10 WWE Creative Secrets The Writers DON’T Want You To Know
1. The Frantic Races To Avoid Vince McMahon
'The Emancipation of Jon Moxley' is, behind that Art of Wrestling episode featuring CM Punk, the most infamous and entertaining podcast ever recorded.
The audio is astonishing. Nobody went into it with an understanding that the writers in WWE are particularly popular - they are scapegoats, laughing stocks, known across the industry as failures in their first-choice profession - but Mox illuminated a culture that was worse than you ever thought possible.
In one especially insane story, Mox explained that he read the words "pooper scooper" in the first draft of a script. He trembled with anxiety when he read it. The idea, and this is when his character was disgusted by the smelly and disgusting fans, was that he wouldn't walk into the arena without a pooper scooper. Flooded with dread, he asked for the draft to get binned, have it re-written without the "pooper scooper" line, and then have the second draft printed before it made its way to Vince, who was destined to fall in love with it.
WWE, on this day, was like a farce sitcom in which the characters had to race against time in order to hide something from the villain.
"We’re all just in self-preservation mode trying to not look like idiots instead of creating good things," Moxley said.
In WWE, the idea is to find a balance: to pop Vince McMahon with stupid material, but not material so stupid that the talent is offended. The job of a creative writer is to find a needle in a haystack that nobody is even looking for.
Things might have changed somewhat with Triple H at the helm as at time of writing - but Vince never could stay out of those weeds...