Paul Heyman has been touted as one of the greatest minds in the history of the pro wrestling business and is also praised for his phenomenal promo skills. He is well aware of the WWE machinery and how it functions.
While speaking on Sports Media with Richard Deitsch, Paul Heyman was asked if he now had more creative control than ever before. This inevitably led to a discussion regarding WWE Superstars being handed scripted promos which they have to say every week.
Heyman stated that there is more creative freedom now in WWE than ever before and went on to defend scripted promos by mentioning popular shows such as Peaky Blinders to make his point.
“I dare suggest it’s more the case now than it’s ever been before,” Heyman said of creative freedom. “Especially on Talking Smack. Kudos to the performers who a) raise their game on the show and b) trust me enough to open up when they’re sitting next to me. And kudos to Kayla Braxton for simply surviving me, let alone tolerate me. As for others that’s something without a perfect answer. Vince McMahon owns a content creation conglomerate that now has on the table, in application, three separate billion dollar deals. And knowing Vince he’s probably working on more; he’s probably trying to envision the first ever trillion dollar content deal.
“When you have such deals you have to protect those deals from someone else screwing them up. So if someone goes out to the ring and on live TV or a live stream. And they say something that is egregiously wrong and it gets through. It would cause a major scandal and, cancel culture or not, could deservedly get WWE thrown off of Fox or NBCU or Peacock. That would blow a billion dollar deal. So who’s to blame beside Vince McMahon for saying ‘I want to know what this person is saying before they say it.’ Peaky Blinders doesn’t live, it’s filmed. You know what these characters are going to say.
“Therefore, if someone walks out to the ring, Vince McMahon has the right to know exactly what that person is going to say. Otherwise he’s jeopardizing the shareholders’ right to a return on their investment. They’re hoping and counting on the Chairman to maintain control of a creative environment that can always go wrong. And WWE, as a scripted performance that allows some improv, tries to keep control of that environment. The same way other dramas on television present these characters in scripted situations.”
The ongoing debate regarding scripted and unscripted promos is unlikely to end anytime soon as many fans still feel that unscripted promos similar to those back in the Attitude Era help flesh out characters more than scripted promos, which feel artificial in nature.
h/t to Wrestling Inc for the quotes.
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