So while I've got a few minutes, now seems like as good a time as any to start answering your questions. And a great starting point seems to be one that many of you asked in regards to my post from yesterday: What was up with that Stephanie McMahon/Eric Bischoff kiss on the Halloween 2002 episode of SmackDown?
In no version of any script/rundown from that day will you find the kiss. It was never supposed to be a part of the show.
There HAD been an earlier machination of the script in which a mystery man would be at the party in a Triple H mask, which would intrigue Stephanie, who would track him down as he was leaving. He'd kiss her, and THEN reveal himself to be Bischoff, in a "screw you, I infiltrated your show again" type moment. But that had been changed well before the day's taping.
The plan was changed to where instead of a guy in a Triple H mask lurking at the party and Stephanie being curious who it was, John Cena would instead just tell Stephanie that her dad was here to see her. Then Bischoff would reveal himself and they would have words. I don't remember what the exact finish was to be -- but there was not a kiss involved.
As I understand it (and I wasn't there when that specific vignette was shot; I was still in the main Halloween party room), the kiss was just a last-second idea that they green-lighted and went with. When we writers saw it after the fact, we had the same reaction you did -- What the heck?
Having them kiss AFTER the reveal -- and Stephanie liking it -- added a whole new dimension to the thing. Though it was a surprise, it was one that we realized we could use to help tell the story; it could have had some legs and brought an extra intrigue to this whole new "general manager competition" thing we did back in 2002.
We threw together a number of ideas to try and follow up on it -- A secret affair? A drunken mistake? -- but we were told to forget it ever happened. I brought up the point that the reason why it's so easy for fans to stop watching our show is because of dropped storylines like that, but I was told let's forget it ever happened.
So that was it.
Comments (21)
It's really hard to imagine there was ever a time when the McMahons had even a clue as to what the fans wanted. That was an actual interesting storyline that just kind of died. I'm guessing because Nipple H reaized that it meant she'd have to kiss that silver fox Bischoff some more. And I don't care if her and HHH spent a year killing my brain with 20 minute rambling promos at the beginning of every Raw, NOBODY deserves that. Oh, and please don't make me tap out.
I got a question for you, relating back to an earlier post you made about Triple H being handed the World Title belt.
Around this time period, it seems to me that Triple H was on some personal tear to make himself into Ric Flair, he had Flair as a manager, had his own horsemen like stable, started wearing suits where before he had been wearing Jeans, got Flairs big gold belt (or one just like it), even rehashed the Starrcade '83 Harley Race/ bounty storyline.
Was this some great Creative idea, or did Trips just walk in one day and decide that he wanted to live out some fantasy and everyone was forced to go along with it?
It's become such a recurring incident for WWE to "forget" what happened before instead of turning their story into something else that my friend created the Angle Abortion gimmick, complete with the "get the coat hanger!" catchphrase. Classy? No. Truthful? Yes.
The more stories I hear from you, the more I think the blame for bad decisions has to fall not on the writers (such as the much-maligned Brian Gerwitz), but rather with the "editors" (of the McMahon variety). As often as the fans say "gee, the writers sure dropped the ball by forgetting that angle, or dumbing down what started as a good concept," we obviously can't be sure that they pitched it that way. Even if they did pitch it that way, perhaps they did because they knew a "better" (less lowbrow, less 'shock value' choice) would've just been twisted by the McEditor machine. It's refreshing to know that some of WWE's own employees do see the flaws in their product.
It's become such a recurring incident for WWE to "forget" what happened before instead of turning their story into something else that my friend created the Angle Abortion gimmick, complete with the "get the coat hanger!" catchphrase. Classy? No. Truthful? Yes.
The more stories I hear from you, the more I think the blame for bad decisions has to fall not on the writers (such as the much-maligned Brian Gerwitz), but rather with the "editors" (of the McMahon variety). As often as the fans say "gee, the writers sure dropped the ball by forgetting that angle, or dumbing down what started as a good concept," we obviously can't be sure that they pitched it that way. Even if they did pitch it that way, perhaps they did because they knew a "better" (less lowbrow, less 'shock value' choice) would've just been twisted by the McEditor machine. It's refreshing to know that some of WWE's own employees do see the flaws in their product.
It's become such a recurring incident for WWE to "forget" what happened before instead of turning their story into something else that my friend created the Angle Abortion gimmick, complete with the "get the coat hanger!" catchphrase. Classy? No. Truthful? Yes.
The more stories I hear from you, the more I think the blame for bad decisions has to fall not on the writers (such as the much-maligned Brian Gerwitz), but rather with the "editors" (of the McMahon variety). As often as the fans say "gee, the writers sure dropped the ball by forgetting that angle, or dumbing down what started as a good concept," we obviously can't be sure that they pitched it that way. Even if they did pitch it that way, perhaps they did because they knew a "better" (less lowbrow, less 'shock value' choice) would've just been twisted by the McEditor machine. It's refreshing to know that some of WWE's own employees do see the flaws in their product.
Sorry, t3ch problems. There's no way to edit or delete, eh?
Can you give any insight on the McMahon vs. Gowen storyline. How you guys found him, how it was decided for Vince to immediately get into a storyline with him...etc. I'm a Vince junkie and would like to hear from the writer's view about that storyline. Or any others from that year (i.e. Undertaker/Buried Alive, etc.)
Maybe the reason you were told to forget it ever happened is because when you keep mentioning it, it would mean there would have had to be some kind of pay-off, and perhaps they already wanted to go another way?
I just think that Vince is an incredibly successful man, and doesn't do what he does without good reason. There must have been some thought behind it, and I do tend to believe Vince when he says 'I know better than the fans do about what they want'' because well, he's the one who revolutionised the business while we are all just sitting here discussing it on the internet. He is in a position where he has to make decisions for the longer term benefit, so something that may have seemed strange at first may have had a completely logical reasoning behind it.
"Maybe the reason you were told to forget it ever happened is because when you keep mentioning it, it would mean there would have had to be some kind of pay-off, and perhaps they already wanted to go another way?"
Sorry, there's no logic there whatsoever.
If they already wanted to go another way then there's no sense in doing it in the first place.
Whilst Vince is incredibly successful and has created plenty of good TV over the years, he's created countless hours of utterly crap storylines.
It was a cool moment and just that a moment, didn't need to follow up.
No wonder you're a FORMER WWE Employee
Hi Seth, i was wondering if you can share your insight on the nWo vs WWE storyline and what went wrong.
Also, what were the original plans for Bischoff, such as how far in advance the plan was for bringing him in and how it was kept so secret.
Is there any truth to Undertaker refusing to lose to Brock Lesnar at the 2002 Unforgiven (hence the double countout/dq)? That was reported, but I have a hard time believing that.
I'm convinced WWEisright is either Vince or John Laurinaitis. VInce does not know better than we do what we want. Do you think I want JBL vs. Orton vs. Cena vs. HHH? Did I want Taker to beat Edge at Wrestlemania? Hell no. Did I want to see HHH hump a corpse, or feud with Kane for that matter? Also now. I absolutely will not accept that Vince is or ever was a genius. In my mind he's made a few good decisions, and fallen ass-backwards into success based on the skills of others.
Seth & Alfonso- First of all, just a thank you for your insight and infomation.
To no,wweiswrong- anyone that has had any success at all will tell you that they failed more than they've succeded ie; WBF, XFL.
Let's talk about countless bad decisions, all around the business like the loss of the WWF name. And make no doubt, that it was a bad move legally for then WWF to arrogantly break the legal agreement they had signed, but Vince lives in a world where he's always right, so he thinks he can "toe the line", when in fact you could call him Bojangles and watch him dance all over it.
But you cannot deny the great successes that the machine that WWE is, Vince included. Did he do this all on his own, no. Austin, Rock, Hogan, Angle, HBK, and Cena ( to a lesser dergree, naturally) couldn't have made the money they did on their own, from the writers, agents, to the broad strokes in talent that are performers and those that are wrestlers, to go out there and not only be a part of this world-wide recognized product, but to carry it, does not entirely rest on the shoulders of one man or woman.
Is Vince a genius? No. He's a man that has had some success and some failures. He's human. We're all fallable.
Alex wrote:
"Can you give any insight on the McMahon vs. Gowen storyline. How you guys found him, how it was decided for Vince to immediately get into a storyline with him...etc."
***
Alex, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that WWE found him the same way a lot of people found him: he appeared in TNA on their Wednesday PPVs for a few weeks.
Zach Gowen comes from the incredibly rich Detroit/Windsor wrestling scene, fostered by Border City Wrestling's Scott D'Amore among others. Gowen, the Murder City Machine Guns, TNA's old Team Canada (Petey Williams, A1, Robert Roode, Johnny Devine, Eric Young, and even part-time members like Ruffy Silverstein), Rhyno, Monty Brown, and many others all consider that scene to be their roots. D'Amore has had a long-term role with TNA in varying capacities, which led to Zach Gowen being invited to the Asylum in Nashville.
While there, Gowen made up the infamous "I met Hulk Hogan" story for Mike Tenay to recount during his match. With that in place, I bet his introductory role in WWE wasn't too hard to discern. After all, they were in the midst of the Mr. America fiasco.
...of course, I could be completely wrong, and would love to know the real answer. :)
I don't know why people bother asking questions in blog comments. It's not like he is going to answer you...
http://meteorfreaks.com
Who cares?! Besides what's the point of these columns anyways? Oh yeah, just someone bitter who use to work for WWE with the goals of upsetting people within WWE and to get over on the internet. People who want to get themselves over with the internet wrestling community are the world's biggest marks.
Ummm, I'm pretty sure the point of telling the stories is to pull back the curtain a bit and to entertain. Pissing off the McMahon's is just kind of an added perk.
Sandusky said:
"Who cares?! Besides what's the point of these columns anyways? Oh yeah, just someone bitter who use to work for WWE with the goals of upsetting people within WWE and to get over on the internet. People who want to get themselves over with the internet wrestling community are the world's biggest marks."
Levesque, is that you? :)
Seriously, I doubt The Steel Cage wants to piss anyone off in Stamford. Unless there's some top-secret ex-WWE writers' website where they all get together and debunk myths about old booking, this is a unique site on the Internet that lets us hear stories about what it was like on the other side of the curtain.
If it ain't your bag, Sandusky, find something else to read. For some of us, it's fun and educational. I'm glad I found it.
Vince has had some successes? The man is basically a self made billionaire. He has his faults, but realize they have to entertain us year round, no hiatus for TV, no break from touring. Sure,there are Katie Vick angles that make for terrible TV, but there has to be a reason Raw is still one of cables top rated shows.
I have a question for the man that used to write theses wwe storylines. First I'm wondering if i could have your e-mail adress theres alot i'd like to ask someone in the career i'd like to have when I'm older, thanks, later man.