Secret Power Players Pulling Strings In Wrestling Today
4. Jennifer Pepperman
Jennifer Pepperman is a Daytime Emmy award-winner who for several years was a creative writer in WWE. Little is known about the extent to which she was responsible for the promotion’s successes (or multitudinal failures): WWE writers are not unionised and thus do not receive credits.
Given where she works now - for All Elite Wrestling, as Vice President of Content Development, widely reported as the creative force behind the Mercedes Moné character - you can connect some dots there.
It is equally difficult to determine how good she is or will be in that role, though, since Moné debuted in AEW all of two weeks ago. Thus far, Moné’s arc isn’t too dissimilar to Tony Khan’s booking patterns. Moné’ debuted in near-identical circumstances to the First Dance, and like CM Punk with Darby Allin, shares an ambiguous friend and foe relationship with her presumed first rival Willow Nightingale. Moné has opened both Dynaamite shows since debuting in talking segments. She’s already asked fans to look towards the big screen as an exposition-heavy video package plays. There’s a…familiar soundbite-heavy cadence to her promo delivery.
With Mercedes Moné, AEW is conditioning the audience to receive her as a star by presenting her in the sort of segments historically associated with stars on WWE TV.
If this works, you might see more of it, changing the identity of AEW...