WWE Hall of Famer and backstage producer for NXT Road Dogg Brian James recently appeared on the WWE After The Bell podcast w/Corey Graves. The D-Generation X member discussed a number of topics from his career with WWE, including his run backstage with the company.
One of the points discussed was fans not understanding the intricacies of the business and why certain talents are not able to cut ‘unscripted’ promos.
“They shouldn’t be able to, because they can’t fathom the intricacies that go into it” Road Dogg began on the podcast, talking about the fan’s mentality about the business. “We got to keep the lights on, you know what I mean? We’re trying to pay the power bill.”
Road Dogg on Scripted Promos
Road Dogg would elaborate further; saying “it’s big picture stuff, we have a way we shoot TV and we have a way the promos are cut. It’s to rise above that ‘wrasslin,’ that old school mentality. We talked before we came on about USWA and look, I learned how a wrestle there and I loved it. It was a breeding ground and I really did love it. But that’s how a lot of people in the world still view wrestling.”
The former New Age Outlaw would then praise Vince McMahon for trying to change the causal viewer’s mentality of pro wrestling. “For somebody there to try to take it out of that and make it something more? I don’t think that is a bad thing, I think it’s a brilliant business decision, to be quite honest.”
The Fans ‘Not Getting It’
Moving on to scripted promos, Brian James would say that certain fans don’t understand that with the nature of WWE as a public company; they cannot allow certain talents to just cut promos they way that used to in the 90s. “They [the fans] can’t fathom like ‘okay, this guy is a loose cannon, he might say a cuss word or something.’ So we script his promo and he has do it word for word now, because we don’t trust you yet.”
Road Dogg did then clarify that talents in WWE can build that trust and be given more leeway with promos over time. “If we see over a period of time that we’re wrong and we can trust you? Then you will be brought in to the writers room. The writer has this balancing act of making sure you [the talent] get the message across. And not only the message that is written, but the message that we as a company want to send. The message that we as a company are comfortable with telling; and how far do you go and how far do you not go?”
Do you think that WWE needs to give performers more of a chance to be unscripted on television? Let us know in the comments
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