an interview with WWE as a script writer, his trip to Titian Towers and everything about it. He returned with something that is more like a story than an interview, but I plan to present it here on Fridays for RassleTalk for the next few weeks.
some money and moved out there. He didn't have a
fulltime job so whenever I heard about a gig out there
I would email it to him. One day he emails me back and
said, "Since you find all these jobs for me, here's
one for you." He attached a link to a Hotjobs.com
listing for a Creative Writer for the WWE. At the time
I was really looking to move from Memphis and was
sending resume tapes and dvds out all over the place.
Well I knew from the Observer the kind of people the
WWE was looking for and knew that I didn't fit the
description, but I thought what the hell I'll just
send it in as a joke. So I sent in a resume, and a
couple writing samples and they asked for a sample of
segment you would right for one of their shows so I
wrote a Jericho/Christian/Trish bit and sent that in.
This was like January/February 2005.
Well a month or so later I’m at work up at Channel
Three. I’m dicking around checking my email and I see
in my inbox “Stephanie McMahon.” I was sure someone
was fucking around with me, but I opened it up and
sure enough. It was an email from Stephanie and Kathy
from Human Resources. It said they were impressed with
my resume and liked my writing samples and that they
wanted to continue the interview process. They would
be contacting soon with further information. It was
really weird. Honestly, I still thought someone was
messing with me, but there was WWE letterhead on the
email and a Steph Signature at the bottom. Well when I
opened up the attachment and found a Confidentiality
Agreement I figured it was for real.
Not two minutes later my phone rings and it’s an
“Unavailable Number.” I never answer those, but I knew
something was up so I answer. “Hello.” “Hello. Is this
Mark?” “Yep.” “This is Kathy ******** with the WWE.” I
wanted to say HOLY SHIT, but managed to keep from
cussing. Anyway, she was really cool and very nice.
She told me how much they liked my writing sample and
just asked some more about my background with tv,
film, and wrestling. She said I’d be getting a packet
of information soon about the next step in the
process. She said basically it would be a longer
writing sample. They would send it out to me then they
usually like to get it back within two weeks of
sending it out. She then told me a little more about
the job and some other junk. We talked for probably 45
minutes and she told me to expect the email within the
hour then she would call in the next few days to set
up phone interviews for me with the Head of Human
Resources and with Stephanie then we got off the
phone. At first I just sat around kinda of in a daze
then I called my then fiancée and my two best friends
to be like “HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!”
Later that day I got the email and took a look at
it. It said that they wanted me to write an in-ring
interview, a backstage vignette, and “some in ring
physicality, but not necessarily a match.” I was
supposed to do one for Raw and one for Smackdown. It
said that all of this should take place in one show
and I should try to be succient and not write too
much. Try to keep it under 20 pages. Well later I
would find out they didn’t really want it all in one
show or under 20 pages, but that’s later. I
immediately started working. Brainstorming. Writing
down ideas. All kinds of crap. I knew I wanted to use
established guys, but try to give something to guys I
thought were being underused. The ideas I liked best
were ideas I had for JBL, Angle, and the Bashams, Edge
and Bautista, Tomko, Victoria, and Snitsky, and the
Jericho/Christian/Trish thing. At first I decided to
continue the Jericho/Christian/Trish thing that I’d
started. This was a big storyline. It went almost a
year. It involved Kane and Bischoff and all kinds of
twists and turns that eventually led to Jericho and
Trish getting back together after Trish proved that
she was sorry for turning on him and reearned his
trust. I really dug it. I plotted it out then that
weekend I was flying to New York to see one of our
movies in the New York International Independent Film
Festival and wrote the script for everything on the
plane. I let my friend who I worked on the movies with
read it (he’s a big wrestling fan) and he loved it. I
edited it on the flight back and I really dug it. I
thought I was all set to go, but wanted to talk to a
couple people first.
I had only told one person I knew in wrestling
about what was going on, Reno Ruegar. He’s like my
wrestling dad and a great guy. I just didn’t want it
all getting out and having to talk to everyone about
it so I was keeping it quite. I knew there was one
other person I wanted to talk about it with. He’d done
a lot of booking and had been as close to the WWE as
anyone and knew more people in the WWE than anyone I
knew. He and I almost NEVER agreed on booking, but
still I knew talking to him would help. So I called
him up. I called up Derrick King.
People can say whatever they want about him. Some
people love him. Some people hate him. He can be a
genius. He can be an idiot. I like the guy and I
respect his opinion. We hung out and talked and he was
really cool about it. He totally understood me not
wanting to tell everyone about it and said he’d talk
to the guys he knew up there to see what they thought.
I kicked around some ideas with him. Finally, right
before I left he said something with me that really
stuck. He said, “Remember they don’t want a wrestling
booker they want a television writer.”
I went home and broke out my script and realized
it was all wrong. It was fantasy booking. Good fantasy
booking, but still fantasy booking. I started over. I
went back to square one and rewrote everything. I went
with the Edge/Bautista Angle, and the
Angle/JBL/Bashams Angle. I only wrote what happened in
one show and kept it simple. I wrote little synopsizes
of what would come before and where everything was
going. I also wrote some little promo videos and
vignettes for some other guys. Just to show some of my
other ideas. I sent my scripts off to several of my
friends. Wrestling fans. Non-wrestling fans. TV
people. Film people. I even gave it to Reno and
Derrick. Most everyone liked it. Some people had some
other ideas. Some I stole others I ignored. I cleaned
everything up and sent it in the day before my
deadline.
In the meantime, my phone interviews were
scheduled. About a week after I sent in my script I
had my first phone interview with Palma, the Head of
Human Resources. At first it was like every other job
interview I’ve ever had. “Why are you interested in
our company?” “What do you have to offer?” “How would
you operate when you first start working with the
other people on the team?” Yada, yada. Then she got
into some other stuff. “Is there any talent on the
roster you would particularly like to work with?”
“Why?” “What would be the first thing you would do if
you were put in charge of a show?” “Which show would
you prefer to work on?” My answers to these questions
and her reactions should have clued me in that it
would never work with me there. I told her I would
want to work with the undercard guys. The guys who
haven’t been given much who have all the talent in the
world, but just need that angle or storyline that
brings out their personality. I told her I thought
that you earn your way up to working with the top guys
by proving yourself with the undercard guys. This
shocked her. I think you’re supposed to say that you
want to work with just HHH and Undertaker, but
honestly I don’t think I mentioned either guy.
Her shock to that question paled in comparison to
my answer about the first thing I would do. I told her
the first thing I would do is get all the general
managers, commissioners, owners, ect. off tv. The idea
was great for a while, but its run its course and now
it makes people groan. I said pardon my language, but
the number one complaint I hear from fans about the
show is “What the fuck is a co-general manager?” I
told her that kind of stuff is just alienating your
core audience. Your core audience is wrestling fans
who want to suspend their disbelief and pretend that
it’s a real competition. Paul Tagliabue doesn’t show
up at every NFL game to change who’s playing who and
what the rules are. We need to get the heat off of
figureheads and back on the heels. She said, “Don’t
you think you need someone to control all the chaos?”
I said, “No, you need to turn down the chaos. If
everything is crazy then nothing is crazy. We need to
make the things we do mean more by doing them less.” I
know none of that got over with her, but the rest of
the interview went really well and she seemed to like
me so she said she’d be back in touch soon to schedule
another interview with her, an interview with
Stephanie, and a session with some of the writer’s to
go over my scripts.
