Fans may complain that WWE micromanages the scripting and promos on their shows. Right or wrong, there's a reason Vince McMahon moved to the direction of hiring full-time writers to help with those types of things and other wrestling-related storylines.
Chris Jericho had MLW founder Court Bauer -- also a former WWE writer -- on as his guest this week on “Talk Is Jericho.” Bauer and Jericho got into some stories about their WWE days back in the early 2000's and among them was where the idea to hire writers for wrestlers promos came from.
Jericho said that up until the late 90s, most wrestlers were merely given bullet points and everything the fans heard on TV was ad-libbed around those bullet points. Later, Vince decided to have writers script everything and more and more writers were hired. Jericho said, “The reason why writers became a thing was because when we started SmackDown in ‘99, Vince made it his motto that SmackDown was going to be bigger than the show ‘Friends’.
Yes, Vince wasn't comparing Raw or SmackDown to other wrestling shows. He was comparing their product to one of the most popular tv comedy sitcoms on the air at that time and wanted to write his shows more like the way Friends wrote their shows.
Vince Was Enamored, And Still Is
Jericho detailed that ‘Friends’ was still huge and Vince believed he could compete with the show on a ratings level -- or at least, he believed if WWE had "writers" like 'Friends' had "writers" they would stand a better chance.
Suddenly, WWE went from no writers to 15 people in a room, many of which had no wrestling background or industry experience. That process still continues as WWE just put out a listing for a lead writer position and one of the requirements in 10-plus years in television writing.
It just goes to show how little Vince views his company as a wrestling product.
You can hear the entire interview at Talk Is Jericho.
Next: Murphy Details Who He Owes His Recent And Successful WWE Run To
