Just one month before the launch on Fox, there have been several key changes to WWE’s writing staff with new lead writers named to Raw and SmackDown.
It was first reported by Dave Meltzer at the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Ryan Ward is out as the lead writer of SmackDown and will be taking a break. It is unclear what his future is with Ryan Satin adding that he would be “taking time away for a short period of time due to unspecified reasons.”
In his place will be long-time writer Ed Koskey, who is moving over from Raw and will work alongside Eric Bischoff. Koskey has been with WWE since 2001 and holds the title of Vice President of Creative Writing, a position he had held since 2015.
On the Raw side, the position vacated by Koskey will be assumed by Jonathan Baeckstrom, who will work as the lead writer under Paul Heyman. Baeckstrom began with the company in 2013 as a writer’s assistant and moved up the ladder and was the lead writer on 205 Live until recently.
In addition, the writing staffs are being separated ahead of the move to Fox, which we can confirm.
On Wednesday, we noted that the WWE is going ahead with a draft next month with the tentative dates set for October 11th in Las Vegas, Nevada and October 14th in Denver, Colorado.
With Vince rearing up all the scripts hours before Smackdown starts; why do they even bother having a writer? Seems like a waste of resources if it’s just going to be rewritten.
I’m just glad the rosters are going to be separate and more distinct again after this dumb Wild Card Rule. At the very least, they could keep some of the recent Raw/Smackdown pairings together through the draft next month (I like the Nakamura/Zayn team, don’t @ me please).
Wasn’t Ryan Ward a top writer for NXT before being called up to Smackdown? Based on how I’ve found NXT to be, and how it seems Vince has been tearing up Smackdown scripts recently, I guess Ward wasn’t the golden boy I thought he was.
Or he writes scripts in the NXT style and Vince doesn’t like that style as evidenced by the main roster. I mean the scripts got torn up to write the awful Roman Reigns murder angle.
I personally want to see Zayn manage more guys. Maybe Cesaro next.
There was nothing wrong with the angle. Its been the aftermath that has been botched. You cant have a mystery, if you dont know what the outcome is going to be.
There was a lot wrong with the angle, I mean the initial mystery was poorly shot and Roman, the car follow up was ok but again too many camera angles. But everything since then has been pretty bad. especially fake Rowan, then a bad video footage of Rowan, which could be fake Rowan, convinces Daniel Bryan that it is actually Rowan. I mean why didn’t he just say, yeah that could be the guy we brought you. Or why did they not bring him someone that looked nothing like Rowan.
Honestly even the mystery angle was poor, someone is trying to kill Roman, and instead of going to the police, or extract vigilante justice he wants to beat him in a wrestling match.
Honestly Buddy Murphy is the only good thing about the whole angle. The Roman vs Rowan match could end up being good, but this build has been handled terribly.
IF you want to see a good mystery see the Alister Black attack angle in NXT.
I have heard a lot of interviews with former WWE writers saying that the “mystery” angle in WWE is really hard to pull off because everything can change week to week. The mystery man could get injured, or suspended, or fired at any given time. That it’s in the writers best interest to try to leave mystery’s open ended or have lots of suspects in case they need a backup plan. But it obviously negatively affects the storyline.
Yeah, when they did the Black mystery it was very open ended with a lot of possible candidates for who committed the attack. Seems like a better way to handle it than the over booked mess that we ended up with.
If we look at the Roman angle
1.) we had the rigging fall near him
2.) then he was almost hit by a car
3.) Then he went after Murphy to tell him who tried to drop the rigging on him (we forget the car entirely at this point assuming it was just the same person) who incriminates Rowan
4.) Rowan attacks Murphy
5.) Rowan and Bryan claim it was someone else
6.) They produce a Rowan look alike
7.) Roman produces a new camera angle that looks like Rowan
8.) Bryan Freaks out at Rowan
9.) Rowan attacks and admits his fault
This is way too over complicated, why the car crash if we are going to focus on the rigging? To clear Joe? Why get the look alike for just one week, if a video that shows someone that could be the look alike incriminates Roman?
IT is super simple to write this angle
1.) Do the Rigging spot, maybe follow up with a couple more mysterious attacks that fail
2.) have and upset Rowan searching for answers, beating up multiple people out of frustration, find Murphy who eventually tells him he is not sure but he saw a big guy in a hoody. Narrowing suspects a bit (Could be Joe, Corbin, Mcintyre, Rowan, Braun, The viking raiders etc)
3.) Have him start to interrogate some of these larger individuals, including Rowan who denies it, have Bryan back him. Maybe he is leaning toward Joe who is pissed off.
4.) If you want the car spot do it here clearing Joe.
5.) Maybe have another attack, which reveals the Rowan footage, pick up where we are now.
Bryan feeling betrayed makes sense, maybe some other angles have been set up in the interim as maybe some of these guys get pissed at others who pointed fingers etc. Up until the reveal at step 5 you could go with anyone you want.