Edge and Christian open today’s show by informing that they’re both quite tired. They’ve been very busy filming the new season of the Edge and Christian Show for the WWE Network, and Edge refers to the filming as “bedlam”. He points out that they’ve filmed lots of entertaining stuff and they’ve had some great cameos as well, but it’s been an exhausting filming schedule.
Christian takes a moment to speak about Owen Hart. He notes that Hart was a mentor to both him and Edge early on in their careers, and he took them under his wing and showed them some tricks of the trade. He says he’ll always appreciate what Hart did for them during that time and he’ll never be forgotten.
Edge and Christian welcome former WWE Writer, Tommy Blacha to the show.
Blacha informs that he was working as a Writer at “Conan” prior to his WWE career, and this was at a time when wrestlers were still sort of looked down upon in the television/film industry. Conan started suggesting that they bring more wrestlers on the show because he thought that’d be better than a bunch of second rate actors.
They proceeded to bring Big Show and Goldust on the show, and this led to Blacha striking up a conversation with Vince McMahon. McMahon offered him a consulting role with WWE for a few days for $1000 a day and he decided to take the offer. He did that for a couple of weeks and was even able to produce a couple of segments.
Blacha informs that he met Vince Russo around this time, and he drew the attention of a lot of tenured writers and performers when he was seen walking into McMahon’s office backstage at events, because nobody gets to do that.
He hung around for a few shows and then out of the blue one day Vince Russo left for WCW. This led to him becoming a full-time writer for WWE. A period of time went by and he still hadn’t been paid so he approached Shane McMahon. Shane told him to write a number on a piece of paper which he did. They looked at the number and said, “no problem” and he immediately regretted that he didn’t write a higher number on the paper.
Blacha informs that it was really hard for wrestlers to bridge the gap into mainstream pop-culture back then. Several people warned him that he might ruin his career by writing for WWE, including his agent, but he was determined to do it and he did so for a year. He soon realized that if you’re working for WWE the business becomes your sole priority and there’s no life outside of it, so he left. Still, he has no regrets about his time there.
He notes that he and Michael Hayes, along with the other writers would write Sunday Night Heat in roughly 10 minutes after their Smackdown production meeting. He says that writing Heat was a lot of fun due to the unpredictable nature of the show. Edge informs that the talents looked at Heat as a legitimate vehicle for them because they thought they might be able to get away with more without McMahon looking over their shoulders.
Blacha informs that he rose to prominence in the company after writing a couple of successful promos for The British Bulldog, who was known to struggle with promos. He then wrote a lot for Kurt Angle early on, including Angle’s initial heel turn and Angle’s “Three I’s”.
Edge asks Blacha if anyone was hard to work with back then. Blacha didn’t think anyone was really hard to work with, but he notes that Triple H could be a little “funky, reserved and weird” from time to time. However, he gained a lot of respect for Triple H over the years, noting that Triple H’s accomplishments during that time is underrated when compared to The Rock and Austin.
Blacha informs that it can be tough dealing with critical fans sometimes. He admits that there might be lots of stuff to pick apart, but he doesn’t understand why fans can’t just try to enjoy the product instead of picking it all apart. Sometimes fans ask him, “What were you thinking?”, or “You blew it with that guy”. Blacha informs that ‘that guy’ had plenty of chances to get himself over as well, and the creative team can’t be solely to blame.
Blacha informs that he was actually the guy who delivered the hand from Mae Young that the iconic attitude era segment. He’s not sure to this day why he was given that role, but it was interesting nonetheless. He mentions that the initial idea was to get Mae Young pregnant but then one day McMahon wanted to end the angle abruptly. This was McMahon’s way of ending the angle quickly.
He adds that McMahon might be lightning rod for fans, but McMahon used to love to be proved wrong. Sure, Daniel Bryan and CM Punk mightn’t have been McMahon’s ideal Champion in terms of body size, but he heard the fans and gave both of them the Title at different points.
That sums up this week’s episode of the E&C Pod of Awesomeness. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!
