, all right,
Speaker 5: let me let me look it over and I'll take
Speaker 5: it to the person that does. But I think a
Speaker 5: lot of this talent feels lost at times when it
Speaker 5: comes to that. And yeah, you know what, I got
Speaker 5: this great idea, Like I'm sure that there is. I'm
Speaker 5: pretty confident that there's nobody on that writing staff that
Speaker 5: knows who Roman Reigns is. And I'm talking about the
Speaker 5: real person, and I don't think that there's anybody who
Speaker 5: could create a voice for him without going I need
Speaker 5: to spend every time i'm at on the road, I
Speaker 5: need to spend with you. And you know what, if
Speaker 5: you're serious about being the top guy, I show up
Speaker 5: every Sunday by nine pm and I stay at the
Speaker 5: HoTT I'll come to you. You come to me, let's
Speaker 5: have a drink, let's talk. If not, if you come
Speaker 5: in late Monday, I'm there at eleven o'clock, i got
Speaker 5: my production meeting till three. I'm all yours after that.
Speaker 13: I'm Kelly Wells, host of the seven Star podcast, the
Speaker 13: new ongoing Torch show covering the world of New Japan
Speaker 13: pro wrestling. We'll drop new episodes as major shows and
Speaker 13: noteworthy events dictate.
Speaker 5: And I'm Chris.
Speaker 6: Join us as we come with the ever changing landscape
Speaker 6: of New Japan as they navigate an era with no
Speaker 6: lack of talent but a real need to create some
Speaker 6: new styles.
Speaker 11: You can stream then your.
Speaker 6: Seven Stop on CAUs Now from pro wrestling talk.
Speaker 5: Come to me with stuff, let me figure out who
Speaker 5: you are, let me create a voice for you. But
Speaker 5: I just feel like it's a new guy, probably every week,
Speaker 5: handing him a script goings. I guess, you know, a
Speaker 5: badass would say this, And I'm not putting down everybody
Speaker 5: else but me. I'm not a badass either, but I
Speaker 5: would at least go, you know what, I'm not this guy.
Speaker 5: So I need to sit with him and find out
Speaker 5: who he is, and then I can take that and
Speaker 5: write for him. But I think too that what Rains
Speaker 5: needs to do is I don't know how I can
Speaker 5: really express this, but I think that he needs to
Speaker 5: find something to help fans kind of latch onto him. Give, give,
Speaker 5: Give something for the fans to do to emulate Rains
Speaker 5: when Raw isn't on on the playground or on you know,
Speaker 5: hanging with their friends if they're older. You know, you
Speaker 5: kind of had the thing with with Austin, you know,
Speaker 5: hell yeah, or the or the Rock kind of had
Speaker 5: his catchphrases and they caught on outside of wrestling. You
Speaker 5: had a way to emulate these guys, and it was
Speaker 5: a way for you to kind of attach yourself to
Speaker 5: that character. Hey, I could be stone cold Steve Austin.
Speaker 5: If I throw two middle fingers up to somebody, or
Speaker 5: you know, I can raise my eyebrow to someone who
Speaker 5: says something weird to me, I can be the rock.
Speaker 5: That's how I can be the rock. I don't think
Speaker 5: that anybody has the ability to do that with Roman Reigns.
Speaker 5: And you know, it could be something is just as
Speaker 5: simple as a catchphrase. Maybe it's something more. But I
Speaker 5: think that he needs to find a way to connect
Speaker 5: with people outside of the ring because while it's great
Speaker 5: to go, oh cool, his match is up next after that,
Speaker 5: there's nothing else to represent Roman Rains on the show
Speaker 5: or with the people.
Speaker 3: Makes total sense. I'm with you every bullet pointing step
Speaker 3: of the way on that. I think I like the idea,
Speaker 3: and again that comes from having an ext writer on
Speaker 3: the find it because you've seen that work where you
Speaker 3: find that writer or Roman Rains finds and identifies a
Speaker 3: writer who will work primarily with him, not exclusively, but
Speaker 3: primarily to learn his voice and get his voice more
Speaker 3: expressive on TV. To connect with the fans. Another big
Speaker 3: topic I want to get to before time runs out here.
Speaker 3: Brock lesnar John Cena SummerSlam match. What'd you think of
Speaker 3: the booking of that match and what have you thought
Speaker 3: of the follow up in the week since.
Speaker 5: I loved the booking of the Summer Slam match because
Speaker 5: I think you eliminated all the I think you tore
Speaker 5: down you. Okay, let me start over without mentioning the match.
Speaker 5: You bring in the biggest pay per view draw going
Speaker 5: in brock Lessner from USC and you have that power.
Speaker 5: And then I think they stripped him of everything when
Speaker 5: he lost to John Cena, when he looked human against
Speaker 5: Triple H. And did he lose two out of three
Speaker 5: to Triple H or did he win two out of three?
Speaker 12: Uh?
Speaker 3: I think he had to win two out of three?
Speaker 5: Okay, either way, he just became another guy. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's all that he was. It's like, oh, okay, cool,
Speaker 5: it's brock Lessner. But all right, I have no reason
Speaker 5: to really invest in him. He's going to go up
Speaker 5: against one of the top guys. He may or may
Speaker 5: not win, and I think that they hurt him, and
Speaker 5: then I think they erased all that with SummerSlam, and
Speaker 5: I think that he just became a huge attraction and
Speaker 5: I think that he's gonna He's gonna garner a. Anyone
Speaker 5: who who saw that or heard the buzz that is
Speaker 5: not a loyal viewer of the product is going to
Speaker 5: want to see him wrestle again, which is why I
Speaker 5: think that they have I don't want to say the opportunity,
Speaker 5: but they run the risk of destroying all that all
Speaker 5: over again by booking this match against John cena a
Speaker 5: too soon and too poorly. I mean, he destroyed Sena
Speaker 5: and I can't imagine them booking him to do it again.
Speaker 5: So in that case, you're going to take away what
Speaker 5: they did at SummerSlam. So I here's the thing, and
Speaker 5: I look at things almost I look at things as
Speaker 5: a fan, but then I also look at things of
Speaker 5: how it was probably booked, and part of me thinks
Speaker 5: that they didn't have a definitive plan after SummerSlam. They
Speaker 5: went into SummerSlam going this is what's best for business today,
Speaker 5: and I think that what they found out was whether
Speaker 5: they planned on going two months with this story or
Speaker 5: three months or however long, or maybe they just decided
Speaker 5: it was the best option because no one else was ready.
Speaker 5: And I think that what Vince ultimately did was go
Speaker 5: the only way to get people to care about John
Speaker 5: Cena facing brock Lessner again and more so specifically John
Speaker 5: Cena fans, was to give those people the hope that
Speaker 5: he could win. Otherwise everyone's gonna go. He got his
Speaker 5: ass kicked. I mean, worse than any since anything we've
Speaker 5: seen since the eighties or nineties, almost on squash matches
Speaker 5: on Superstars. You know, why would I watch that again?
Speaker 5: And I think Vince's philosophy is make him as strong
Speaker 5: as possible so that so that his fans believe that
Speaker 5: he could win. And I think that that's where they're
Speaker 5: going as far as is how they're booking it. What
Speaker 5: whether I agree with it or not, that's what I
Speaker 5: think the philosophy is.
Speaker 3: And fun Yeah, don't go ahead, Yeah, I just gonna
Speaker 3: ask you to do about what you were gonna say.
Speaker 3: I think here, so okay, but now.
Speaker 5: Let's just say wrestle they decide, Vincricmann decides brock Lessner
Speaker 5: is going over Undertaker at WrestleMania thirty and the next
Speaker 5: day at Raw all the powers that be go, we
Speaker 5: need to book Sina out until WrestleMania thirty one. We
Speaker 5: need to properly tell this story because we invested twenty
Speaker 5: one years into this streak, and we need to make
Speaker 5: sure this is done right. So let's just say that
Speaker 5: that was the plan and that's what they did. Okay,
Speaker 5: So really, how do you make Lessner look even stronger,
Speaker 5: but yet don't chill Sena again? So I think that
Speaker 5: what you could do and what they might do is
Speaker 5: you have to give Seena the opportunity to have some offense,
Speaker 5: and maybe you have something where Sena does find that
Speaker 5: dark side and he somehow gets away with hitting Sena
Speaker 5: with the chair some sort of foreign object, and you
Speaker 5: sell the story of you know, a Lessner is wounded.
Speaker 5: I mean, he's a wounded animal. We have not seen
Speaker 5: this yet, this could be it. John Cena could beat,
Speaker 5: could beat rock Lessner, and yet at the end, rock
Speaker 5: Lessner still beats Sean Cena. But you have a plausible
Speaker 5: explanation as to how John Sena all of a sudden
Speaker 5: got all this offense on him, yet he still loses.
Speaker 5: And then you kind of run with the story of
Speaker 5: all right, I mean, the guy that we've been touting
Speaker 5: is the greatest world champion of all time couldn't beat
Speaker 5: him at one hundred percent. He couldn't beat him at
Speaker 5: fifty percent? Who could stop this guy? And then when
Speaker 5: the time's right, it's Roman reigns. And now you've built
Speaker 5: such a huge star out of Roman where you got
Speaker 5: a guy who beat the Streak, you got a guy
Speaker 5: who beat John Cena, and you got a guy who
Speaker 5: beat John Cena maybe on one leg. I mean, who
Speaker 5: could stop this guy? And to go even further in
Speaker 5: just kind of like in the booking whether I think
Speaker 5: that this is the best idea or not. Like I
Speaker 5: was always the type of person where they would say,
Speaker 5: here's here's the idea, and I think the general idea
Speaker 5: is that Roman reigns rents the royal rumbles, and I
Speaker 5: would be always the type of person that would go, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm not saying we shouldn't do that, but for the
Speaker 5: sake of throwing an alternative idea out there, let me
Speaker 5: throw an alternative idea so it's not so predictable. What
Speaker 5: if you you know, and along the way you got
Speaker 5: to build Roman reign. So I think you got to
Speaker 5: keep them away from build WrestleMania thirty two. But who
Speaker 5: do you have that you can have them go aft? Okay,
Speaker 5: you've got seth Rawlins you've already had or I think
Speaker 5: ultimately you get to Triple H, who can see the
Speaker 5: ascension rain and go, okay, I got to put a
Speaker 5: stop to this because it's not going to be this guy.
Speaker 5: By the way, I hate that storytelling, but that's just
Speaker 5: the way that WWE books everything. So you know, you
Speaker 5: have Triple H go okay, we're doing Royal Rubble qualifiers.
Speaker 5: Roman wins, and maybe it's you know, he tries to
Speaker 5: stop Roman from winning, but he still does and he goes, great, Hey,
Speaker 5: you know, congratulations, you've qualified for the Royal Rumble. You
Speaker 5: will be an entrant, but you first will have to
Speaker 5: face me earlier in the night, and you can have
Speaker 5: Roman reigns go over. But then you can have something
Speaker 5: where maybe it's the authority, maybe it's just Triple H
Speaker 5: and a fledgehammer, but you have them take out Roman
Speaker 5: and not something that would be a long term injury,
Speaker 5: but just something that he's out of the Royal Rumble.
Speaker 7: And you go to the Royal.
Speaker 5: Rumble match and you have you know, ten nine to
Speaker 5: eight countdown, no Roman reigns, and then all of a
Speaker 5: sudden and you know what, and I'm coming up with
Speaker 5: this kind off the top of my head. So it
Speaker 5: could be done in so many different ways. Maybe you
Speaker 5: have Brock Lessner take his spot, you know, maybe he
Speaker 5: was number five and he comes out and takes the spot,
Speaker 5: or earlier, you know, brock Lesner declares, I'm going to
Speaker 5: be in the Royal Rumble. But either way, you don't
Speaker 5: have Roman in it. But Brock is an it, and
Speaker 5: Brock wins the Rumble. So now the next night on
Speaker 5: Raw you can have that question of, well, where does
Speaker 5: that leave WrestleMania or where does that leave the next
Speaker 5: challenger for Brock And you have Hayman cut such a
Speaker 5: brilliant promo. You know, hey, not only did we defeat
Speaker 5: the Undertaker, we defeated John Cena twice. We went through
Speaker 5: you know, from Survivor series to Royal Rumble. We went
Speaker 5: through this guy, this guy, this guy. Then we went
Speaker 5: into the Royal Rumble and we annihilated every single superstar
Speaker 5: in the back. There is nobody else at this point,
Speaker 5: maybe Brocks should go back to the UFC. Maybe we
Speaker 5: should just go sit on his ranch and wait for
Speaker 5: someone to step up worthy of facing him. Maybe we'll go,
Speaker 5: you know, conquer something else, and then all of a
Speaker 5: sudden you have Roman reigns come out and go, yeah,
Speaker 5: you've beaten everybody, but you haven't beaten me. And then
Speaker 5: you tell the story going into WrestleMania, where you at
Speaker 5: least don't have the predictable Roman reigns, roll, rumblewin, And
Speaker 5: while I don't think fans will reject Roman, they might
Speaker 5: reject the idea of him winning because it's just so
Speaker 5: predictable and it's kind of like, oh, we were hoping
Speaker 5: for a swerve, but you didn't give it to us.
Speaker 5: And it's not like they were dying for Roman like
Speaker 5: they were for Daniel Brian and they got their wish.
Speaker 5: It's more all right, they're building Roman. Oh, okay, he's
Speaker 5: gonna win the row row. Uh he won it, okay, thanks.
Speaker 5: You kind of can get away from that, and then
Speaker 5: you kind of develop Roman as bad ass. That's stepping
Speaker 5: up to lessener in it's the last hope essentially of
Speaker 5: the WWE. To get that.
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Speaker 3: Plus John right at the end of your last set,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you can hear me.
Speaker 5: Oh no, you're back, okay, So yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 5: don't know.
Speaker 3: If you've got the whole story, but I did. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we just added five You were off for five seconds
Speaker 3: most at most.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, Yeah, So I mean that's that's just it's
Speaker 5: just an idea of what they can do with far
Speaker 5: as you know, storytelling and then as far as like
Speaker 5: building him to be prepared and are are they on
Speaker 5: the right track with him? I think from a storytelling standpoint,
Speaker 5: so far, so good. It's not blowing anybody away. I
Speaker 5: think he needs a lot of work on the MIC,
Speaker 5: and I don't necessarily think it's his fault because uh,
Speaker 5: you can see it in him without him having to
Speaker 5: do anything, that this guy's cool, that what he's saying
Speaker 5: on TV is not really him. So I think if
Speaker 5: you can find that balance of this is the way
Speaker 5: we want to present you with here is your voice
Speaker 5: injected into it, because I don't think it's as simple
Speaker 5: and I and I you know, Wade, And while I
Speaker 5: agree with with you and Austin on certain aspects and
Speaker 5: you know, things shouldn't be overscripted, one percent agree. But
Speaker 5: I also think that Steve Austin was in the business
Speaker 5: for what fifteen years or more before he was cutting
Speaker 5: amazing promos.
Speaker 3: That's really good point here.
Speaker 5: But yeah, if you went up to him in the
Speaker 5: USWA I think it was, or you went up to
Speaker 5: him when he was first stunning Steve Austin. I mean,
Speaker 5: even he'll tell you that he didn't know what stunning
Speaker 5: Steve Austin was and you just just go out there
Speaker 5: and cut a money promo. Austin, you are well.
Speaker 3: He he talked to Paul Hyman about that. John, he said,
Speaker 3: when I left WCW and what TCW, Paul, you're the
Speaker 3: one who taught me how to tap into who I
Speaker 3: was on promos because he didn't know I mean, I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 3: but he didn't know who Stunning Steve was. But he
Speaker 3: knew who he was, and Paul helped him tap into that.
Speaker 3: And that brief day in ECW is what really was
Speaker 3: birth of Stone Cold exactly?
Speaker 5: And if you didn't have Paul Hayman telling him that,
Speaker 5: you may never have had Stone Cold Steve Boston. So
Speaker 5: I guess my point is, I think that you don't
Speaker 5: need to overly script, but I think you need to
Speaker 5: lead these guys until Roman goes I got it, listen,
Speaker 5: I got it. You know, I don't think you would
Speaker 5: walk up to Stone Cold right now and go, hey, man,
Speaker 5: word for word, go ahead and say this for me,
Speaker 5: because this is your promo. But I think that it
Speaker 5: would have benefited him to have that in his debut
Speaker 5: in WCW. Yep, you know, and go, hey, what what
Speaker 5: is stunning Steve oh Man, I don't know. Well, okay, well,
Speaker 5: I kind of have an idea. Can I can Can
Speaker 5: we go over what I wrote for you oh Man?
Speaker 5: And this is good, Okay, go out there, cut that
Speaker 5: and eventually he starts finding out who's stunning or stone
Speaker 5: cold is and he doesn't need someone to write for him.
Speaker 5: But I don't know that Roman, and I could be wrong.
Speaker 5: I don't know that Roman necessarily understands maybe certain points
Speaker 5: that he would need to hit on from a story
Speaker 5: telling standpoint, from a psychological standpoint. So I think it's
Speaker 5: good to have someone there to lead him because I
Speaker 5: think that, like the consensus online is God, just let
Speaker 5: him talk, don't script him. And I think that he
Speaker 5: might improve a little bit, but I think that he
Speaker 5: would also regress a little bit. So if you just
Speaker 5: had one guy who he was comfortable with, like I
Speaker 5: had guys there that I could tell you to this day,
Speaker 5: would prefer I was writing their promos to the people
Speaker 5: that write their promos. And it's because we click, and
Speaker 5: I didn't click with every person there. And I can
Speaker 5: probably tell you that there's probably some people that go
Speaker 5: This guy talks like he built such a rapport and
Speaker 5: knew everyone's voice, he didn't know mine. I would agree
Speaker 5: with him, but there were some people that I did,
Speaker 5: and there was some people that would say, Hey, I
Speaker 5: was assigned to this writer, but I want I want
Speaker 5: to work with you on my promo. Sure, let's do it.
Speaker 5: And it was always better.
Speaker 3: And I think what you're what you're advocating is probably
Speaker 3: for most guys a necessary step. But I think where
Speaker 3: the frustration comes in, and this is where Steve Austin
Speaker 3: and I are kind of in agreement. I think is
Speaker 3: what you described should be done as a some of
Speaker 3: what you described because a lot of a lot of
Speaker 3: what you say is so. I don't want you to
Speaker 3: jump and think I'm saying it this place or anything
Speaker 3: he said. But in terms of, like with Roman Reigns,
Speaker 3: working with him as a future top guy, near future
Speaker 3: top guy, what they do with him in terms of
Speaker 3: heavily scripting promos should be as part of an evolution
Speaker 3: to get him to need less and less exact wording memorized. Agreed, Yeah, so,
Speaker 3: and I thought you would agree with around that, And
Speaker 3: I think that's where Randy Ort never really got off
Speaker 3: the It's it's been a crutch for him. And he
Speaker 3: never learned to walk without the crutch, and so his
Speaker 3: crutch is I'm going to memorize it word for word
Speaker 3: because I don't want to have to think out there.
Speaker 3: I don't even want to feel out there. I just
Speaker 3: want to be in some character that I've figured out
Speaker 3: how to portray and memorize the words, and as I
Speaker 3: speak them, I might even be thinking about what I'm
Speaker 3: going to do tonight after the show, and I think
Speaker 3: fans pick up on that. And that's what Steve Austin
Speaker 3: really talks well about is And so what I'd like
Speaker 3: to do is Roman reigns is yeah, work with them,
Speaker 3: have him do some exact wording, but also as part
Speaker 3: of that backstage process, because there's so much money on
Speaker 3: the line with him, get him in a room with
Speaker 3: a camera and a microphone, a boom mic or holding
Speaker 3: it whatever, and have him cut the promo his way
Speaker 3: without a script, where there's some bullet points and then yeah,
Speaker 3: so then when he speaks it, he's then you can
Speaker 3: tell him, Okay, hey, here's that's what you left out
Speaker 3: of the script. But she did these parts so much
Speaker 3: better and it felt so much more real. But here's
Speaker 3: something that didn't naturally come to that's really important. That's
Speaker 3: a point you need to make. So this is in
Speaker 3: the script. You missed it. Let's try it again. Speak
Speaker 3: from the heart, don't worry about word for word. But
Speaker 3: you know, you got to hit this point. And I
Speaker 3: think that step seems to be missing because Randy Orton
Speaker 3: doesn't have it. You look at that roscript for Monday.
Speaker 3: A lot of guys don't have it. Some go on,
Speaker 3: some go into their own off on their own and
Speaker 3: it works. But it's amazing how close almost word for
Speaker 3: words some of these promos are.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, and wait, I'm I'm not an advocate
Speaker 5: for word for word. You know what I would do
Speaker 5: is I would write a promo out, Okay, I have
Speaker 5: it word for word, and let's say I go up
Speaker 5: to mis and I go, okay, here's what I got.
Speaker 5: And the guys that I had, you know, a working
Speaker 5: relationship with, they knew I'm bringing you draft one. This
Speaker 5: is what's in my head. And let's just say they
Speaker 5: looked at it and said perfect. I literally just want that.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't care if they went out there and said
Speaker 5: literally every single word on that sheet. But what I
Speaker 5: would sit with them and go, okay, but how can
Speaker 5: we make this more mis what makes you more comfortable?
Speaker 5: And if I'm with Roman, I'm going, hey, I want
Speaker 5: to say I'm going to beat your ass, and Roman
Speaker 5: would go you know what, I wouldn't say I'm going
Speaker 5: to beat your ass. I'd say this, and I'd go, cool,
Speaker 5: it's your voice. But from the standpoint of where I'm
Speaker 5: saying with the writers, is that in the nature of
Speaker 5: the business right now. And I don't know if it's
Speaker 5: exactly like that, but based off of saying you saying
Speaker 5: that there's a script and they're saying word for word,
Speaker 5: it's probably the same thing. Vince McMahon wants word for
Speaker 5: word what is said on that paper set out there.
Speaker 5: So if you're going to bring them a paper, yes, Roman,
Speaker 5: I need you to say word for word what I'm
Speaker 5: putting on this paper. But I want what's on this
Speaker 5: paper coming from your mouth, not from mine. I'm just
Speaker 5: giving you a guideline and I'm saying I think maybe
Speaker 5: this would be a cool catchphrase, or maybe I think
Speaker 5: that you should make sure that you hit on the
Speaker 5: history of the shield in this promo. And at the end,
Speaker 5: I think you need to say you're gonna kick his ass.
Speaker 5: Now if you want to say everything completely different that
Speaker 5: you want to hit on, like you said those bullet points,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna write down what comes out to your mouth
Speaker 5: and then he's gonna say it without reading anything. I'm
Speaker 5: going to write it down and then i'm gonna go, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna spend the next hour with you or till
Speaker 5: you go out there, however long that may be, and
Speaker 5: we're going to continue to cut this promo. Now it's
Speaker 5: word for word on a sheet of paper, but it
Speaker 5: came out of his mouth first, and that's the way
Speaker 5: I would write for these guys. I would never say,
Speaker 5: you have to say this unless these guys there was
Speaker 5: certain talent that depended on what was written for them
Speaker 5: and just going I don't know, just is this what
Speaker 5: you have for me? Okay, I'm gonna say that. And
Speaker 5: when I argue, you know, just let these guys go
Speaker 5: out there and don't overscript them. There's it could be
Speaker 5: a disaster for some. And I've talked to Randy. I
Speaker 5: worked with Randy going into WrestleMania twenty six. He can
Speaker 5: cut his own promos. He doesn't need someone writing them.
Speaker 5: But maybe and I've never asked him, but maybe just
Speaker 5: for him. He goes, look, I care more about what
Speaker 5: happens in that ring, and I want to make sure
Speaker 5: that everything's perfect. Plus I want to be able to
Speaker 5: have my time to myself to do whatever it is
Speaker 5: that I need to do, stretch, get my mind right,
Speaker 5: and I don't want to think about what I want
Speaker 5: to say out there. Tell me what you want me
Speaker 5: to say, I'll do it because it's the least important
Speaker 5: thing for me today. And maybe that's just the way that.
Speaker 7: He likes it.
Speaker 5: And while you know he's not the greatest actor in
Speaker 5: the world, I mean, if it's gonna be a better
Speaker 5: promo in the sense of the story you're getting across,
Speaker 5: if he goes out there and goes and then you
Speaker 5: need to come down here and see me in the ring,
Speaker 5: if it tells a better story but not the greatest
Speaker 5: acting as opposed to just going Randy go out there
Speaker 5: now with the open mic, and he's like, dam I
Speaker 5: didn't even think of anything. Oh, and he doesn't get
Speaker 5: across the storyline points you're in the same boat man.
Speaker 5: That was such a great promo. But wait, why are
Speaker 5: they fighting again? I don't understand, you know, so, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I think there's pros and cons to both sides.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I do think that it makes sense that
Speaker 3: there should be different methods used for different guys on
Speaker 3: the top half of the roster. I think we're in
Speaker 3: the lower half. You know, there's a level of efficiency
Speaker 3: that just needs to happen in the process. If you
Speaker 3: got to go tell me, but I have a couple
Speaker 3: of followups to what you just said. If you've got
Speaker 3: a few minutes, let's run through him real quick, super fast.
Speaker 3: What amount of time do you think wrestlers in what's
Speaker 3: the range top guys spend thinking about practicing and prepping
Speaker 3: for the promo that we see on RAW that's you know,
Speaker 3: somewhat an in ring promo, that's somewhat substantial. How much
Speaker 3: time does the average guy put in or.
Speaker 5: What's the range you're talking about that stage?
Speaker 3: Yeah, before the show, the afternoon of the show. Does
Speaker 3: Randy Orton put in three hours on his promo? Roman
Speaker 3: rains two hours? Or is it more like, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe fifteen or thirty minutes.
Speaker 5: You know, there were talent that I would say, I
Speaker 5: got your promo, let's go sit down and come up
Speaker 5: with something, And then there were talent that I would
Speaker 5: walk up and I'd go, here you go. They would
Speaker 5: take it run off, and then you know, i'd see
Speaker 5: them again later and go, hey, did you want to
Speaker 5: go over anything? Or they'd be like, nope, I got it,
Speaker 5: see you out there, all right, see you out there.
Speaker 5: So those those types of people, I don't know. I
Speaker 5: don't know if they just looked it over for twenty
Speaker 5: minutes and then met me and Gorilla and said, Okay,
Speaker 5: here's the promo. It's good. Yeah, okay, cool, I'm going
Speaker 5: out there, or if they spent you know, eight hours.
Speaker 5: I just know that any times that I really sort
Speaker 5: of try to develop talent, swagger Miz McIntyre dBase those guys,
Speaker 5: it was me sitting with them pretty much. Anytime that
Speaker 5: they were free, not going over their match. I'd go
Speaker 5: to catering with them and I'd eat with them and
Speaker 5: I'd go, all right, what about face?
Speaker 7: What about that?
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Speaker 5: I mean, I just always it was my They go
Speaker 5: out there and everything that weigh you and the audience
Speaker 5: sees is is gonna benefit them, but if it's good,
Speaker 5: but it also is gonna benefit or hurt me if
Speaker 5: it's not. And that's everything you don't see if it's
Speaker 5: a horrible promo. Ray Mysterio. I remember the night after
Speaker 5: ray Masterio won the title. I think it was a
Speaker 5: fatal four way, and I had his promo and he
Speaker 5: was sick and I didn't know he was sick, but
Speaker 5: I found him and I said, hey, you know, here's
Speaker 5: your promo. And he's like, okay, okay, I gotta go
Speaker 5: round and I was like okay, and I was like
Speaker 5: I'll come find you. I couldn't find him the entire
Speaker 5: night at.
Speaker 4: All though, And.
Speaker 5: All of a sudden I see him in Gorilla the
Speaker 5: segment before and I was like, Ray, like, what do
Speaker 5: we have you know? And he goes, I got it,
Speaker 5: I got it, don't worry, and I was like okay,
Speaker 5: because like literally I gave him just some bullet points
Speaker 5: of things that I wanted to discuss with him. Hey,
Speaker 5: we got to get over this. We got to get
Speaker 5: over that. He goes out there and wide. It could
Speaker 5: have been the worst promo anyone has ever cut in
Speaker 5: the history of wrestling, and it's all I don't think
Speaker 5: they cut it. It was on like a SmackDown, and
Speaker 5: I just remember Vince looking at me and I was
Speaker 5: we were in guerrilla after it was done, and he
Speaker 5: sat me down and he was just like, I mean
Speaker 5: he treated me like a child. Yeah, do you not
Speaker 5: know how to write? And I'm thinking to myself, it's.
Speaker 3: Like, did you throw Ray under the bus?
Speaker 5: No, not at all. I and I and and so
Speaker 5: Ray comes back after I'm talking to Vince. He sees
Speaker 5: me talking to Vince, and you know, at the end,
Speaker 5: you know, once once cooler heads prevailed, that's when Vince's like, listen,
Speaker 5: I know, I know, you know what to do. And
Speaker 5: I'm you know, blah blah blah, and I'm usually happy
Speaker 5: with what you have, but come on, you know, and
Speaker 5: I'm like, hey, it won't happen again. So sorry, I
Speaker 5: didn't say anything. So Ray pulls me aside and he's like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, man, I'm so sorry. I'm sick I
Speaker 5: was I've been you know, doing this, doing that, and
Speaker 5: I was just like, Ray, no problem. But I was like, man,
Speaker 5: next time, Like I can't have you go out there
Speaker 5: and do that. And he's like, I promise, Man, won't
Speaker 5: happen again. I'm so sorry. I saw you talking to
Speaker 5: Vince and you know there's there's that that happens. So
Speaker 5: I'm effected. Ask me, no writer wants you to go
Speaker 5: out there and have a bad promo. It affects It
Speaker 5: affects the writer more than it affects the the the wrestler,
Speaker 5: because I think, you know, you could go out there
Speaker 5: and cut a bad promo but have a great match,
Speaker 5: and I think people would be like, well, yeah, a
Speaker 5: great match.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 5: So I'm still kind of into them where I'm you know,
Speaker 5: Ray goes out there and has a good match, and
Speaker 5: while he's having a match, I'm getting shoot out right
Speaker 5: and then. And my goal is to sit here and
Speaker 5: go I want more opportunities. I want to move up
Speaker 5: on the creative team. I want to be someone Vince
Speaker 5: that you know you turn to and go John, I
Speaker 5: need an idea or John, what would you say in this?
Speaker 5: And I'm taking two steps back for you know, not
Speaker 5: even two steps for every hundred steps you could take forward,
Speaker 5: you have that one bad promo and you're back at
Speaker 5: the bottom, and then you got to you gotta crawl
Speaker 5: back up again. So it's I don't know, I don't
Speaker 5: know how long everyone takes. I can only tell you
Speaker 5: that it varies from you know, like a Christ Jericho
Speaker 5: is sometimes looking at it being like, okay, I know
Speaker 5: what you what you kind of want me to say,
Speaker 5: I got it, and then he just has it. But
Speaker 5: then there's time that Chris Jericho has come into the
Speaker 5: writer's room and we started a computer and you know,
Speaker 5: meticulously put together a promo, going on the thesaurus and
Speaker 5: finding the right words, and you know, spending three hours
Speaker 5: writing his promo. And then sometimes he just says, I
Speaker 5: know what I'm gonna say, and here write this down,
Speaker 5: and you write it down and it's done. So I
Speaker 5: would assume that sometimes somebody would spend five minutes, and
Speaker 5: sometimes someone would spend the whole day going over their promo.
Speaker 5: And I don't think there's anyone that just always spends
Speaker 5: just a little amount of time or a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so yeah, So the to put to you
Speaker 3: when I put the damien in one sentence. It's really there.
Speaker 3: What there is not a typical Narraw range of time.
Speaker 3: It really is variable depending on the person, their their
Speaker 3: skill set, the writer writing for them, the importance of
Speaker 3: the promo, what else is going on. It's like there
Speaker 3: really is. If somebody wanted to be a know it
Speaker 3: all with their friends, we go, oh yeah, I know
Speaker 3: wrestlers all spend twenty to forty minutes practicing promos. Like
Speaker 3: that would be wrong because maybe two guys on the
Speaker 3: roster spend that much time, four guys spend two hours,
Speaker 3: and other three guys spend five hours, and one or
Speaker 3: two or three guys spend less than ten minutes, and
Speaker 3: they all maybe do good or bad promos, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: I mean it's really it really is variable by the
Speaker 3: person and their attitude and their approach, I mean exactly.
Speaker 5: And I think the best example is like the Jericho one.
Speaker 5: I mean, he can he can go twenty minutes or
Speaker 5: he can go three hours. I think it just kind
Speaker 5: of depends on the mindset of the person at their
Speaker 5: time and really what they have going on. I know
Speaker 5: that there's been times where, let's say I've had Jack
Speaker 5: Swagger's promo, but he had a big match, so it's like,
Speaker 5: oh man, I gotta I gotta get with Taker man.
Speaker 5: And you know, just what is it that you got
Speaker 5: for me? Like here it is, okay cool. I might
Speaker 5: change this in this, but other than that, I like it.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna roll with that. Okay cool. And yet, you know,
Speaker 5: if you were to ask me, does the Swagger spend
Speaker 5: a lot of time on his promos? I say, yeah,
Speaker 5: for the most part, anytime I worked with him, we
Speaker 5: spend a lot of time on him. But you can't
Speaker 5: say that he did that.
Speaker 3: Every single time, right, Yeah, yeah, I just I think
Speaker 3: what the system should have and give him a letter
Speaker 3: grade and well lit. On this note, the system should
Speaker 3: have the ability to recognize wrestlers who are ready to
Speaker 3: break away from someone else, giving them word for word
Speaker 3: what the promo is going to be, and then that
Speaker 3: person memorizing it. If it turns out that that is
Speaker 3: one of the twenty or or twenty or thirty or
Speaker 3: sixty percent whatever number it turns out to be at
Speaker 3: on the rest of any given time, who are actually
Speaker 3: better when they're just told here's what we're trying to
Speaker 3: get across. Maybe they take some notes on it, and
Speaker 3: then they just get that in their head and they
Speaker 3: go out there and they come come pretty close to improvising,
Speaker 3: and it works for him. There should be something that
Speaker 3: allows that Stone called Steve Austin type, the Jim Cornett type,
Speaker 3: Paul Hayman, to break away and succeed expressing their own voice,
Speaker 3: in their own tone and not seeming like they're reading
Speaker 3: a script. But it's good that the system is in
Speaker 3: place because maybe most guys will never be that. And
Speaker 3: in today's wrestling, you can have two or three minutes
Speaker 3: eating up with wrestlers who literally are doing what Ray
Speaker 3: did on that day when he was sick.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I think also too, there are guys that
Speaker 5: were given that opportunity. Yeah, I mean seen a HBK Undertaker,
Speaker 5: Triple H. They weren't scripted, you know, we wrote down
Speaker 5: their promos because Vince wanted to see them, but those
Speaker 5: guys went out there instead what they wanted to say
Speaker 5: and it worked for them. So, yes, what your idea
Speaker 5: is great, but you have to get to that point
Speaker 5: to not only where you are able to up with
Speaker 5: something like that and know how to tell a story
Speaker 5: with your promo and do it well, but to gain
Speaker 5: Vince's trust, and like, I think that you know a
Speaker 5: story that I told you was that when I was
Speaker 5: working with MS, eventually we walked into Vince's office and
Speaker 5: he's like, I was like, I got Missus promo and
Speaker 5: He's like, I don't. I don't need you to bring
Speaker 5: me missus promos anymore. I trust he got to that point.
Speaker 5: So if MIS wanted to go out there and go
Speaker 5: I want to say this, he had the power to
Speaker 5: do that. I don't know if he still holds that power,
Speaker 5: but yeah, you do get to that point, and I
Speaker 5: think even Vince recognizes that and they're given that opportunity
Speaker 5: to do it. But I think Vince still wants a
Speaker 5: stranglehold on everything that's that's all put on the show
Speaker 5: and just to know what it is. So you know,
Speaker 5: in Austin's case, it would be where I'm sure he
Speaker 5: wouldn't care what Austin said, but I think he'd still
Speaker 5: want it down on a piece of paper. So that
Speaker 5: for Vinc's reasons, he has it because John Cena was
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, it's.
Speaker 4: The point is is that it does get to that
Speaker 4: point where YEH got do go out there and cut
Speaker 4: their promos without a script.
Speaker 3: And I think a really good point you made John
Speaker 3: that that's worth stressing is a lot of times when
Speaker 3: people see a raw script and it's word for word
Speaker 3: what the wrestler said, that doesn't mean that that wrestler
Speaker 3: was handed that script and they read it and memorized it.
Speaker 3: A lot of times that's the final script that the
Speaker 3: wrestler and the writer worked on together and it got in.
Speaker 3: What the wrestler wanted to say got written.
Speaker 5: Down, Oh exactly, and that's that's that's what happens with
Speaker 5: with those guys in that position.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like.
Speaker 5: Okay, s or HBK, what do you want to say?
Speaker 5: I want to say this, this, this, this, and this
Speaker 5: all right, I wrote it down. Thanks to go out
Speaker 5: there and do it, and you don't have to take
Speaker 5: it to Vince, but he does want it written down
Speaker 5: in the script.
Speaker 3: Yes. No, I think that's actually a really good point
Speaker 3: to end on people looking at that script thinking oh god,
Speaker 3: they're just writing anything out word for word. Wrestlers need
Speaker 3: more safe so a wrestlers do rise above word for
Speaker 3: word scripts and they come up with their own stuff.
Speaker 3: If you get to that level and you get trusted
Speaker 3: that opportunity is there. And number two, a lot of
Speaker 3: those word for word scripts are simply a documentation of
Speaker 3: what a wrestler himself came up with exactly.
Speaker 4: And you know what I think too that, knowing Vince,
Speaker 4: if let's say stone Cold got to got to Rain
Speaker 4: and said Roman, I think you'd be better just going
Speaker 4: out there and shooting the shit and being yourself and
Speaker 4: just kind of saying what bullet points do you want
Speaker 4: them to have? And I think that if Rains went
Speaker 4: to Vince had said I can knock it out of
Speaker 4: the park. I don't need anything written for me, just
Speaker 4: give me the bullet points. I truly believe that Vince
Speaker 4: would at least give him the opportunity to try to
Speaker 4: do that. So you know, if if a Stone Cold
Speaker 4: was in the w W right now and he went
Speaker 4: to Vince and said, God damn, Vince, I can't do
Speaker 4: it like this. I need to go out there and
Speaker 4: I need to feel it and I and I know
Speaker 4: what I need to get across. We've talked about it.
Speaker 4: Trust me, I think Vince.
Speaker 5: Would go go out there and do it. Then, but
Speaker 5: you fail and then you've lost that opportunity.
Speaker 4: So you know, and Stone Cold would know that he's
Speaker 4: dealt with Vince way longer than I ever did. And
Speaker 4: if you go to Vince nine times out of ten.
Speaker 3: The answer is going to be yes, interesting, yep, yep.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean it's not gonna be it's not gonna be. Hey,
Speaker 5: I want to come out and you know.
Speaker 3: I can only imagine what you're thinking right now, but yes.
Speaker 4: Right exactly.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to like dumb it down or pg it
Speaker 5: down a little bit, but you get what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: And yeah, he'd go, No, that's not in the context
Speaker 5: of what we're trying to put out there. But if
Speaker 5: you went to him with a request like that, just
Speaker 5: give me the opportunity, then let me show you that
Speaker 5: I can do this, he would go. You absolutely have.
Speaker 3: The very good John, thank you for great discussion. Your
Speaker 3: phone connection went out again, so I know you're about
Speaker 3: half hour late from where you needed to be anyway,
Speaker 3: and that's why that's happening. So thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Great discussion and really appreciate it. I learned a lot
Speaker 3: and it's great having John on the show. I think
Speaker 3: that as often as he's been on the show, I
Speaker 3: just think, well, there won't be you know, he's probably
Speaker 3: run out of anecdotes, you know, from actual first had experience,
Speaker 3: and there were several there that I don't remember hearing
Speaker 3: before from him, and really good insights. So everybody's AVIP member,
Speaker 3: I think, gained some knowledge and they can look at
Speaker 3: that rosscript a little differently and look at the WWE
Speaker 3: creative process with a greater level of understanding. Whether you
Speaker 3: agree or disagree with it anymore, at least you have
Speaker 3: a stronger foundation to work from when deciding if you'd
Speaker 3: like if you think their approach is the best approach
Speaker 3: to take. So on that note, with big thanks to
Speaker 3: John for he went a half hour longer than he
Speaker 3: said he could with an engagement that he had tonight,
Speaker 3: but obviously he was able to continue talking well working
Speaker 3: his way there. I really appreciate that. And on that note,
Speaker 3: I think, first and foremost, our VIP members, your individual
Speaker 3: paid membership to PW Torch VIP, pw torch dot com
Speaker 3: slash members, is what makes it possible for us to
Speaker 3: do what we do here on the live cast, or
Speaker 3: what we do here on the VIP after show part
Speaker 3: of the live cast, and everything else we do in
Speaker 3: the entire staff, uh, day after day after day, no
Speaker 3: days off. Darren Young and I share that in common,
Speaker 3: the no days off approach to what we do here,
Speaker 3: and we love it and we just every day. I
Speaker 3: just am feel thankful that you guys as customers enjoy
Speaker 3: what we do and what we put into it and
Speaker 3: the information we're able to bring you and a point
Speaker 3: of view and all that good stuff. So again, thank
Speaker 3: you very much and the film. Next time. Wade Keller
Speaker 3: signing off.
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