Christian opens today’s show speaking about Lio Rush’s tweet in which he poked fun at Emma’s release from WWE. He says that Rush obviously made a mistake and he probably regrets it right now, but this is just another example of someone hitting ‘send’ on Twitter without reading over the content several times beforehand. He says that people just need to use their head before they tweet things.
Edge says this really wasn’t a good idea on Rush’s part because he was basically making fun of someone losing their livelihood, which is obviously not a smart thing to do. He agrees with Christian in saying that once these things are tweeted you can’t take them back, so WWE Superstars and everyone in general need to be smarter on social media.
Edge and Christian welcome Brian Gewirtz to the show.
Gewirtz was formerly WWE’s Head Writer and he’s the current SVP of Development at The Rock’s Seven Bucks Productions. Gewirtz mentions that The Rock actually got him his interview with WWE in the first place, so they both hit it off creatively. He worked extensively with The Rock on his promos, and also worked a lot with Edge, Christian and Chris Jericho when he first started.
Gewirtz thinks the atmosphere backstage was much less rigid during his time writing there. He would often sit with Edge and Christian and the three men would simply throw ideas at the wall, and if a certain idea made them laugh then they’d try it on television.
He says that he almost instantly developed a great relationship with Edge and Christian and they had a lot of fun working together. They were roughly the same age and had a lot in common, including their love of professional wrestling. He says he grew up watching Saturday Night’s Main Event and he loved the business, so getting to write for WWE was a great experience.
Edge asks Gewirtz about the time Bubba Ray Dudley power-bombed him. Gewirtz informs that on this night Smackdown was cancelled because of a snow storm (the only time this has ever happened) and a few talents were messing around in the ring. Someone suggested that Bubba Ray power-bomb him and Shane McMahon jumped in urging Gewirtz to take the bump, saying that Gewirtz needed to start taking bumps in order to realize what the wrestlers go through every night.
Gewirzt agreed, got into the ring, and as he was up in the air he heard someone screaming ,”Tuck your head!’. He tucked his head and took the bump safely, aided heavily by Bubba Ray’s professionalism. He says that taking that bump was exhilarating and he was still excited about it when he got back to his hotel hours later. In spite of that, it’s not something that he’d ever want to do again.
Edge, Christian and Gewirtz discuss the time they were taken to Wrestler’s Court. Edge knew that Gewirtz was a big fan of Marvel’s ‘The Flash’, so one day he gave Gewirzt a Flash figurine that he had. Bob Holly saw the exchange of this figurine and took this as Edge paying Gewirtz for better storylines and increased television time.
They had to go to court, where they were prosecuted by JBL and judged by Undertaker. They decided to make a joke of their sentencing and poked fun at how many book deals were being signed in WWE at the time. The locker room laughed and loved their defence, and once they bought Undertaker a couple of gifts to ease their punishment they got off without any punishment at all.
Gewirzt, on the other hand had a much more difficult time in court. He tried to crack a few jokes at JBL’s expense which didn’t go over well. He ended up having to write a 1000 word essay on why he respects the business of professional wrestling and had no issue doing that. He wrote the essay from his heart and Undertaker loved it, giving him an A+ on the essay.
Christian does admit that it was a challenge separating friendship and business. There was a time after he and Edge split up that he was quite distraught over his role in his company, as he felt like he deserved to be higher on the card. He recalls having a discussion with Gewirzt over why he was being forced to cut his hair and wear new gear. Looking back now he realizes that those questions were stupid and immature, as those changes only helped him in the long run.
Edge and Christian admit that it was quite challenging moving away from their tag team’s comedic heel antics, transitioning into single babyfaces that had to be taken seriously. By the time Edge started the ‘Rated R Superstar’ gimmick, he thinks he found what it took to be a successful babyface. Unfortunately, during this time in his career he was a part of what Vince McMahon called ‘the worst thing filmed in the history of WWE’.
During his feud with John Cena, Edge and Gewirzt were involved in a segment with Cena’s father where Edge was supposed to ridicule him, creating sympathy for Cena’s babyface character. To their surprise, Cena’s father took his role rather seriously and continued to improvise his lines. The footage was unusable and McMahon ridiculed all involved. In order to use it they had to mute the footage and Edge cut an in-ring promo over it as it aired on RAW.
Gewirtz says out of all the great things he was a part of in WWE, he’s probably most proud of the lengthy program between Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels. That program was only supposed to be two weeks long but ended up stretching from December of one year to the following year’s WrestleMania. That program was completely devoid of humour and consisted of all serious content, and he was very proud of the things they accomplished in that program.
That sums up this week’s episode of E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!
