Ex-WWE Creative Team Member Speaks - How It Works

Former WWE creative team member Brian Mann was a recent guest with John Pollock and Wai Ting on The LAW chatting about his time with the team from this past summer through his exit in October. Here are the highlights, transcribed by Chris Maffei:

The chain of command on the team: "At the end of the day, the show has one writer, and that's Vince. So, you can have a team of 12-15 people, and they're being delegated certain responsibilities at certain times, but ultimately what ends up on TV is, of all the ideas and everything that Vince hears, what he decides to go with. Ultimately, when it goes to Vince, there's no writer credit, nothing like that. As far as the hierarchy, it sort of gets thrown out the window. People have various responsibilities, but it's nothing that interesting to really talk about. As far as the creative aspects, at the end of the day, the show has one writer. A lot of the preconceived notions that I had going into it, as far as various egos and why certain things are done, I was wrong about a lot of it. Just coming out of the experience, I certainly view the product much differently, and I would certainly say that I left the process having a whole lot more respect for everybody involved.

"I'd say one of the biggest misconceptions that goes out there, and this is something I felt sometimes the Internet communities are a little too harsh on the creative team...being able to look at it from the scripting phase and the brainstorming phase, and finally what ends up on television, the things that are on TV that maybe sometimes don't necessarily come across as the best written are rarely due to poor writing. A lot of times I'd say it can be poor execution, sometimes it can be just be simply poor response. Other times, you have a really great, solid idea, and when you just get so many opinions and ideas being thrown it, it waters it down. This is something I was told in the very beginning – for every idea that comes up, there's a fantastic reason to do it, and a fantastic reason not to do it."

The CM Punk angle coming out of 'Money in the Bank': "I certainly heard tons of stories afterwards, because everyone who was on the writing team was obviously there during that. I started two weeks afterwards. I'll certainly say that everyone involved in that angle was extremely proud of it. Everyone on the team just could not say enough, as far as just saying how electric it felt to be in the room. As far as being in Chicago, just how it really felt that you were a part of something huge. They were all so incredibly excited for it.

"I don't know who it was on the writing team, but a couple people were feeling a little down, as great as it was, because it was like, 'Oh great, how are we gonna mess this up?' Knowing that, whenever something huge like this happens, it's the follow-up. Again, I think a large part of that is not necessarily the writing team, it's the way the show is produced that makes it so hard to get an idea and stick with it.

"I remember one of the big stories that was all over the Internet that (Dave) Meltzer was pushing a lot was the story about when Punk came back, there was this whole thing where Hunter was supposed to Pedigree him, that was one of the story ideas. Now, without going into that full story idea, because I later heard what the full idea was, this is just kinda the thing of half-judging something knowing only a portion of the story that leaks on the Internet. That other storyline, that would have culminated with Triple H Pedigreeing him that evening, I think would have been much better for his character. Knowing the full context surrounding it, I think it would have been much, much better."

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Source: The LAW