10. Announcers Instructions Leaked
In July of this year, photos were posted to Reddit of a leaked memo addressed to the WWE announce teams, outlining the Do's and Don'ts of their jobs. Though the memo is only allegedly official, owing to the merciless fallout that would be suffered if anyone came forward to publicly verify it, the guidelines had been previously covered by The Wrestling Observer Newsletter in 2013 and the photos seemed to line up with what they originally reported. The 8 page document is a bible for the play-by-play guys, giving them both general and strictly specific rules to follow when commentating. Some of the rules make a huge amount of sense and betray a narrative awareness, like "call every pinfall, because you aren't supposed to know when the match shall end", or "tell the audience something they might not be thinking, adding depth to the storyline". Some, however, are utterly arbitrary and betray little more than micromanagement. For example, see the list of words to avoid (pictured above), or the fact that the memos tells the announcers to "be themselves" but also "talk in soundbites." At one point it says "play-by-play announcers cannot be emasculated by their broadcast partners." Cough. JBL. Cough. It's an embarrassing leak for the company because, while some might take comfort in the fact that at least the company has a plan for their announce team, that plan is often confused, self-contradictory and mired in tiresome branding ("never use 'wrestler', always use 'superstar'") so that it only really succeeds in painting WWE as being soulless and averse to experimentation.