Former WWE Writer Says He Was 'Scared' Of Vince McMahon
From 2015 until 2017, Jimmy Jacobs was a member of the WWE creative team. However, Jacobs is arguably more remembered for his departure from WWE after posting a photo with Bullet Club members Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks during their "Being the Elite" invasion of "WWE Raw."
Despite being fired for posting the photo with talent who weren't under WWE contract, Jacobs was dealing with several other issues leading up to his departure, which he detailed during an exclusive AdFreeShows.com interview with Conrad Thompson. The former WWE writer revealed that he was in the "dog house" with Vince McMahon near the end of his tenure and felt he was "one weird interaction with Vince away" from being fired.
"You just start to behave in a way to try to not get fired and then your ideas become ideas in an effort to not get fired," Jacobs said about his run with WWE. "Pretty soon you have a whole bunch of people that are playing to not lose instead of playing to win.
"That part, that surprised me was how Vince wasn't just like a dude. Hunter is a guy, Hunter is a dude, he's a good dude. I don't necessarily see eye-to-eye on everything with Hunter but you could pitch to Hunter and go hey Hunter, what do you think about this? What if we did something like this? And whether he likes it or not, you can talk to him like that. Vince wasn't like that, but he's a legend so..."
Jimmy Jacobs couldn't speak in front of Vince McMahon
Continuing to talk about his time with WWE, Jacobs highlighted how he started to recognize in his first year why "somebody wouldn't want to work here." The former WWE writer did state, however, that if you were all about making money at the time, WWE was "the place to be."
"When I first got there, it was like dream come true, but after about a year I'm scared of Vince at this point," Jacobs said. "I look at things and go oh this is a very particular thing we do here. WWE is a very particular thing and I used to hear guys leave WWE, get fired, or choose not to re-sign with them and I'm just thinking like what're you doing? There's nowhere else to go, WWE is the place to be and people would say I'm happier now that I'm not there, I don't want to be there. I was always thinking, like, what're you talking about? After about a year I was like oh yeah [they're right]."
Jacobs mentioned how thankful he was to leave WWE, wishing he had done it in a more "adult-like manner," but happy because working there was uncomfortable for him. "By the end, I couldn't even speak in front of Vince, I couldn't even pitch an idea in front of him," Jacobs said. "I felt so stupid every time I talked there." He recalled pitching a segment between Shane McMahon and Kevin Owens, which resulted in him getting into an argument with his boss and wishing that he could have been on a "farm" instead.