Dave Lagana Reveals Original Pitch For WWE Storyline, Talks What The Last Year In TNA Was Like, More
Jason Solomon recently conducted an hour-long interview with former WWE, TNA and ROH writer / producer Dave Lagana for the Solomonster Sounds Off podcast. During the interview, Lagana discussed why Vince McMahon hates sickness, the ridiculous pitch for the funeral of Al Wilson, the origin of the Tim White Lunchtime Suicide skits, why Beth Phoenix belongs in the WWE Hall of Fame and more.
You can listen to the full interview in the video above, they sent us these highlights:
The original pitch for the Al Wilson funeral storyline on Smackdown in 2003:
"Dawn [Marie] would have shtupped him to death. Al would have been in the casket. Torrie would have been there crying,'I'm sorry, dad. I should have accepted you being in love with Dawn Marie. I'm sorry, I wish I could have one more minute.' And then Al was going to sit up in the casket [having faked it], and he would've said, 'You're a terrible daughter.' And he would have cut this heel promo on his daughter, he would have walked out the front of the funeral home and then he would have gotten hit by a bus and he would have died. Vince loved it, but we never got to do it, sadly. I never told that story, and probably for good reason because it's terrible."
Dixie Carter and his last year in TNA being the most fun he's ever had on creative:
"I thank her for [giving me the chance]. Did she make mistakes? Yes. I don't know if she'll ever do an interview, but I think she would say she made some mistakes. She did the best she could with what she had. And, I say this line... she's the reason we were there, and she's also the reason we're here. Ultimately, the last year sucked. But, here's the thing — the business sucked last year, but last year was the most fun I've ever had doing any creative in any wrestling company in 15 years. We just made the best of it. [The talent] worked really hard with no future. You know, people used to make fun of TNA morale and all of that stuff, but when you don't know what your future is going to be, at least you can have fun in the moment and they went out and killed it."
Common misconceptions fans have about writers in wrestling:
"[They think] we're stupid, like we don't know anything about the business. The misconception is that we're not fans. I worked with a bunch of people in WWE who weren't fans and they didn't last very long, because it doesn't make sense to anyone who isn't a fan. [It's also] really a hard job and I think a lot of people think they could do it, but it's like an Olympic dive. There's a lot of different things that go into it. The things [TNA] threw at Matt [Conway] and I in the last three years... 'okay guys, you're gonna go to the UK and do six Impacts in three days with six hours of travel between each and double taping days.' It's not like we just book matches. And it's a very niche job. It's not like there's a minor league to learn how to write or produce wrestling. There are only probably 9 to 15 full-time wrestling writer jobs in the world. There's no college for it."