Stories from Brian Gerwitz book: There's just one problem...
Jul 22, 2023 20:40:17 GMT -5
KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!, Phosphor Glow, and 2 more like this
Post by The Rick Jericho on Jul 22, 2023 20:40:17 GMT -5
After just finishing this book, in case you haven't here's a list of things from the book that I found were amazing.
Brian was taken to wrestlers court over accepting a flash action figure from Edge.
Perry Saturn thought the front office was with him so he took the mop everywhere with him on flights, dinners, hotels, etc.
Undertaker made Brian write a 2000 word essay on why he loves the business.
The Rock was a big key in initially bringing Goldberg into WWE.
Brian wanted Jericho to lose the IC title and appeal the loss based on his opponent wearing snake skin boots due to a rule Jack Tuney had made banning all reptiles from ringside after Macho Man was bitten by a snake.
Brian got a job with MTV writing a show for WWEs episode of wrestlers commentating on their “favorite” music videos for TRL. The Rock was impressed and got Brian an interview with WWE. Brian was first offered lead writer of WWE.com. He rejected that. Awhile later he was offered a full time writer job on the raw creative team after Russo and Ferrera abruptly left for WCW and they had no writers left.
Suggestions for the opening play of the XFL were “Suicide Scramble” by Shane McMahon, “Ball or nothing” by Michael Hayes, and “f*** a goat” by Brian. They settled on “The scramble.”
One time on the jet Heyman challenged Brian to a fight. Shane pulled Brian aside real fast to teach Brian how to throw a punch. Brian declined Heymans offer to a fight, much to the disappointment of Vince.
During the initial brand split, Heyman would often call in to the Raw creative meeting when he wasn’t supposed to.
Paul stopped a creative meeting one time for everyone to listen to a young writers Pitch. Paul wanted no one to laugh or be smarky about the idea. The writer pitched Torrie Wilson being completely naked in the ring. Brian laughed at the idea and it pissed Heyman off and may have attempted to slap Brian a few times before other writers broke things up. Stephanie suspended both with pay for the incident.
The summer of 2002 Paul and Brian were summoned to Stephanie’s office. Vince Russo was being brought back as head of creative. Vince (McMahon) wanted Paul and Brian to back Russo and take him seriously. Make his ideas work and not find reasons why the ideas couldn’t work.
Vince McMahon doesn’t eat cake.
Russo wanted a long term story between Shane and Bischoff. Eric wasn’t under contract at the time and wasn’t yet interested in coming to WWE. Russo stated “everyone knows as a shoot there’s personal heat between Eric and Shane.” Brian was unclear what he meant by that.
Russo pitched to strip the Undertaker of the title, with no reason given, have a tournament, and put it on RVD. His reason to put the title on Taker was not hip and cool. Russo’s son and friends always talked about “this RVD, that’s who should be champion.”
“Bro have you guys ever done Chris Jericho vs Triple H?” Which was the main event of Wrestlemania a few months prior.
Russo wanted to reform DX, bringing back Chyna, and waiting for Road Dogg to get out of prison.
After the meeting McMahon met with Brian and Heyman to get feedback on Russo. They listed the ideas above. Vince apologized and removed Russo from creative and made him a “consultant” moving forward. This lasted two weeks before Russo went to TNA.
Vince McMahon despise giraffes because he believes an animal that big shouldn’t just eat plants.
It was decided that Hornswoggle should be the “anonymous gm” after he gave a great impassioned promo about how people treat him as a little person. Brian thought Swoggle being the serious gm getting back at wrestlers he treated him poorly would be great after that. But the day they were trying to shoot vignettes for it, Swoggle couldn’t pull it off so Vince decided to just have him come out from under the ring and bite people on the ass.
Goldbergs initial deal had an opt out at 1 year. Goldberg thought he should be booked as a monster like in WCW because if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Vince was worried about having Goldberg squash the whole roster and then leaving in a year.
Just an amazing book that takes you behind the scenes of certain events and really is a trip down memory lane I high recommend everyone give a read.
Brian was taken to wrestlers court over accepting a flash action figure from Edge.
Perry Saturn thought the front office was with him so he took the mop everywhere with him on flights, dinners, hotels, etc.
Undertaker made Brian write a 2000 word essay on why he loves the business.
The Rock was a big key in initially bringing Goldberg into WWE.
Brian wanted Jericho to lose the IC title and appeal the loss based on his opponent wearing snake skin boots due to a rule Jack Tuney had made banning all reptiles from ringside after Macho Man was bitten by a snake.
Brian got a job with MTV writing a show for WWEs episode of wrestlers commentating on their “favorite” music videos for TRL. The Rock was impressed and got Brian an interview with WWE. Brian was first offered lead writer of WWE.com. He rejected that. Awhile later he was offered a full time writer job on the raw creative team after Russo and Ferrera abruptly left for WCW and they had no writers left.
Suggestions for the opening play of the XFL were “Suicide Scramble” by Shane McMahon, “Ball or nothing” by Michael Hayes, and “f*** a goat” by Brian. They settled on “The scramble.”
One time on the jet Heyman challenged Brian to a fight. Shane pulled Brian aside real fast to teach Brian how to throw a punch. Brian declined Heymans offer to a fight, much to the disappointment of Vince.
During the initial brand split, Heyman would often call in to the Raw creative meeting when he wasn’t supposed to.
Paul stopped a creative meeting one time for everyone to listen to a young writers Pitch. Paul wanted no one to laugh or be smarky about the idea. The writer pitched Torrie Wilson being completely naked in the ring. Brian laughed at the idea and it pissed Heyman off and may have attempted to slap Brian a few times before other writers broke things up. Stephanie suspended both with pay for the incident.
The summer of 2002 Paul and Brian were summoned to Stephanie’s office. Vince Russo was being brought back as head of creative. Vince (McMahon) wanted Paul and Brian to back Russo and take him seriously. Make his ideas work and not find reasons why the ideas couldn’t work.
Vince McMahon doesn’t eat cake.
Russo wanted a long term story between Shane and Bischoff. Eric wasn’t under contract at the time and wasn’t yet interested in coming to WWE. Russo stated “everyone knows as a shoot there’s personal heat between Eric and Shane.” Brian was unclear what he meant by that.
Russo pitched to strip the Undertaker of the title, with no reason given, have a tournament, and put it on RVD. His reason to put the title on Taker was not hip and cool. Russo’s son and friends always talked about “this RVD, that’s who should be champion.”
“Bro have you guys ever done Chris Jericho vs Triple H?” Which was the main event of Wrestlemania a few months prior.
Russo wanted to reform DX, bringing back Chyna, and waiting for Road Dogg to get out of prison.
After the meeting McMahon met with Brian and Heyman to get feedback on Russo. They listed the ideas above. Vince apologized and removed Russo from creative and made him a “consultant” moving forward. This lasted two weeks before Russo went to TNA.
Vince McMahon despise giraffes because he believes an animal that big shouldn’t just eat plants.
It was decided that Hornswoggle should be the “anonymous gm” after he gave a great impassioned promo about how people treat him as a little person. Brian thought Swoggle being the serious gm getting back at wrestlers he treated him poorly would be great after that. But the day they were trying to shoot vignettes for it, Swoggle couldn’t pull it off so Vince decided to just have him come out from under the ring and bite people on the ass.
Goldbergs initial deal had an opt out at 1 year. Goldberg thought he should be booked as a monster like in WCW because if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Vince was worried about having Goldberg squash the whole roster and then leaving in a year.
Just an amazing book that takes you behind the scenes of certain events and really is a trip down memory lane I high recommend everyone give a read.
