Jimmy Jacobs is the guest on the latest “Insiders” podcast on AdFreeShows.com. He shared some stories from his days as a writer in WWE.
Jacobs said he didn’t see Seth Rollins becoming as big a star as he became when they were both in Ring of Honor:
“I’m going to be a little critical of myself here and go, I didn’t see him being as big of a star as he became. Gabe (Sapolsky) saw him becoming a huge star. You still have to understand in 2007, look, it was my idea to bring him into Ring of Honor, so certainly, like, I knew he was going to be good for us. But it wasn’t how obvious of a star that anybody was going to be at that time because of that gap of Independents and WWE was still strong in 2007. Like guys were trickling in, but these were exceptions to the rule and not the rule. Nowadays, it’s like if anybody that gets over kind of at all outside of WWE, WWE picks them back up. So it wasn’t clear what the ceiling was for people back then. He was young and athletic and loved wrestling and he had enough humility to absorb the business around him.”
Jacobs talking about being on the writing team for WWE:
“Vince is a legend. Anything I say, it’s with a certain amount of respect and love, and it’s only from the perspective and the experience I had there. So none of it is meant to disparage him because it’s his company. It’s his sandbox. You’re playing it. That’s what you have to understand when you’re there. You go, ‘Why isn’t this different? Because it’s not your show. That was my motto. That was my mantra. It’s not my show. If it was my show, this is how I would do it. It’s not my show, so we’re gonna do this.”
“When I first got there, I thought that Vince was going to be a dude, a billionaire, but a dude. Like when I first got there, I was like, why is everybody so scared of Vince? Everybody, like, just treat him like a human, guys. What are you talking about? Then I learned almost immediately I was like, oh, yeah, and I started becoming scared of Vince. One of my first, maybe my first month there, my closest friend on the team, on the writing team, almost got fired because he came into Vince’s office without knocking. Vince had said,’ Fix up this promo and come back to me.’ So he fixes the promo and he comes back to him. He doesn’t knock, and Vince wanted to fire him. Dave and Ed, great bosses, great dudes, they saved him. The guys name was Ryan Callahan. Saved his job. He just, have to go on the home team. Can’t go on the road and be in front of Vince. He’s got to bring him to the home team. Ryan, Callahan, not Ward, Ryan was an incredible writer, and he’s there now. He’s one of the lead writers of SmackDown. He’s brilliant guy. You start to realize that you’re one weird interaction with Vince away from being in the doghouse or being fired. Then you just start to behave in a way to try to not get fired. Then your ideas become ideas in an effort to not get fired. Pretty soon you have a whole bunch of people that are playing to not lose instead of playing to win.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit AdFreeShows.com with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
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