Kenice Mobley, a writer for WWE that received a lot of attention after a podcast interview, has been released by the company.
Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp reported her departure after she had been part of the writing staff on Raw for a brief time.
Earlier this week, there was a lot of focus after Mobley appeared on the Asian Not Asian podcast and spoke about joining WWE and being upfront about her lack of knowledge regarding the product (transcribed by Andrew Thompson):
Yes, I have just been hired by WWE. Given the things that you know about me and my entire life and what I’m into, yes . Yes, also a surprise for me. They did not require me to know anything about wrestling but I do have a background in film production and comedy writing and they’re like, ‘Perfect. Come on in.’
In the interview, she also spoke about the Raw brand and was unsure of Bobby Lashley’s name, which was the line that drew a lot of criticism:
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.’
Hopefully she can find some success in life doing something she actually has knowledge of and experience with. WWE ought to be supremely embarrassed over this going public.
I mean I don’t hold it against her for taking the job. It’s more on WWE for hiring people with no product knowledge - and seeking those people out for 20+ years.
The issue with WWE isn’t who they are hiring as writers. The issue is who has final say over what goes on the show. Everybody is writing for an audience of one in that company. The problem is that showrunner is awful.
I don’t have a problem with them looking in unique directions to add to a writing team, especially when so many fans complain about the construct of what that team is doing otherwise.
But the writers are inherently replaceable and if you’re going to take an interview (which seems weird for an active writer), you should probably know the lead character on the show you write for.
Good riddance to this bozo. The hiring is very questionable in the first place, but it’s clear she did little, if any research going into it.
I don’t watch any NCIS, but if I’m going in for a writers job, I’m probably going to do some research and watch some episodes first, so I at least know the main characters and stories.
An important point that needs to be made is that hiring people with no prior experience with/interest in wrestling as absolutely par for the course with WWE and is unlikely to stop as a result of this. As a friend of mine just said, “WWE didn’t can her for not knowing the product, they canned her for embarrassing them.”
I don’t know what is more stupid:
WWE hiring a writer who doesn’t know the name of their champion
or
The Writer admitting on a podcast she doesn’t know the name of the champion
Either way - enough of these stupid writers from Hollywood.
And seriously, imagine being public with comments about how you don’t know the product you got hired to work on. Like, it’s fine to not know if they didn’t require it, but it’s pretty stupid to go on a podcast and say as much. I think that decision may be more grounds for termination than anything related to knowledge of the product.
Definitely. Most of us experience a little bit of imposter syndrome when we get a new gig, but we express those thoughts privately over a beer with friends, not publicly on record shortly after taking the job.
We’ve known for years that WWE hired people from Hollywood with no clue about wrestling. The funny thing is none of it really matters because ultimately it’s whatever the senile old man wants to see.
Huh?
In 20 years has a writer ever gone on a non-wwe podcast and botch their talents name and admit they don’t (and weren’t required) to know about the product they were writing for?
I’ll relate it to my industry: It would be like hiring a Financial Advisor and then they go out publicly that they really didn’t know anything about stocks and bonds but were told they’ll learn, meanwhile they have clients.
There’s a reason ESPN never wanted talent doing other network podcasts. What they say will be a reflection on their company in such a capacity. Imagine an ESPN new hire being like “yeah don’t know about sports but I got hired as a sideline reporter”. Pretty sure in no field would that fly.
This person embarassed the company. Ever listen to the earnings call when they ask about “creative” and ratings. Imagine being an investor and finding out they don’t actually hire people who know their own product (investors differ from fans in that they aren’t on wrestling forums or know this is common practice for WWE). Some people just make dumb decisions sometimes but no doubt if this writer is qualified for other Tv writing gigs she’ll land on her feet quickly
“WWE has a lot of writers who know the wrestling business and we’re looking to bring in others who have a completely fresh perspective. That’s what Kenice brings to the company. She’s still brand new and is coming up with entertaining ideas that she will work with others to develop for WWE television. As time passes, she’ll get to know not just Bobby Lashley but all of our superstars, but we never want her to lose that outsider’s approach because that will be important in her professional growth and our growth as a company.”
Any PR coordinator should have been able to issue a response like that in roughly the time it takes to type it. Explains their take on what happened (whether you agree with it or not) and makes it seem like it’s no big deal. As opposed to what happened, which makes them look like idiots.
If you can clearly and common sense-ly see why they hired her then why are they idiots? It’s not a bad idea to hire people out of the box if you value different skills. Sometimes you hire a dud. That seems clear here. Imagine a new anchor being hired for CNN and a couple weeks in thinking the country to the south is called Nexico. Or that the lead anchor for the network is Cooper Anderson. You’re going to retain that person? She went on a podcast and made it seem like their WWE Champion wasn’t important enough to remember. Considering we never hear their writers on podcasts or anything else, we don’t even know if they fired her for just breaking protocol. Adjacent to what MJ said, when you go on these podcasts, you’re doing so as a representative of the company you work for…and this came off sloppy as hell. Do I think they could have found a way to retain her if they wanted to? Sure. But I don’t think they owed that to her here.
Yeah I’m sure there’s a policy where current writers can’t go on podcasts and talk about the product - that never happens. There’s also probably a probation period and she is apparently pretty new.
It’s also the fact that the story got some traction and they look bad, that’s the most important factor. They will just hire another Hollywood moron to replace her
They look like idiots. This isn’t the kinda thing anyone investing in the company wants to hear and they seemingly only operate solely for the stakeholders - mostly Vince. You think Vince likes being embarrassed?
Im sure Nick Khan showed up and rightly asked why do we have all these people under contract who do nothing.
It really makes HHH and Cemen look like fools. They signed anyone and everyone including many who had zero return on investment. It’ll be interesting to see how HHH does acquiring talents with less money to blow and more competition.
Any moron could have put together a dream NXT roster in 2016 or 2017. A lot more difficult now