Former WWE Senior Vice President of Creative Brian Gewirtz appeared on Talk is Jericho and talked about a number of topics. The highlights are below:
On his association with the Rock: “Yeah, we always got along great from the beginning. He’s the reason I was even hired in the first place. Yeah, well, the whole story of that was how I came to be, I guess, in WWE, was there was a series of specials on MTV in the summer [of] ’99. And my sister, who would eventually go on to win three Emmys at MTV, she was an intern back then, said, ‘hey, we need a writer for these SummerSlam specials and everyone’s too cool at MTV to know who Gangrel is, so would you want to write some samples?’ and I did.” Gewirtz continued, “we hit it off, right [from] the start. He was like, ‘wow, you really captured the voice real well. Did you ever consider writing for WWE?’ I was like, ‘well, no. I don’t know how that works.’ He was like, ‘yeah, well, let me put in a word with the WWE officials there and stuff.’ And then, the next thing I know, I got a call saying, ‘hey, would you want to come in for an interview in Stamford [Connecticut]?’”
On going up in front of wrestler’s court once over accusations of accepting gifts for TV time: “As a kid I loved The Flash. That was my guy. And Edge was doing a signing somewhere and someone gave him a Flash thing. And, at the time, there was a death in his extended family and he had to leave the show, so he’s like, ‘hey man, I was going to give this to you later, but, hey, somebody gave me this at a signing. It’s a Flash figurine thing. Why don’t you take it?’ And I think Bob Holly oversaw that…It was the day after WrestleMania 17, after Rock left, so my biggest advocate was gone. But it was in Oklahoma City [Oklahoma]. I was told [Jericho], Edge and Christian, are going to wrestlers’ court. I don’t remember who told me. I don’t know what it was. I expected Vince to be like, ‘no, you don’t have to go to that!’ and he says, ‘good luck, pal!’”
On being found guilty: “Here’s how stupid I am. I don’t remember who I talked to. Maybe it was Stephanie. I assumed it was like a tribunal of sorts. So they’re like, ‘bring beer and pizza. You’re going to want to appease the people judging you.’ I found a six-pack [of beer] and a single box of pizza. Yeah, a six-pack and one box of pizza, plain. And I kind of just sauntered in, thinking there would be five people in and it’s every single worker, wrestler, referee, diva, agent, every single [crew member]. Yeah, if catering was in there, I wouldn’t be surprised. Like, literally, every single person in the company was in there. And the three of us went on trial.”
On being powerbombed by Bubba Ray Dudley: “Yeah, there [are] lots of potential lawsuits that could have happened. I mean, I took a top-rope powerbomb from Bubba Dudley once. Well, first of all, Shane [McMahon], coolest man alive, we used to have a ring in the studio where we’d work and he thought the writers, at the time, now, there may have been four of us, should kind of take some bumps to kind of experience what the boys experience and everything. Bubba and D-Von were in [the ring] and he’s like, ‘lets do a powerbomb!’ I’m like, ‘what?’ Now the boys are sort of gathering around the ring and everything. I can’t chicken out, so I’m like, ‘yeah, lets do a powerbomb!’ And, again, today, never in a million years would they let one of the writers [take a powerbomb].”
On the pain of the bump: “I sort of describe it as, like people always ask, like, ‘what did it feel like?’ I’m like, ‘to me, you know that scene in Home Alone when Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci go, like, through five floors of the house down right to the [basement]? Yeah, that’s what it felt like.’”
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