Former WWE Writer Claims Vince McMahon Micromanages Everything to Death

In a recent interview in “Wrestling Observer Live,” a former WWE writer claims Vince McMahon micromanages everything to death. He also goes into detail about WWE Creative, production, and more.

Kevin Marshall, former WWE creative team member and writer, was a recent guest of the program, which can be found on F4Wonline.com. He disclosed some interesting details regarding the WWE creative process, McMahon’s hand in the mix, and how they produce weekly television.

As previously reported, the production area during a WWE broadcast is extremely hectic. Vince McMahon is said to change ideas and scripts on the fly, even recently, scrapping a script 40 minutes before going live and then re-writing the entire show as it was on-the-air. Marshall sheds some light on this issue, saying,

“Basically everything is micromanaged to death [via McMahon] and I know there is a lot of talk of ‘they’ over there when we talk about the writing process for the show. It is no secret that the buck stops with Vince, but when I was there, and I guess that this started sometime before even I started there back last October, he was micromanaging everything to death.

Basically you’re sitting there trying to write for him and you’re trying to figure out what he wants. The job became very quickly trying to figure out what Vince is thinking and then having him tell you he’s changed his mind.

So when we talk about the show being rewritten as it’s happening, what I need people to know is that that show was likely written well in advance and there was an attempt at it, but either nothing was approved or everything got scrapped and rewritten by the man himself.”

Marshall also talks about how much pull WWE Creative has when it comes to which superstars are going to be pushed or buried, which he claims is very little. He says,

“Well, I think the biggest misconception is that we sit around and we decide who gets pushed and who doesn’t, that we sit there and lay out what the tent poles are going to be for the year, like ‘hey, John Cena should win the title, blah blah blah’.

We don’t make those decisions, we don’t make those calls on finishes, we don’t sit there and hold talent back.

I think that’s the biggest misconception is the idea that we just sit around and we bury talent and we try to come up with ideas to make everybody look stupid. That’s certainly not the case! Just speaking from a writer’s perspective, I never met anybody who was in the business of trying to make somebody else look bad. I think it’s very easy when you watch our product, and I think just when you watch professional wrestling in general, to get the impression that wow, they’re really going out of their way to make this guy look stupid.

It’s really just a combination of things: 1) There’s a lot of politics that goes on behind the scenes that the creative team is not in control of.

2) There are certain guys that probably are their own worst enemy, as we all are, myself included.

It’s a lot, lot harder than it looks, especially when you have a limited roster, which when you thumb through it on WWE.com that roster looks huge, [but] when you lay it down on a piece of paper and you have to fill like sixteen segments for Monday and then twelve for Tuesday, which is Smackdown, and then you have Main Event and Superstars and everything, it’s really, really hard.”

Editor’s Note:
Very interesting conversation there between the guys at F4Wonline.com and Kevin Marshall. I love hearing about the process…knowing who to blame for the crap we see on television and such. Good to know that it is McMahon currently.