Kaz (former writer) tells how it is backstage in 2019

[wildojinx]

When I first saw the name "Kaz", I was wondering when Frankie Kazarian got a job writing for the WWE.

[Bub (BLM)]

I adore the idea of Daniel Bryan kicking a door in just to yell about all the babyfaces being geezers. I have a feeling this may become a meme.

[Mister Pigwell]

Writers paint such a different picture about backstage than wrestlers do and I find that fascinating.

[Rave]

- Vince didn't wanna use the word "manager" when putting Lio with Lashley, felt the word was out of date, Vince wanted to use the word "handler" instead. Kaz was with Kevin Owens working on it and Owens didn't like the word handler because there were some racial connotations with that phrase. Kaz and the lead writer of SDL John sat with Vince on it and Vince was like "what's wrong with it, Hollywood actors have handlers all the time, what should we call it then?" and they suggested hypeman. Vince said "well goddamn he's the hypeman then." Kaz told Cole and that's where the "Lio Rush is Lashley's hypeman" thing that Cole said came from.

It's not just the racial connotations. Google "Hollywood handler", there's a lot of conspiracy theory junk attached to the term as well. Not something WWE would want to be associated with, IMO.

- He initially was on team SDL and his first job was working with the Riott Squad. His first 4 weeks involved doing things with the Riott Squad such as writing about them f***ing shit up backstage. He then was moved to Raw and was working with Strowman. He's also been seen on screen a few times with Strowman and Drake Maverick with that whole pee backstage thing. Roode and Mojo were other guys he worked with.

So this is the guy responsible for some of those terrible backstage segments with the Riotts "causing trouble"?

[Deleted]

Mar 3, 2019 13:19:08 GMT -5 Rave said:

So this is the guy responsible for some of those terrible backstage segments with the Riotts "causing trouble"?

Not really, they told him that the Riott Squad was going to be walking through the hallway f***ing shit up so he had to just write about them "f***ing shit up." They already had an idea and segment length so he had to fill in the blanks. Given the segment was only 40 seconds long there wasn't much he could do. This goes back to Kaz's comments on the time constraints and restrictions they're given. You can't do much in that short amount of time but you have to make it work. Besides that, there's certain things that they can't write due to how else the show's set-up. That means that if a segment has someone going through a table you can't use that for another segment.

Fun fact: if you actually go back and watch that segment you can see Kaz sitting at a table where they cause trouble.

[Deleted]

Mar 3, 2019 11:05:09 GMT -5 Ryback on a Pole! said:

Wonder why he was fired, because it seems like he was doing a decent jobs and Triple H and Vince liked his segments.

Anyway, noteworthy--it seems WWE have relaxed on the whole bollocks "don't be a fan of the product" when it comes to hiring writers since it seems it was him watching from being a kid which clinched it.

A lot of this is just his opinion. Very possible that the top brass didn't think all that highly of his work. Stuff like this makes me think this dude might be up his own ass a bit:

"He thought the first few weeks of Lio and Lashley did well as people started rooting for Bobby".

Lol. No, no they did not.

[Bo Rida]

The short and long-term writing teams is interesting. Helps explain why so many things can seem disjointed and counter-productive.

[Ben Wyatt]

Mar 3, 2019 8:48:58 GMT -5 Tea & Crumpets said:

Mar 3, 2019 8:07:03 GMT -5 abjordans said:

Almost everyone who has worked for WWE in recent times and left says the same thing: the place isn’t evil and the IWC’s constant demands aren’t practical. It’s not indy wrestling.

They also often say Vince is actually really cool and a father figure to everyone, receptive to people if a little confused by some bits of milennial culture, and generally likes people who push for their ideas. And yet the perception of him from the IWC will always be that he's a bigoted, senile old tyrant who ruins everything. Funny old world.

I think the truth with Vince is somewhere in the middle.

[Magic knows Black Lives Matter]

Bryan storming in because he doesn’t have any young babyfaces to work with is pretty hilarious

[Hit Girl]

Sounds like chaos. No wonder the product sucks.

[Shai]

Mar 3, 2019 14:30:49 GMT -5 Ben Wyatt said:

Mar 3, 2019 8:48:58 GMT -5 Tea & Crumpets said:

They also often say Vince is actually really cool and a father figure to everyone, receptive to people if a little confused by some bits of milennial culture, and generally likes people who push for their ideas. And yet the perception of him from the IWC will always be that he's a bigoted, senile old tyrant who ruins everything. Funny old world.

I think the truth with Vince is somewhere in the middle.

Vince makes too many questionable business choices for my taste BUT I doubt he's the devil reincarnated like some people make him out to be

[nickcave]

Mar 3, 2019 8:07:03 GMT -5 abjordans said:

Almost everyone who has worked for WWE in recent times and left says the same thing: the place isn’t evil and the IWC’s constant demands aren’t practical. It’s not indy wrestling.

So, Kaz made it seem like he had a meteoric rise- I wonder why he just got randomly fired?

Also, I have always liked Kaz, I enjoy his opinions on wrestling and hip hop culture. But, they hired him to be a writer because he had a lot of followers? I don’t get how that translates to being a writer. Kaz is more of just a personality, really. He’s, like, part of that New York hip hop media internet journalist/podcaster scene.

Thanks for putting that together, that was enjoyable and easy to read.

Trying to view it from WWE's standpoint, maybe they saw that he was good at generating buzz for himself if he could get that many Twitter followers so he possible could help generate buzz for other people as well.

[Dave the Dave]

So he got fired for....?

[carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army)]

Mar 3, 2019 8:48:58 GMT -5 Tea & Crumpets said:

Mar 3, 2019 8:07:03 GMT -5 abjordans said:

Almost everyone who has worked for WWE in recent times and left says the same thing: the place isn’t evil and the IWC’s constant demands aren’t practical. It’s not indy wrestling.

They also often say Vince is actually really cool and a father figure to everyone, receptive to people if a little confused by some bits of milennial culture, and generally likes people who push for their ideas. And yet the perception of him from the IWC will always be that he's a bigoted, senile old tyrant who ruins everything. Funny old world.

I mean, "Don't act like a pussy and I won't treat you like a pussy" is, uh.




Also, jesus, they hire these people to be writers and then employ them basically as TV directors, running the scenes beat by beat? And each scene has a different director? And the writer/director gets fired if anything goes wrong? Christ, this company is a f***ing mess.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Mar 3, 2019 15:09:06 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

Sounds like chaos. No wonder the product sucks.

Why the f*** is the writer responsible for production so much? Going to commercial? Cues? That’s your production staff not the writer.

[Deleted]

Guy sounds like he is a bit up his own ass

But to repeat a thought yea...why the hell are writers apparently working so much of production? I know the company wants to try and save money by taking away pyro but geez

[Deleted]

Mar 3, 2019 18:30:51 GMT -5 Dave the Dave said:

So he got fired for....?

According to elsewhere he said it was for house keeping reasons. Kaz has a successful podcast where as soon as he got this job, he could only be on 1 of the 2 shows a week while his co-hosts manned it. I remember episodes where they had to switch things around due to the WWE schedule. I've listened to episodes where he's mentioned the job, Vince and the rest multiple times but he never went into as detailed as he did this interview. He's also part of the Dussepalooza crew, works with Station Head, used to work for Bleacherreport and now he's a host for Uninterrupted. Basically he's juggling a lot of different things.

He said that the WWE job is one they want you to give 100% of yourself to so given that they didn't really need him he was let go for housekeeping.

[Brian Suntan]

Mar 3, 2019 18:44:19 GMT -5 Cranjis McBasketball said:

Mar 3, 2019 15:09:06 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

Sounds like chaos. No wonder the product sucks.

Why the f*** is the writer responsible for production so much? Going to commercial? Cues? That’s your production staff not the writer.

That they're called writers sounds like semantics more than anything. As has been pointed out, actual writing experience is some way down the list of criteria when hiring. It's more like an Assistant Producer gig (or least, that's what it'd be called in the UK) - a bit of writing, a bit of producing and a bit of whatever the f*** they ask for.

Really, on the basis of what Kaz says it doesn't sound much different than how a lot of TV shows are made.

[carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army)]

Mar 3, 2019 18:55:17 GMT -5 Brian Suntan said:

Mar 3, 2019 18:44:19 GMT -5 Cranjis McBasketball said:

Why the f*** is the writer responsible for production so much? Going to commercial? Cues? That’s your production staff not the writer.

That they're called writers sounds like semantics more than anything. As has been pointed out, actual writing experience is some way down the list of criteria when hiring. It's more like an Assistant Producer gig (or least, that's what it'd be called in the UK) - a bit of writing, a bit of producing and a bit of whatever the f*** they ask for.

Really, on the basis of what Kaz says it doesn't sound much different than how a lot of TV shows are made.

It is drastically, enormously different from how most TV shows are made.

I've worked in writers' rooms; people don't then get called out to direct certain scenes of the show. Writers often have a 'producer' credit, but that's more for money reasons than anything else. Usually writers end up getting the final say in how something works out and can help with an actor who wants something changed or who wants to ad-lib, but acting as a director? No.

[Deleted]

Since this thread's poppin as the "writers/back" thread I found some other info from former writers. Also some dope stories about Bryan from other writers.

1.

2. Former WWE writer Tom Casiello told a story about Bryan. This was about that time Bryan ethered Cass.

“Yeah. I gotta take a sec to put this guy over. I worked with this phenomenal human a lot over the years. I wish I could adequately explain what these moments are like. But I’ll try:

You grab Bryan backstage. He’s got matches/promos/an insane schedule, but still gives you that big smile. He asks what’s up. You say we need to shoot something for dot-com. Minute long. A minute and a half. You give the basic rundown. It’s a reaction to something that aired, or a response to a promo... whatever.

Now these dot-coms *usually* aren’t scripted. Some talent, you need to help them. They’re not writers, and that’s cool. Nothing wrong with that. They excel at other things. Others? They’re more creative with their language. They got this.

But Bryan... this guy... this guy’s a whole other league.

You tell him what you need. And he looks at you like you just said ‘bananas are yellow’, and says, ‘Sure. Yeah. Makes sense. One sec.’ And then he kinda shrinks back into the corner. Looks at the floor. Shuffles his feet. About 30 seconds of awkward silence, then he says ‘Ok.’

And you think, ‘Ok?!’ and you ask if he wants to go now. And with those humble puppy dog eyes, he shrugs and says, ‘Sure. Let’s give it a shot.’ And you roll tape. And you get... well, you get *this*.

IN ONE TAKE. Yeah. He ‘got it’. One-and-done, as they say.

And then he looks at you, and asks (sincerely), ‘I think it’s okay. Do you like it?’ And you’re standing there, blown away, and stammer out, ‘Yeah. Yeah, I think it’s pretty good.’ And he shakes your hand, and gives you that wonderfully goofy grin again, and shuffles off, like he just agreed with you that bananas are yellow and that was that. Like nothing really cool and interesting and improvisational just happened with no warning or preparation at all.

And when you turn and walk in the other direction? You can’t help but have a big, goofy grin on your face too. And let me tell ya: those are rare in those parts.

I hope he’s cutting promos like this for a long, long time. Honored to have NOT written for him. ‘A+ player’, I believe they would call that.

Yes. Yes. YES.

P.S. Totally would have been called to Gorilla for looking directly in the camera though. Would have happily taken the heat for that.”

3. Casiello has another comment about his time working as a writer.

“When I left soaps, other writers said ‘wrestling should be a breeze after this’. I wrote an hour of scripted TV in 3 days, 50 wks/yr for 12 years. How tough could this be?

WWE was the MOST CHALLENGING job of my career and I learned more about writing there, than anywhere else.

I compare it to Newman’s speech re: the post office on Seinfeld. Anyone can do it for a week. And then another week. And another. But keep going. Don’t repeat matches too much. Don’t repeat finishes. Don’t be predictable. Don’t be too wrasslin’. Be new. Be innovative. 600 hrs/yr.

Throw in 3 AM nights, dinner at gas stations, a senior level that can’t agree on anything, an audience that desperately wants to hate you while they give you their $, zero credit when something manages to go right...oh, and be a director, producer, stage manager and therapist.

But in spite of all of that, we still did it. Every damn week. Because we had a passion for it. Underneath allllllll the bullshit. I may just be ‘one of those soap writers’. but Scoville has one of the greatest wrestling minds I’ve ever encountered. Listen to him.

Kudos to this person for coming up with 16 segs of Raw one time from the comfort of their living room with no one to answer to. Sounds like a fun couple hours. The rest of us? We had a job to do. (Pun fully intended. :smiley: )”