WWE Writer’s Block And Blockheads

Let’s roleplay.

I’m a short-order cook at Waffle House. That might make me co-workers with CM Punk, but regardless, I’ve done this for the last five years. One day, I decide to apply to be a sous-chef on a cruise ship. The owner of the boat reviews my resume and determines I am in no way qualified to take this job, as I know nothing about fine dining. However, because he’d like his boat to appeal to the least common denominator, he hires me anyway. In spite of this, the boat is still going to be serving five-star meals, nothing I would have had any experience dealing with at Waffle House. Not only that, but I’ve made the decision I’m going to show up for my first day of work having opened nary a book about five-star cuisine, going in blind to prepare food for a very particular clientele I’m in no way accustomed to dealing with.

This scenario doesn’t happen in the real world. It can, however, happen in the insane, topsy-turvy world of professional wrestling and has probably happened too many times to count, just not publicly, that is, until last week.

Of course, I’m talking about the comments now former WWE writer Kenice Mobley made on the Asian Not Asian Podcast, and WWE’s decision to hire, then fire her. In case you haven’t seen the story or aren’t familiar with the quote that fired up people inside and outside the industry, here it is:

“So, I am on the Monday Night Raw team. So, there’s Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown and the people I know that are on it are Bobby — his name is either Bobby Ashley or Bobby Lashley and I really should know that. He’s like this giant black guy and he and the people who are part of his crew, I know that they call — or at least as of last year, they called themselves The Hurt Business. The Hurt Business. They wear suits and they’re like, ‘We’re cool.’”

Right off the bat, this comment is a total indictment of the WWE’s hiring practices, but before I go to town on the juggernaut, I have to do a number on Kenice Mobley herself, who has been given a free pass from wrestling fans. The narrative I’ve most frequently seen is that she is blameless and that all the heat needs to be on WWE for hiring someone with such a lack of experience and product knowledge, and not her for taking the money.

I can’t disagree with that, but if you’ve ever held a job, unless you’ve been headhunted or you have a significant connection, you probably got that job by applying. In applying for a job, you are making the first move, which in most cases means the job is something you have done, have interest in or want to take an interest in. I wouldn’t expect a hitman to seek out work as a heart surgeon, for example, unless of course he’s a total sadist. Either way, you don’t just get summoned into a job. There needs to be mutual interest. It takes two to tango and the fact is Kenice Mobley accepted a job she knows absolutely nothing about, having no idea whether she could perform said job at an adequate level.

I get that at the time of the podcast, she had yet to start with WWE, but she did feel comfortable enough to go on a podcast and babble on about something she knew absolutely nothing about, effectively disgracing her now former employer, as well as herself. Let’s also not forget that the podcast came out two weeks before her comments went viral, so it’s doubtful anything changed for her over that time.

At best, the comments are not the picture of professionalism. At worst, they are a slap in the face to everyone who’s either stepped in the ring, been a fan of wrestling or helped put on a wrestling show. Her comments lie somewhere in the middle, but I’m happy to dole out some free advice to her and anybody else thinking about pivoting to a foreign field of work. Unless you’re prepared to do the work and get up to speed on everything that goes into the new gig, save yourself and the employer some time and go find something more up your alley. Otherwise, you’re going to end up with egg on your face and probably offend hundreds of thousands of people along the way.

Which brings me to WWE. Talk about getting egg on your face; this is not the first, nor the last time that will happen to this company, but this is an absolutely fugly situation any way you slice it. By hiring someone with no product knowledge or experience, it shows a considerable amount of neglect for the quality of the show, as well as the talent that actually have to go out there and perform. Kenice Mobley, for all of her faults, would not have had to go out to the ring and entertain the fans on Monday Night Raw.

Shayna Baszler, however, does, and in order for someone like her to do her job effectively, there needs to be a level of trust between wrestler and writer. How can trust be developed if the writers walking through the door are all aloof comedians who share zero passion for the profession? It’s no coincidence that a report from Fightful came out expressing the notion that several WWE superstars felt disrespected by the comments. I don’t need to spell out why.

I recently became aware of another quote from Kenice Mobley:

“I went on a date and this guy was like, ‘Don’t you feel like you’re –’ he effectively said, ‘Don’t you feel like you’re diminishing your dignity writing for WWE?’ And I was like, ‘Um, I am getting paid to do the thing that I’ve been working on for eight years,’ and this is twice — or no, this is three times what I make at my non-profit job, so yeah, I’m gonna take it.”

Again, I can’t harp enough on the pure stupidity that comes with agreeing to work for a company you know nothing about, but I’ll save the speech for brevity’s sake. But the date’s take on wrestling is actually reminiscent of WWE’s view of itself. This, after all, is the same WWE that raises its nose to the phrase “pro wrestling” in spite of the fact it is – and always will be – a professional wrestling company.

I love Vince McMahon. He’s a visionary and one of the great on-screen performers that doesn’t quite get his due. However, nobody is ever going to utter the words, “let’s go to the sports-entertainment show tonight.” If it hasn’t happened by now, it’s never going to happen. I’m not even suggesting WWE has to steer into the fact that it’s doing professional wrestling. All I’m saying is if the brand messaging wasn’t so self-loathing, then maybe, just maybe, you would have fewer ignorant people like the guy on the date.

Kenice Mobley could have just answered his question with a simple “no,” but that’s not what happened. Instead, her comments offended anybody and everybody that has ever enjoyed or anticipated an episode of Raw. Given the amount of people who would kill to have a say over what happens on that show, you owe it to them to do the best job you can do. The fact that you not only couldn’t remember the WWE Champion’s name, but also fessed up to the fact that your motivations are purely financial, is a shit look.

Apparently, WWE saw Mobley’s comments through the same lens I did. It doesn’t change the fact that the company is solely responsible for her hiring, along with another comedy writer who got assigned to SmackDown and many more before them. As a fan, it makes me yearn for the days where we had guys like Alex Greenfield, Court Bauer and John Piermarini writing the shows, who not only understood the product and knew the names of the wrestlers, but could tell the difference between a wrist lock and a wrist watch.

Additionally, I’m not at all suggesting writers with a non-wrestling background can’t be successful. Freddie Prinze Jr. was a tremendous asset to the writing team for the short time he worked for WWE. Not only was Freddie instrumental in the creative behind Jeff Hardy’s main event push in 2008, he also helped the talent with their acting chops on the side and I wish WWE could have kept him around.

Dave Meltzer reported that WWE felt embarrassed and that Mobley’s comments made the company look “blindingly stupid” to the outside world. The irony in that is how blindingly stupid WWE came off to the inside world, let alone the outside world. For the record, I’m sure Kenice Mobley is a nice person, and for as much as I’ve cut her down to size here, if a company hires someone who openly talks about its hiring practices and thinks it makes it look blindingly stupid, maybe the problem isn’t the person just hired. Maybe the hiring practices are the problem; hiring practices that are in place all because the man in charge hates the idea of being labeled as a pro wrestling show.

Now imagine describing this story to a family member who knows nothing of WWE or its hiring practices. World Wrestling Entertainment was, is and will always be my primary company of choice, “Then, Now, Forever,” as it likes to say. That’s just the way it is. I’m also an avid sports fan and would love to go to work one day for one of my favorite teams. As much as I’d like to be able to say the same about WWE, I simply can’t. I can’t imagine what it would be like to work for a company where having product knowledge and passion is looked at as a negative.

If that makes me the “mind-numbingly stupid” one, so be it.