Freddie Prinze Jr Reveals Details On WWE Creative Process, CM Punk’s Departure, Vince & More

Former WWE creative team member Freddie Prinze Jr has a lot to say about his days with the company. In a recent interview with Mick Rouse of GQ Magazine, the actor went in detail about working with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, their creative process, and much more. Here are some highlights from the article:

– Prinze said the writers sit down together and spitball ideas. If there’s an idea that’s really out there, the writer will get some crap for it. After a while, you learn to filter the ideas and start small. Otherwise, you’ll be out of the company in 3-4 months.

– For example, let’s say they decide to put the WWE Championship on Kevin Owens. They’ll start with that ending and then work backwards, deciding what his journey will be and what challengers he will face on his way up. The agents decide how the actual matches will go, not the writers. “I would write segments out in advance. Like, full-out dialogue. Not everyone would do that, but I would really try to paint a full picture because what I was pitching was weird stuff, even for wrestling.” he said. When they have most of the angle mapped out, they’ll pitch it to the boss.

– Once the writers get to TV, pitching ideas is a different process. The script outline is complete and the writers are told how much time they get to fill. From there, it’s a round-robin style approach, with the writers, the agents, the ‘people behind the cameras’ getting a chance to contribute before Vince gives it the final “Yay” or “Nay.”

– Regarding what it was like working with Vince McMahon, Prinze said, “Oh, Vince is like a kid who just opened his toy box. I don’t mean that in a crappy way, but these are his toys and this is his toy box and he takes great care over them. He has certain ones that are more special than others at certain times, and you can see that on TV, but that’s his right. It’s his toy box.”

– By the time CM Punk’s frustrations with WWE were public knowledge, it was already too late. “All those promos that him and Vince McMahon would have in the ring together, that was all real stuff,” he said. “That wasn’t anything that anyone wrote, that was them debating in the ring. And people knew it was real! They knew they were saying real things and that it wasn’t a TV show right there anymore.”

You can read the full interview here, where Prinze also discusses how he came to work for WWE in the first place.