Are the WWE writers stupid or smart?

[kerimorrison]

whats your opinion on them making stupid fueds like cena/big johnny and not giving punk/bryan any promos and just basically focusing on cena most of the time!

it sucks that they really don't care about the IWC and only care about the casuals that watch the show mainly for cena and stupid storylines

[Brother Nero....Wolfe]

A lot of them have created great works of fiction when not associated with the WWE, so I'd say the environment/Vince is probably what kills them really.

[Deleted]

The horrible work environment, last second rewrite ups, and some never being a fan of the product. They aren't to shabby.

[Red Impact]

We've seen writers who have had good ideas, but they have to jump through all sorts of hoops and endure the s***storm just to be able to do their job. I'm more inclined to believe the working environment and just having the head bookers/Vince ultimately make all the decisions and all the changes makes it very difficult for the writers to actually get to get any ideas out. It's not like WWE is hiring idiots, they're not so much stupider than people here, they just have to deal with the environment and egos that others don't.

[Magnum Opus]

"Just Vince"

I mean I'm sure it isn't literally just Vince but considering that the last 6 months of NXT, there is still a solid corps of writers who know how to write a wrestling show.

[Bub (BLM)]

Randy, what do you think?

"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"

[Deleted]

I wouldn't say stupid. Just lazy and hindered by a senile old man who's only out to entertain himself.

[Andrew is Good]

May 16, 2012 12:38:15 GMT -5 Magnum Opus said:

"Just Vince"

I mean I'm sure it isn't literally just Vince but considering that the last 6 months of NXT, there is still a solid corps of writers who know how to write a wrestling show.

I would disagree, with kidnapping an announcer for a few weeks and somehow shows up on other shows. I feel the NXT writers try to write bad or campy comedy. But because people don't care about NXT, it gets put out there.

Vince changes his mind like crazy so it's difficult to blame the writers anymore for things that seem rushed.

[SassovsHart]

Some are smart, some not so much. The buck stops with Vince though. He's the one ordering the re-writes, and at the end of the day their job is to write what he wants to see.

[Crappler El 0 M]

Based on former creative team members, WWE does seem to hire smart writers, but in the end it all comes down to what Vince wants.

[543Y2J]

May 16, 2012 13:38:55 GMT -5 Crappler El 0 M said:

Based on former creative team members, WWE does seem to hire smart writers, but in the end it all comes down to what Vince wants.

Yep this, some if not all the writers that I have seen or listened to get interview come off as pasionate for the business and want to put on a good product. On the I want wrestling podcast most of them talked about there being an 'inner circle' where no matter how good of an idea is it wouldnt get by them and it would turn into something completely different. So thats why I dont understand the hate for thr writers, its Vince. Every decision goes through him and he rejects some really awesome ideas from a decent writing team (even though they are supposed to be "evil blood sucking hollywood writers")

[Deleted]

To be fair though I bet there's writers who aren't passionate for the business and are only there because they cant get jobs elsewhere, we don't hear from these ones as its probably only the passionate ones who are going to want to talk about wrestling after working there, the ones who dont understand or care about the business are probably too embarassed to mention they've worked there and probably want to put it behind them as a bad experience.

[madness50]

I am a journalism student currently and I have watched pro wrestling my entire life almost. Despite this, I would never ever wanna work for WWE as a writer. Too many hours and travel on the road. Also, I would seriously hate being around Stephanie McMahon. I actually would get along with Vince because I know what kind of person he is and my grandpa is a lot like him (mostly the stubborness). I would end up saying something to her like, "That the dumbest f***ing storyline ever and no fan would like that shit at all."

[Ryanar]

I also say its Vince, and the massive Egos backstage.

Its like Presenting a story for The Dark Knight Rises to Christopher Nolan, as he told you to do. And he tells you, No, Because Christian Bale was acting Inappropriately on the Terminator Set. So he doesn't get a great storyline in the next Movie.

Or (may be a spoiler about Amazing Spiderman)

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}Not Killing off Gwen Stacy in Amazing Spiderman just to swerve the fans who read the comics

Thats exactly what these Writers have to go through. I would love to see some of the greatest storylines they have written that have not come to fruition. Just to show the fans who think Creative is a group of idiots. That would easily be a great read.

[Mayonnaise]

There have been some incredibly creative people go through the WWE machine and yet the writing rarely gets better so that leaves one constant, Vince McMahon.

[kyromax]

A lot of it is Vince, but with certain writers (Lagana,Heymen,ect) they understand the importance of titles. These current set of writers seem concentrate more on story, than they do on titles.

Also the last thing that created a "buzz" was almost exclusively done by Triple H, McMahon, Cena, and Punk. Once writers got a hold of Punk, he became stale.

Wrestlers know how their characters work best, someone telling you how you are suppose to act always waters down the product.

[Dr. T is an alien]

I remember reading an interview with Steve Corino where he outlined his experiences with a try-out for the creative team (he also worked a couple of dark matches). He came in having written up a few show treatments old school style, with each show treatment being about four pages long including times, tones of the matches, finish sequences, and bulletpoints for every interview. The woman who interviewed him read his treatment for a Batista interview ripped him a new one for not writing out every single line. He explained that should only be done for people extremely weak on the mic, which Batista wasn't. He tried to tell her that interviews go better and connect with the fans better if the worker comes up with his own way of saying what needs to be said, but instead he had to listen to this woman go on a rant about how no one, not even Batista, can say a word unless she tells them to. Apparently she thought that she was the only one even intelligent enough to come up with a string of words meaningful enough to commit to film.

Here's the thing; her idea isn't completely without merit for the young undercard. Most people are not particularly comfortable on the mic until they have a great deal of experience doing promos. Mick Foley is pretty damned good on the mic, but he sure was putrid on the mic for the first half decade of his career. In the old days talents often got plenty of mic time in the indie circuit doing promos for local TV broadcasts, but that is not the case anymore. The guys coming up now need lots of help at first and in their case writing a promo for them is not a bad idea. Their promos are going to be short, so memorizing a speech is not too difficult or unnatural.

It helps to know what help your talent needs as well. Matt Hardy has always been not that great on the mic, but that is partially because of the writers not knowing what kind of help he needs or what he is capable of. Early on he had no mic time and really had not gotten it much in the indie circuit either. He needed plenty of help, but since he actually was a decent actor minus the speaking part it was not thought of that way. I know some of you might laugh at that last notion, but think back to some of his acting without verbal cues (his first on-screen kiss with Lita, standing on top of the cage contemplating leg-dropping Edge, his promos in the ring with Mark Henry). He often had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. It also did not hurt his case that perhaps the most over he ever became was the result of the writers being overworked by writing for those people they actually cared about and allowed him to his own thing for short segments, leading to the whole Matt Hardy V1 stuff. The problem was that he was only good for coming up with his own thing for short promos, which was all the time he was given during his V1 run. Seeing those two things led to his train-wreck promo upon his resigning as he was given an open mic for too long of a period. Compare that promo to the promo several years later after he turned on Jeff. It was clear that he was given a lot more help in that promo and he delivered a good and long promo as a result.

Compare that to what Austin has done. I seriously doubt anyone has had the nerve to go up to Austin in the past dozen years with a fully written promo and told him to memorize the damned thing. He needed just the highlights and freehanded the rest as no one could write a better Stone Cold promo than Austin himself.

[xCompackx]

Yeah, it's pretty much just Vince. I mean, it's not that Raw is the worst wrestling show on television (A different one has that spot taken already ), but when you have the mindset that Vince does for his shows, the best writer in the world isn't gonna do a whole lot.