Shake-up to lead writers for WWE Raw and SmackDown

[Big Red Machine]

Source: www.F4WOnline.com

By Dave Meltzer | @davemeltzerWON | Sep 4, 2019 7:10 pm


There has been a shake-up in the writing teams of WWE television today, which has been brewing for some time.

Ryan Ward, who had been the lead writer for SmackDown, is out, officially called a personal leave. In recent weeks the SmackDown scripts have been heavily edited by Vince McMahon and it was known some type of change on the SmackDown side was inevitable.

Ed Koskey, who had been the head writer of Raw, is being moved to SmackDown, and will be working with Eric Bischoff. Koskey has been with the company for more than 18 years and has been a key writer for more than a decade and is currently Vice President of Creative Writing.

The writing teams for Raw and SmackDown are being split before the official talent split comes the second week of October.

Jonathan Baeckstrom has taken over as the lead writer for Raw. He will work under Paul Heyman. Baeckstrom had been the lead writer for 205 Live since November 2016, although he had been moved from the show when Heyman brought him in when he started being in charge of Raw.

[Big Red Machine]

Yeah... that last bit should tell you how little some of these writers matter, as this guy has supposedly been the head writer of 205 Live since its inception, and yet that show has been VERY different when Vince was in charge as opposed to when Hunter has been in charge.

[Serujuunin]

Yeah... that last bit should tell you how little some of these writers matter, as this guy has supposedly been the head writer of 205 Live since its inception, and yet that show has been VERY different when Vince was in charge as opposed to when Hunter has been in charge.

My question now becomes, was it so bad before because Vince was shooting down ideas and pitching his own, and now it’s good because Hunter is pitching ideas? Or is Hunter letting the writers actually write?

[Big Red Machine]

Yeah... that last bit should tell you how little some of these writers matter, as this guy has supposedly been the head writer of 205 Live since its inception, and yet that show has been VERY different when Vince was in charge as opposed to when Hunter has been in charge.

My question now becomes, was it so bad before because Vince was shooting down ideas and pitching his own, and now it’s good because Hunter is pitching ideas? Or is Hunter letting the writers actually write?

I've been giving this some thought, and I think it's the former. Some people (especially on the undercard) still sound very scripted, and Lucha House Party in particular seem to have terrible catchphrases or other lines inserted into their promos, so I'm guessing that the writer only writes for the people who need it/ask for it while everyone cuts their promos from bullet points given to them by Hunter and/or Adam Pearce.

[Serujuunin]

Yeah... that last bit should tell you how little some of these writers matter, as this guy has supposedly been the head writer of 205 Live since its inception, and yet that show has been VERY different when Vince was in charge as opposed to when Hunter has been in charge.

My question now becomes, was it so bad before because Vince was shooting down ideas and pitching his own, and now it’s good because Hunter is pitching ideas? Or is Hunter letting the writers actually write?

I've been giving this some thought, and I think it's the former. Some people (especially on the undercard) still sound very scripted, and Lucha House Party in particular seem to have terrible catchphrases or other lines inserted into their promos, so I'm guessing that the writer only writes for the people who need it/ask for it while everyone cuts their promos from bullet points given to them by Hunter and/or Adam Pearce.

That's not necessarily a terrible thing, IMO. There is still some responsibility on the talent to take what is given to them and make it sound natural (even if they are given steaming garbage, unfortunately). And that's what separates Lucha House Party from Samoa Joe. Joe makes even the stupidest stuff sound at least halfway decent because of the way he delivers it.

I'm sure there is a lot about this fundamentally that I don't understand/am ignorant of, but when you can tell from one segment to the next that they were composed by different people, it doesn't make for a very coherent and flowing show.