Interview with ex-WWE writer about the Divas Revolution (and other things)

It’s four hours long, so if you have time you should check it out. Here is the link

https://www.spreaker.com/user/agendapodcast/timeline-of-the-revolution

Key points

He wrote for soaps, and didn’t watch Wwe since he was a kid

The turn over rate for the writers were brutal in 2010-2011, so the first two weeks some wrestlers didn’t even want to know his name.

TJ Wilson was super helpful, and taught him wrestling terminology.

New writers are paired with the women, and then would get a promotion to work with the men. This is one of the reasons why there is a no consistency in the writing for the women.

Eve Torres turning heel was decided 5 minutes before the show started.

in a production meeting Michael Cole pitched Big Show accidentally hitting AJ Lee. There was a 46 minutes discussing about it because they were worried about a man performing a violet act against women.

They just paired Daniel Bryan and AJ together because there was nothing for them to do. It was a happy accident that the crowd was into it.

Vince saw money in AJ Lee, and didn’t see the same in Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn was pitched to join the Watt family after she lost the Diva title.

There was a conspiracy conversation that the women’s match for Wrestlmania 27 was just cut for Total divas drama.

Felt bad over how bad Beth Phoenix was treated.

The original plan was AJ Lee was going to throw herself through a table instead of choosing between Punk and Daniel. They changed it because they didn’t want to promote a women trying to kill herself because of a man.

Paige winning the belt on the first night was mandated by the higher ups.

The Bella Twins were excited to have a feud against one another, but hated how it ended because there was no resolution.

Charlotte was the one who pitched the idea of Paige mentioning Reid in her promo. No one bullied Charlotte into doing that storyline like Ric Flair mentioned.

No individual should be credited for starting the Diva’s Revolution. It was a combination of things.

They thought about doing a Seth and Stephanie McMahon love story, but they decided against.

During the brand spilt, Tom considered Becky Lynch to be the Daniel Bryan of the women’s division because she was the ultimate babyface. He doesn’t know how backstage feels about her now.

There is a disconnect between how NXT wrestlers are being trained

There was a lot of writers felt like the gimmicks in NXT don’t work on the main roster. When you have a character that can only work one role it doesn’t work.

Tom wasn’t into doing the Alicia Fox being crazy storyline. He felt like there was no real character motivation on why she was crazy. But it mandated by the higher ups, so he went with it.

Interesting insight into the business. Also interesting that new writers get paired with the women. Womens wrestling has always been a marmite branch of the business, you'd think you'd put your more experienced writers in those positions to try harder to get it over.