Does wrestling TV need writers?

[ohtani's jacket]

Forgot to mention, when I watched the Flair/Luger Starrcade '88 match I saw a lot of the build-up and the interviews were amazingly repetitive even back then. Even a great talker like Flair can only say the same thing so many times.

[JerryvonKramer]

OJ -- the backstrage vignettes are exactly the thing that I was talking about when I say I can't stand to watch the modern presentation. They are often so horrible and so hokey that it makes me feel embarrassed to be watching what I am. I can think of at least 7 different occasions when I've been trying to give TNA a chance over the past five years when some insanely crappy segment will come on where the acting is a lot worse than the very worst of the Aussie soaps. The WWE stuff is not a lot better.

 

The problem is also that it only takes one or two bad segments to tarnish a whole 30 minutes of TV. If one backstage skit is so atrocious that I'm reaching for the remote, it doesn't matter that the next 15 minutes is a great promo or whatever because I'm already watching something else. I don't agree that "a lot" of wrestlers are quality performers. The vast majority of them are not. When they are doing scripted promos and scripted dialogue backstage, they can't compare well to the quality TV or films any of us are used to watching. It just can't compete with that on that level.

 

And yet, the Mr. Perfect vignettes, the Million Dollar Man skits and vignettes, the Bossman vignettes -- hell, even The Mountie or Repo Man vignettes -- were all pretty much pitch perfect. The WWF were AWESOME at doing that shit. And they did it for years. I don't understand what changed and why it had to change. I'm pretty sure Hennig or DiBiase weren't scripted word-for-word in any of those videos that we still remember now. They had their characters down, and they knew how to act accordingly. I also don't think Hennig or DiBiase were necessarily innately better actors or promos than any of today's talent. They were just in an environment that let them take a character and run with it. WWF was still doing that stuff in the late 90s.

 

I don't see the need for the scripts. Watch old Prime Times. Heenan and Monsoon didn't need scripts. Guys could just come and hang for 5 minutes, in character, with set stuff they needed to get across. If the character wasn't a big talker or a good promo -- don't put them in those segments, or give them a manager. Simple, problem solved.

 

What changed? Do we really need the 15-minute promos now? When was that paradigm set? We don't need 15 minutes of one man talking. If we do, then something has gone wrong. What could possibly be complex enough to justify 15 minutes of mic time?

 

Do we need cheesy, fucking abysmal backstage segments with wrestlers exchanging written dialogue like pieces of wood? What used to happen? One guy is doing a promo and another guy attacks him. One guy is doing a promo and another guy gets on the mic to challenge them. It's not like these writers are Harold Pinter giving them great stuff to say. In fact, the more ambitious the writers get, the worse and less natural it all comes across because the wrestlers simply don't have the acting chops to do it any justice.

 

This is going to come across like a grumpy "why aren't things like they used to be" rant, but I really don't see why things are like they are at the moment. If I was running wrestling, the first thing I'd want to chuck out are those backstage exchanges. Get rid of them. What's the justification for the camera even being there? Shit, bring back Mean Gene or someone else in that spot. It makes more sense.

 

The next thing I'd get rid of is 15-minute in-ring promos. There's no need for it. Wrestling isn't War and Peace, the storyline is never going to get much more complex than "I'm pretty great, you're not. You and I have some fundamental differences and I want to settle them in the ring". Promos shouldn't be going much longer than 6-7 minutes.

[ohtani's jacket]

OJ -- the backstrage vignettes are exactly the thing that I was talking about when I say I can't stand to watch the modern presentation. They are often so horrible and so hokey that it makes me feel embarrassed to be watching what I am. I can think of at least 7 different occasions when I've been trying to give TNA a chance over the past five years when some insanely crappy segment will come on where the acting is a lot worse than the very worst of the Aussie soaps. The WWE stuff is not a lot better.

I don't care for the backstage vignettes, but if you're going to have them (and let's face it, they are) then they need writers.

 

I don't agree that "a lot" of wrestlers are quality performers. The vast majority of them are not. When they are doing scripted promos and scripted dialogue backstage, they can't compare well to the quality TV or films any of us are used to watching. It just can't compete with that on that level.

It's not supposed to compare to quality film and TV. I thought you had the same argument about Ted Dibiase and Orson Welles. Any wrestler who can talk well, sell well and has their act down pat is a quality performer in my book.

 

And yet, the Mr. Perfect vignettes, the Million Dollar Man skits and vignettes, the Bossman vignettes -- hell, even The Mountie or Repo Man vignettes -- were all pretty much pitch perfect. The WWF were AWESOME at doing that shit. And they did it for years. I don't understand what changed and why it had to change. I'm pretty sure Hennig or DiBiase weren't scripted word-for-word in any of those videos that we still remember now. They had their characters down, and they knew how to act accordingly. I also don't think Hennig or DiBiase were necessarily innately better actors or promos than any of today's talent. They were just in an environment that let them take a character and run with it. WWF was still doing that stuff in the late 90s.

You love that period of WWF you grew up on, to the point where maybe you're still justifying the inordinate amount of money you spent on WWF home videos , but a lot of that was stuff was hokey. You love it because it's kitsch. Today's stuff will probably be kitsch in thirty years time. Besides, if you really go through that stuff you'll find there was a lot of bad acting and a lot of scripted promos to boot. Wrestlers who couldn't talk were told what to say. Quite often it looks like they're reading it off auto cue.

 

I don't see the need for the scripts. Watch old Prime Times or TNT. Heenan and Monsoon didn't need scripts. Guys could just come and hang for 5 minutes, in character, with set stuff they needed to get across. If the character wasn't a big talker or a good promo -- don't put them in those segments, or give them a manager. Simple, problem solved.

Prime Time or TNT was a different television format from what they do today. Heenan could adlib to his heart's desire because he was the type of quality performer that apparently doesn't exist in wrestling. Today's commentators have so many stock lines they're supposed to utter that I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of Commentators Bible floating around.

 

What changed? Do we really need the 15-minute promos now? When was that paradigm set? We don't need 15 minutes of one man talking. If we do, then something has gone wrong. What could possible be complex enough to justify 15 minutes of mic time?

I thought the question was whether wrestling needs writers. Wrestling has been having opening quarter hour promos since 1998. Why are you railing against it in 2013? The thing about WWE today is that if there is something good, say the Cena/Punk match, you can easily find it online. You don't need to watch the other two and half hours of programming.

 

Do we need cheesy, fucking abysmal backstage segments with wrestlers exchanging written dialogue like pieces of wood? What used to happen? One guy is doing a promo and another guy attacks him. One guy is doing a promo and another guy gets on the mic to challenge them. It's not like these writers are Harold Pinter giving them great stuff to say. In fact, the more ambitious the writers get, the worse and less natural it all comes across because the wrestlers simply don't have the acting chops to do it any justice.

What you're describing is an angle, most of which happened in a tiny television studio, not in a sports arena, and led to weeks upon weeks of the same promos. As fans we have a tendency to remember the past in a "Best Of" fashion, but I don't think a hell of a lot has changed over the years. RAW has been doing the same basic format for donkey's years -- opening interview sets up the main event, main event ends with a cliffhanger, etc., etc. Even the backstage segments aren't that original. The problem isn't the vignettes as such, it's that they're not clever and the comedy isn't funny. When they first started doing them as a regular format in '98, they were clever. The whole story line where Vince was injured and Foley went to visit him in the hospital and Vince was riding around in that electric wheelchair for a while, that was good stuff. The current stuff is built around a punch line or some kind of sophomore humour, but since it's basically sketch comedy sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

 

This is going to come across like a grumpy "why aren't things like they used to be" rant, but I really don't see why things are like they are at the moment. If I was running wrestling, the first thing I'd want to chuck out are those backstage exchanges. Get rid of them. What's the justification for the camera even being there? Shit, bring back Mean Gene or someone else in that spot. It makes more sense.

How many years did Gene spend sucking in WCW? If you were going to get rid of the modern format, you'd have to replace it with something new not a 1980s nostalgia act. People bitched about WWF when it didn't have any good wrestling at the height of the attitude era and they bitch about it now because the TV isn't as fresh. Unless wrestling somehow gets hot again, the TV's not going to be especially compelling no matter what way you format it.

 

The next thing I'd get rid of is 15-minute in-ring promos. There's no need for it. Wrestling isn't War and Peace, the storyline is never going to get much more complex than "I'm pretty great, you're not. You and I have some fundamental differences and I want to settle them in the ring". Promos shouldn't be going much longer than 6-7 minutes.

The current in-ring promos aren't much different from that.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

OJ -- the backstrage vignettes are exactly the thing that I was talking about when I say I can't stand to watch the modern presentation. They are often so horrible and so hokey that it makes me feel embarrassed to be watching what I am. I can think of at least 7 different occasions when I've been trying to give TNA a chance over the past five years when some insanely crappy segment will come on where the acting is a lot worse than the very worst of the Aussie soaps. The WWE stuff is not a lot better.

 

The problem is also that it only takes one or two bad segments to tarnish a whole 30 minutes of TV. If one backstage skit is so atrocious that I'm reaching for the remote, it doesn't matter that the next 15 minutes is a great promo or whatever because I'm already watching something else. I don't agree that "a lot" of wrestlers are quality performers. The vast majority of them are not. When they are doing scripted promos and scripted dialogue backstage, they can't compare well to the quality TV or films any of us are used to watching. It just can't compete with that on that level.

 

And yet, the Mr. Perfect vignettes, the Million Dollar Man skits and vignettes, the Bossman vignettes -- hell, even The Mountie or Repo Man vignettes -- were all pretty much pitch perfect. The WWF were AWESOME at doing that shit. And they did it for years. I don't understand what changed and why it had to change. I'm pretty sure Hennig or DiBiase weren't scripted word-for-word in any of those videos that we still remember now. They had their characters down, and they knew how to act accordingly. I also don't think Hennig or DiBiase were necessarily innately better actors or promos than any of today's talent. They were just in an environment that let them take a character and run with it. WWF was still doing that stuff in the late 90s.

 

I don't see the need for the scripts. Watch old Prime Times. Heenan and Monsoon didn't need scripts. Guys could just come and hang for 5 minutes, in character, with set stuff they needed to get across. If the character wasn't a big talker or a good promo -- don't put them in those segments, or give them a manager. Simple, problem solved.

 

What changed? Do we really need the 15-minute promos now? When was that paradigm set? We don't need 15 minutes of one man talking. If we do, then something has gone wrong. What could possibly be complex enough to justify 15 minutes of mic time?

 

Do we need cheesy, fucking abysmal backstage segments with wrestlers exchanging written dialogue like pieces of wood? What used to happen? One guy is doing a promo and another guy attacks him. One guy is doing a promo and another guy gets on the mic to challenge them. It's not like these writers are Harold Pinter giving them great stuff to say. In fact, the more ambitious the writers get, the worse and less natural it all comes across because the wrestlers simply don't have the acting chops to do it any justice.

 

This is going to come across like a grumpy "why aren't things like they used to be" rant, but I really don't see why things are like they are at the moment. If I was running wrestling, the first thing I'd want to chuck out are those backstage exchanges. Get rid of them. What's the justification for the camera even being there? Shit, bring back Mean Gene or someone else in that spot. It makes more sense.

 

The next thing I'd get rid of is 15-minute in-ring promos. There's no need for it. Wrestling isn't War and Peace, the storyline is never going to get much more complex than "I'm pretty great, you're not. You and I have some fundamental differences and I want to settle them in the ring". Promos shouldn't be going much longer than 6-7 minutes.

I don't want to be a kneejerk reactionary and go out of my way to not be one, but I suspect much of this crap has to do with Bonnie Hammer's soap opera influence back in 1997 (not reactionary, just business) AND Kevin Dunn, which is a reactionary position. Dunn really feels like he's producing some soap opera that might someday get an Emmy nomination.

[El-P]

If they were just cutting promos then I could buy the improv argument but the way the television is formatted with backstage vignettes, sketches and quarter hour long interview segments they absolutely need writers.

You can say that. But to me this is also why I hate the current format so much.

[goc]

What wrestling doesn't need is shitty writers / bookers / creative people like Russo.

Most certainly. But has there been a good wrestling *writer* thus far we can talk about ? They've all been pretty shitty.

 

Wasn't the head writer in 2000 from TV? Chris Kresky was his name? The guy who did the whole Steph/HHH/Angle love triangle and used story boards.

[ohtani's jacket]

If they were just cutting promos then I could buy the improv argument but the way the television is formatted with backstage vignettes, sketches and quarter hour long interview segments they absolutely need writers.

You can say that. But to me this is also why I hate the current format so much.

 

Whether you hate it or not is a separate issue from whether it needs writers. I haven't watched RAW in years aside from what I've seen here or there on youtube, but I think it's pretty clear that it needs writers. Others have touched on the real issues -- the quality of the writers they'd had, writers who don't know the business, Vince not wanting writers who know the business, good writers (if there have been any) not lasting long because they were fired or found a better gig, and let's face it most of them are probably aiming for better jobs in TV. People who follow the WWE closely will know better than I do, but since they're forever messing around with people's pushes, I'd be surprised if a fifth of what they come up with in creative ever reaches fruition.

[flyonthewall2983]

I'd like to see a promotion where the creative head is someone who worked on episodic television, but has a deep knowledge and appreciation of pro wrestling. Something like an equivalent of the great cable series' we've been since the days of The Sopranos and The Shield, to WWE's stock network show. In an era of entertainment where comic book movies are getting serious critical praise on top of serious box office, there's no real reason (other than Vince's ignorance) professional wrestling could follow suit and give the world great television on top of great wrestling.

[Slasher]

What wrestling doesn't need is shitty writers / bookers / creative people like Russo.

Most certainly. But has there been a good wrestling *writer* thus far we can talk about ? They've all been pretty shitty.

 

Wasn't the head writer in 2000 from TV? Chris Kresky was his name? The guy who did the whole Steph/HHH/Angle love triangle and used story boards.

 

Yeah, Chris Kreski, he died of cancer a few years ago, but he is probably the last good TV-oriented writer the WWE ever employed. He had storyboards that showed who could have alliances and who couldn't. Also had storyboards for how feuds should progress naturally. Of course, Stephanie pushed him out so that she could assume the lion's share of control over the storylines in WWE. We see how that went.

 

Also as for great writers coming to WWE, won't happen. Smart writers get fired in WWE for pointing out continuity errors and storyline errors that Vince and/or Stephanie insists on forging ahead with. The WWE nowadays wants non-mark writers who won't argue with them and that will just script their desires. It's become a vanity project now moreso than it's ever been, and that's amazing considering how the last twenty years has essentially been an on-camera tribute to the awesomeness of the McMahon empire.

[JNLister]

I'd like to see a promotion where the creative head is someone who worked on episodic television, but has a deep knowledge and appreciation of pro wrestling. Something like an equivalent of the great cable series' we've been since the days of The Sopranos and The Shield, to WWE's stock network show. In an era of entertainment where comic book movies are getting serious critical praise on top of serious box office, there's no real reason (other than Vince's ignorance) professional wrestling could follow suit and give the world great television on top of great wrestling.

 

"OK, I'm interested in writing for you. I've done a 13 part series for HBO, so I think I could write some compelling storylines for you and make great TV drama. How does production work?"

 

"Well, our main show is three hours, plus we have a secondary two hour show that's sorta part of the story, plus another 2 1/2 hours of spin-off shows featuring the lesser characters. We air a new episode every week, all year round. We start writing at most five days before broadcast and finish writing on the day of broadcast. Occasionally we rewrite as the show is airing. We use athletes and bodybuilders rather than actors and we hand them the script on the day of broadcast. We don't do rehearsals. A lot of the stuff we film before an audience and broadcast live, so it has to be done first take. We have this weird deal where some of the characters are aware they are in a television show, but in some of the scenes set 'backstage' the characters don't always seem aware they are being filmed and their actions broadcast on live TV, though we do show it to the live studio audience and pipe in their reactions. Absolutely any storyline you write can and will be thrown out or completely altered by your boss depending on his mood. Oh, and for every fifth episode or so we charge the fans $55 to watch."

[Al]

I honestly feel the act of writing and producing a three hour live production might be too overwhelming for the common old-school wrestling writer/booker to handle. You obviously need writers at some level to handle the load, and I think you're better off getting writers who are better at handling the minutia than the big picture. The problem for WWE is that given the show and the workload, they're highly unlikely to get writers who are very good at the job.

[Slasher]

There's always the film division It's weird how having that division could be a boon for WWE looking for talents that COULD write the shows in cycles, but alas, we run into the problem I outlined earlier: Vince and Stephanie doesn't want writers criticizing them in wrestling content. It's their bread and butter and they aren't having any outsiders tell them what they are doing wrong with that stuff. When Kreski was telling Paul Levesque and Stephanie McMahon why the love triangle wouldn't work out the way they outlined, they pushed him out and proceeded to kill the storyline their way.

[flyonthewall2983]

I should mention I know there's no way in hell WWE would do what I suggested, just that I'd like to see someone else try that approach.

[Sean Liska]

I want people to go watch the backstage promos from the 1980s SNME shows and tell me how writers are a modern invention. Every word of those interviews were clearly scripted. Lots of 80s WWF promos were, Vince has always been a control freak, he just loosened up for a bit when desperate in the late 90s. The Hogan-Orndorff stuff is another example where everything they were saying in their backstage segments and Barbershop appearances were scripted and cheesy but highly effective.

 

Writers can be good and bad. When they were carefully feeding Batista dialogue during his face turn heading into Mania 21, they were great. That 25 minute exchange between Vince, Punk, and Cena the week before MITB 2011 was scripted out and was fantastic. The HBK-HHH-Taker segment in Chicago the week before Mania 27 was scripted out very effectively. I thought the first Rock-Punk face-off on RAW this year was well-scripted.The writers didn't get in the way of Jericho doing fantastic promos during his heel run. Daniel Bryan's heel promos during the first months of his heel turn last year were exceptionally well done. The segment where Vince threatened to first Heyman this year before Brock came out the same, with an epic performance from Heyman.

 

Meanwhile, we've had some good old-fashioned "bookers" in ROH like Pearce and Cornette and the results have been brutal.

[JerryvonKramer]

I was watching the 1985 Timeline shoot with Greg Valentine the other day and he told a story about turning up to a recording session for localised promos and being handed a script. He said "this is new", and refused to do it. That tells us two things:

 

1. There were definitely scripts floating around

2. The wrestlers, especially old-school ones like Greg, were likely to show some resistance to the idea.

 

Here are 10 prominent names from 1980s WWF:

 

Hulk Hogan

Roddy Piper

Randy Savage

Jake Roberts

Ted DiBiase

Rick Rude

Mr. Perfect

Ultimate Warrior

Jim Duggan

Junkyard Dog

 

Let's try to look beyond the fact, for a moment, that most people compiling a list of "top men on the mic ever" might include some of these names. I want to focus on the extent to which anyone thinks their promos were scripted word-for-word as Sean Liska is arguing here.

 

I don't have time right now and possibly wont till tomorrow, but ideally we'd post notable promos from each of these guys and have a think about whether they are coming up with the lines themselves or being fed them.

 

For TWO of these guys -- Hogan and Piper -- we can see examples in films in which we know they are acting from a script, so that might make a decent comparison.

 

Sean's idea is that they are mostly being scripted.

 

My idea is that at least 90% of the time, they are coming up with the stuff themselves. I find it very hard to believe a script writer is coming up with Piper's coked-up promos, or that they'd write anything as dark as Jake's promos, or that guys with strongly themed characters like Rude, DiBiase and Perfect couldn't come up with some of their lines by themselves -- do we think Rude was being scripted in WCW too? We know Warrior had a lot of his own ideas for his characters -- does anyone believe his famous HOAWK HOGAN promos were scripted by someone?

 

If I find some time later on, I will post example promos from each guy and then pull out individual lines to speculate on how "scripted" we think they are. I will also try to find clips of INTERACTION between some of these guys to see how scripted I think they are too.

 

As a basis of comparison, I will get some promos and skits from RAW in 2012-3 and do the same thing.

 

If what Sean Liska is saying is true, then the problem comes down not to writing, or writers, but to the quality of the performers. I simply don't believe that the 80s generation were just innately better than the current crop -- I just think they were given more freedom and creativity on the mic.

 

I look forward to doing some analysis on the language of promos. I'd like to think it's not that difficult to tell between highly scripted promos and stuff guys are just coming up with.

[Loss]

This reminds me of how much I HATED Survivor Series pre-match promos where everyone kept unnaturally moving/laughing/whatever the entire time the principal was talking. When more than one person was in the shot, this was common on SNME too. I can almost hear Vince in the background screaming at the guys not talking to "Show some life, damnit!" But it always looked so acted.

 

I guess the balance is somewhere between that and the NWO members having little side conversations standing in the ring while Hogan was cutting his promo.

[JerryvonKramer]

That's a pet hate of mine too Loss. Think I even mentioned it during the GAB89 show, Survivor Series promos where everyone is shouting are just the worst.

[Matt D]

When they get one right though, it's awesome, because you get this weird amalgamation of 3-5 entities that just should not exist together.

[ohtani's jacket]

C'mon, Jerry, on one hand you're saying wrestlers are very good actors or performers and on the other hand you're saying that in the 80s the workers were able to adlib everything. Scripted needn't mean scripted word for word, it could simply mean bullet points, but it's fairly obvious that not everything you saw on WWF television was adlibbed, especially the angles they used to do on Piper's Pit and the other talk show segments. If you watch the opening few minutes of Wrestling With Shadows, you can see Bret fumbling over his lines and having to do retakes in front of a camera guy. If he was just improving he wouldn't be trying so hard to remember his lines. Since most of that backstage stuff was pre-recorded, how do you know how much was improv and how much rehearsed? The other day I started watching the Paul Bearer/Cornette shoot and Bearer was talking about what an abused human being Howard Finkel was and how they shot a vignette with Finkel and the Bushwhackers where Finkel was made to eat sardines over and over again. That was a rib, but still retakes had to have been common. As was Vince standing behind the camera directing. Older workers are always going to claim that they adlibbed everything, but improv is rarely neat and tidy. Think of Piper's Pit or a Warrior promo. They tend to be rambling in nature compared to a perfect thirty second promo.

[Log]

I think Piper and Hogan's (and probably Warrior's) promos were scripted by their old buddy, cocaine.

[El-P]

I think Piper and Hogan's (and probably Warrior's) promos were scripted by their old buddy, cocaine.

Nope. He was working full time in World Class at the time.

[Ricky Jackson]

I think Piper and Hogan's (and probably Warrior's) promos were scripted by their old buddy, cocaine.

You win. Close the thread.

[jdw]

And yet, the Mr. Perfect vignettes, the Million Dollar Man skits and vignettes, the Bossman vignettes -- hell, even The Mountie or Repo Man vignettes -- were all pretty much pitch perfect. The WWF were AWESOME at doing that shit. And they did it for years. I don't understand what changed and why it had to change. I'm pretty sure Hennig or DiBiase weren't scripted word-for-word in any of those videos that we still remember now. They had their characters down, and they knew how to act accordingly. I also don't think Hennig or DiBiase were necessarily innately better actors or promos than any of today's talent. They were just in an environment that let them take a character and run with it. WWF was still doing that stuff in the late 90s.

You love that period of WWF you grew up on, to the point where maybe you're still justifying the inordinate amount of money you spent on WWF home videos , but a lot of that was stuff was hokey. You love it because it's kitsch. Today's stuff will probably be kitsch in thirty years time. Besides, if you really go through that stuff you'll find there was a lot of bad acting and a lot of scripted promos to boot. Wrestlers who couldn't talk were told what to say. Quite often it looks like they're reading it off auto cue.

FWIW, the skits and vignettes that Jerry is talking about were generally "scripted" and "written". WWF Creative (be it Vince or Pat or someone else) came up with those characters for the most part, and told the performers what to say.

 

We overplay the word-for-word nonsense and get hung up on it. In reality, Ray Traylor didn't come up with Big Bubba Rogers nor The Big Bossman. Dusty Rhodes and Jim Cornette came up with pretty much all the elements of the first one, while WWF 80s Creative came up with the second one. Ray's performances for a hell of a long time were scripted out for him, even if it's wasn't 100% (though lord knows the early Bossman ones were almost certainly 100%).

 

John

[jdw]

I'd like to see a promotion where the creative head is someone who worked on episodic television, but has a deep knowledge and appreciation of pro wrestling. Something like an equivalent of the great cable series' we've been since the days of The Sopranos and The Shield, to WWE's stock network show. In an era of entertainment where comic book movies are getting serious critical praise on top of serious box office, there's no real reason (other than Vince's ignorance) professional wrestling could follow suit and give the world great television on top of great wrestling.

 

"OK, I'm interested in writing for you. I've done a 13 part series for HBO, so I think I could write some compelling storylines for you and make great TV drama. How does production work?"

 

"Well, our main show is three hours, plus we have a secondary two hour show that's sorta part of the story, plus another 2 1/2 hours of spin-off shows featuring the lesser characters. We air a new episode every week, all year round. We start writing at most five days before broadcast and finish writing on the day of broadcast. Occasionally we rewrite as the show is airing. We use athletes and bodybuilders rather than actors and we hand them the script on the day of broadcast. We don't do rehearsals. A lot of the stuff we film before an audience and broadcast live, so it has to be done first take. We have this weird deal where some of the characters are aware they are in a television show, but in some of the scenes set 'backstage' the characters don't always seem aware they are being filmed and their actions broadcast on live TV, though we do show it to the live studio audience and pipe in their reactions. Absolutely any storyline you write can and will be thrown out or completely altered by your boss depending on his mood. Oh, and for every fifth episode or so we charge the fans $55 to watch."

 

Great.

[jdw]

I was watching the 1985 Timeline shoot with Greg Valentine the other day and he told a story about turning up to a recording session for localised promos and being handed a script. He said "this is new", and refused to do it. That tells us two things:

 

1. There were definitely scripts floating around

2. The wrestlers, especially old-school ones like Greg, were likely to show some resistance to the idea.

And in the end, Vince won.

 

You think Greg and Honky came up with Rhythm and Blues?