Jimmy Jacobs says wrestling fans have spent years blaming WWE’s creative writers for decisions they were never actually in charge of. According to the former WWE writer, when Vince McMahon didn’t want someone on television, the creative team often ended up taking the heat for it anyway.
Speaking to Till Five Wrestling, Jacobs explained that there’s a major difference between being a writer and actually being the person running creative. He described WWE’s writers as advisers who could bring ideas to the table but couldn’t force the person at the top to use them.
“There is such a misconception about what the job of creative is. Writers aren’t the head of creative. That’s one thing, but the writers are a different thing. The writers aren’t shot-callers. They’re advisers to the king. That’s what they are.”
Jacobs said that distinction wasn’t just lost on fans either. In his experience, plenty of wrestlers and veteran personalities also talked about WWE creative without really understanding what happened behind the scenes.
“And for some reason, nobody — none of the fans — understands this. A bunch of the wrestlers don’t understand this. A bunch of the old marks. Like, who’s that guy with the plug up his butt? Rip Rogers. Is that his name? Rip Rogers.”
Jacobs specifically remembered seeing Rip Rogers pitch an idea involving Brock Lesnar on social media while he was working on WWE’s creative team. Whatever Rogers suggested immediately told Jacobs that he didn’t understand how WWE’s creative system actually operated.
“I remember being on the creative team and him tweeting something about Brock Lesnar should do something, something, something that let me know, ‘Oh, this old guy has no idea how this works. He has no idea how this works.’”
That frustration extended to fans who listened to former wrestlers discuss the business and then assumed they understood WWE’s internal creative process. Jacobs argued that unless someone had actually worked on that side of the company, they couldn’t really know how those decisions were being made.
“So when all these fans hear old guys talking about wrestling when they don’t know what the wrestling business is anymore, then those fans think they’re smart to the business. And then I have to read — which I don’t anymore, but back when I did — or some people would send things to me, fans talking like they think they know because they heard some old guy talking like he thought he knew, and they don’t know.
You want to know what the creative process is? If you’re on the side of the creative process, you know what the creative process is. If you’ve never been on that side, you don’t know what it is.”
What really surprised Jacobs was discovering that even some WWE talent didn’t completely understand the system. After spending a few months inside the company, he realized wrestlers themselves sometimes didn’t know exactly where their creative decisions were coming from.
“I was shocked. I was actually shocked going into WWE. Once I got there for a few months, I was like, ‘Oh, the wrestlers don’t know what the creative process is. They don’t know what it is.’”
That brought Jacobs to one of the most familiar phrases in WWE: “creative has nothing for you.” Fans have often taken that literally and blamed the writing team whenever a wrestler disappeared from television, but Jacobs said that wasn’t what the phrase really meant during Vince McMahon’s time running creative.
“Like when these people, man, some of these people that talk about this stuff, it’s like, ‘Oh, you know, creative has nothing for him. Well, then creative should be fired if they have nothing for him.’”
Jacobs then spelled out what he says was actually happening whenever wrestlers heard that line. With McMahon holding final creative authority, Jacobs said it ultimately meant the boss simply didn’t want that wrestler on his show.
“It’s like, yo, let me smarten you up. The phrase ‘creative has nothing for you’ — Vince McMahon was head of creative. That means Vince McMahon doesn’t want you on his show. That’s what that means.”
The interviewer suggested that “creative has nothing for you” essentially provided a convenient excuse, and Jacobs agreed. He said absorbing the criticism that otherwise would have landed on McMahon was effectively part of being on WWE’s writing team.
“Yeah, but the marks in the wrestling business, for some reason, believe it. For some reason, they go, ‘Oh.’ And I get it because that was part of the job. That part of the job was to take the heat for Vince. That’s part of the job.”
Jacobs didn’t sound particularly bitter about that arrangement because, in his view, everyone involved understood what the job required. His issue is with people assuming the writers had far more power over WWE television than they actually did.
“Part of the job is like, ‘Oh, I take s***.’ That’s part of what the job is. So I get it. But people who are worked by that, they’re marks.”
Jacobs’ point is pretty simple: the writers could pitch, advise and come up with ideas, but the final call belonged to the person running creative. During his WWE tenure, that person was Vince McMahon, even if the writers were sometimes the ones catching the backlash when fans hated the result.
Do you think WWE’s creative writers took too much blame from fans during Vince McMahon’s time in charge? Let us know in the comments below.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
