Former WWE writer Michael Leonardi is alleging that the company fired him for changing a script against Vince McMahon’s wishes. He first joined them in 2001, where he worked until 2005 as part of the on-air promotion department before returning in April 2015 as a creative writer. He was fired in January 2016.
2016 departure
He shared two videos on his LinkedIn account detailing both departures. Leonardi captioned his first video with: “I was fired by Vince McMahon back in 2016 while trying to protect the company from airing a racially insensitive segment.
For years I felt ashamed and replayed the situation 1000’s of times over in my head trying to figure out what I could have done to not get fired. In light of everything going on, I just wanted to get it off my chest as I’m finally starting to feel like maybe I didn’t deserve to be fired.”
In the first video, he claimed he was fired from the company for changing a segment on the Martin Luther King Jr. Day edition of Raw in 2016. He noted it still rubs him the wrong way and wonders what he could’ve done differently.
Neville, Titus O’Neil, R-Truth, and Mark Henry were in the segment, with the script being given to them on short notice.
“The script called for Neville to speak up and tell everyone else that he’s got ‘a dream’ too and that dream is to win the Royal Rumble. And I remember Neville coming up to me after he read it, and he was like, ‘I can’t say this.’
(Trying to compare) a wrestler who wants to one day win the Royal Rumble to one of the most iconic speeches in American history about civil rights and how important that was – to try and play on that was just dumb, it was poor writing.”
Problems
He pointed out that it makes Neville look weak and not a babyface. He said Truth, Henry, and O’Neil were also uncomfortable with the line.
“Not only was Neville not comfortable saying it, the other three guys in the room, Titus and R-Truth and Mark Henry, were like, ‘Yeah, this is f’ing terrible.’”
They were uncomfortable with the situation, and talent did not want to film it. They tried to do it without it coming off as racially insensitive. WWE changed the script to have R-Truth deliver the line instead of Neville, something Leonardi says was “light and fun.”
McMahon’s reaction
Dave Kapoor (Ranjin Singh), the boss of Leonardi, told McMahon about the changes, leading to Leondardi needing to explain the situation.
“I’ll never forget this, he’s staring at the screen, he takes off his headphones and he turns to me and said, ‘So, you didn’t give me what I wanted?’ I explained to him again what we did, the circumstances around it, the limitations that we had. I took full responsibility for it and then he just chewed me the f**k out, pardon my french.”
At SmackDown the next day, Leonardi was given a script and told that Titus O’Neil needed to deliver it word-for-word. It took two hours for them to film this. He noted that if he could change things, they would’ve filmed it in another version the wrestlers wanted to do.
“We collaborated, we all put our heads together, my boss included, and we put together what we thought was the best possible thing. But Vince thought that was a major no-no, and I got fired for it.”
Second departure
Regarding his 2005 departure, he said he was supposed to create a video package for the Muhammad Hassan and Undertaker feud leading up to The Great American Bash but asked to work on something else because he thought the angle was insensitive following the London bombings in July 2005.
He was demoted as a result before being given back his responsibilities after UPN insisted the Muhammad Hassan character no longer be shown on their network, leading to him eventually leaving shortly after.
H/T to F4Wonline.com for the transcription
