10 Times WWE Had Their Head Up Their Ass
9. Treating Long-Term Employees Like Sh*t
Sometimes it feels like WWE is so involuntarily awful that they aren't even aware that they're the baddies.
It was absolutely fair for the company to cut Jim Johnston. Well, it wasn't a very good idea, since you can't hum a single theme tune produced in the last two years, but it was their decision to make. Johnston was once superb at what does; he (alongside Jimmy Hart) soundtracked your childhood and gilded the WWF Superstars of yore with the inimitable pizzazz that played a quietly crucial part in elevating the Fed as a glamorous spectacle. Johnston was as much an architect as an artist. The hits did however dry out.
But put the motherf*cker in the Hall of Fame, for f*ck's sake. Thank him for his efforts before booting him out of the cracker factory without wishing him good luck. Stephanie McMahon once quote-tweeted that philanthropy is the future of marketing. This company at least knows that they should pretend to be nice, or so it once seemed. Johnston was pushed out after a brief, curt phone call he described to Matt Koon as "a scary time but a brief event".
Mike Chioda was unceremoniously dumped during Black Wednesday. Tenured timekeeper Mark Yeaton was let go all the way back in 2014, and if you've never heard of him, that's because he hasn't taken his rightful place in the Hall of Fame.
Because WWE doesn't value those that built the company, even those who became part of the furniture.