As reported last week, it was a chaotic night for WWE creative at last Monday’s Raw with Vince McMahon demanding that the entire show be rewrote less than 90 minutes before the show went on air at around 6:40PM. The delay also meant parts of the show were being written as it was actually going on.

Given last Monday’s happenings, recently released WWE writer Kevin Marshall called into Wrestling Observer Live yesterday to give some perspective on how the writing process is currently working in the company. He indicated that McMahon’s decision to rewrite last Monday’s Raw at the last minute was indicative of how he is micromanaging the WWE product to death:

“Basically everything is micromanaged to death and I know there is a lot of talk of ‘they’ over there when we talk about the writing process for the show. It is no secret that the buck stops with Vince, but when I was there, and I guess that this started sometime before even I started there back last October, he was micromanaging everything to death. Basically you’re sitting there trying to write for him and you’re trying to figure out what he wants. The job became very quickly trying to figure out what Vince is thinking and then having him tell you he’s changed his mind. So when we talk about the show being rewritten as it’s happening, what I need people to know is that that show was likely written well in advance and there was an attempt at it, but either nothing was approved or everything got scrapped and rewritten by the man himself.”

The common gripe among WWE writers seems to be that they are writing for one man, Vince McMahon, not the wider WWE universe. Given Triple H’s recent comments that McMahon will never retire, it looks like he won’t be handing over creative control anytime soon either.

The uncertainty seems to be one of the biggest issues creative personnel are handling with Marshall calling Vince McMahon’s reaction to finalized scripts “a crapshoot” with on-the-spot overhauls being ordered on some days and other times where production meetings run smoothly and are over with in 30 minutes to an hour.

Another part of the problem Marshall alludes to is that the creative team has become detached so there are now two subdivisions which regularly step on each others toes; one full time that works at WWE HQ in Stamford, Connecticut coming up with ideas and writing scripts, and the other that attends all television tapings with Vince to assist in producing and directing pre-taped segments for these shows, as well as contributing to the all brainstorming and scripting.

All-in-all, Marshall states there is widespread recognition in the company that the creative division needs wholesale changes and streamlining, but whenever anyone tries to initiate change to make the process more efficient they eventually run into a roadblock which halts the entire thing.

Marshall also made an impassioned plea on behalf of WWE writers when asked about what are the biggest misconceptions from fans about the WWE creative team:

“Well, I think the biggest misconception is that we sit around and we decide who gets pushed and who doesn’t, that we sit there and lay out what the tent poles are going to be for the year, like ‘hey, John Cena should win the title, blah blah blah’. We don’t make those decisions, we don’t make those calls on finishes, we don’t sit there and hold talent back. I think that’s the biggest misconception is the idea that we just sit around and we bury talent and we try to come up with ideas to make everybody look stupid. That’s certainly not the case! Just speaking from a writer’s perspective, I never met anybody who was in the business of trying to make somebody else look bad. I think it’s very easy when you watch our product, and I think just when you watch professional wrestling in general, to get the impression that wow, they’re really going out of their way to make this guy look stupid. It’s really just a combination of things: 1) There’s a lot of politics that goes on behind the scenes that the creative team is not in control of; [and] 2) There are certain guys that probably are their own worst enemy, as we all are, myself included. It’s a lot, lot harder than it looks, especially when you have a limited roster, which when you thumb through it on WWE.com that roster looks huge, [but] when you lay it down on a piece of paper and you have to fill like sixteen segments for Monday and then twelve for Tuesday, which is Smackdown, and then you have Main Event and Superstars and everything, it’s really, really hard.”

Really, the take home message from Marshall’s insight was that Vince McMahon and his powerful inner circle are the ones to blame if you don’t like the creative direction WWE is taking, not the writing team which do their bidding and fulfill their vision.

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