Brian Gewirtz On Which WWE Storyline Deserves An Emmy

By AG

Posted on March 1, 2021

• Brian Gewirtz On Which WWE Storyline Deserves An Emmy

Former WWF/E writer Brian Gewirtz, who is currently the co-executive producer of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s successful NBC series ‘Young Rock’, was the guest on a recent episode of The Masked Man Show podcast, where they asked him which storyline written by him deserves an Emmy.

Here’s how Gewirtz responded:

“I mean without question, Hornswoggle as the general manager of RAW would have to be the Emmy that would be displayed on the Billboards of Los Angeles everywhere ‘for your consideration’.

I’ve always been really proud of the Jericho / Shawn Michaels year-long, practically, angle that we did when Jericho was transitioning, in terms of his character, as far as this begrudge suit-wearing heel.

As always, as you guys know, when a heel is, technically speaking, absolutely correct in what they’re saying and are just displaying their disgust and everything in a way that rubs people the wrong way, it’s always magic because you can’t deny it. You see their side and yet you still cheer for them to get their a$$ kicked anyway.

And to be truthful, I was never really a Shawn Michaels guy going in. As a fan, I always rooted for Bret and The Nation vs DX and all that kind of stuff.

Shawn was away when I first started. It took a little while to break the ice.

So to be able to tap into that and work with him and then actually really get along with him well, as well as Chris and basically sit down with this canvas, as you guys know, the magic is not when you hand someone a piece of paper. That’s the worst version of it, I think, is when you’re just giving someone ‘uh, Vince approved it. You got to do it,’ and the wrestlers, they all hate that.

We all know that, but when you actually have time to sit down with talents and basically chart something out and get their input, some days I would write almost everything and hand it to them, and they’d be like, ‘Wow, this is actually really good. We’ll just make a few tweaks, and we’re good to go’.

And then some days, everything that poured out of their heads, we just transcribed onto the paper, and it was coming from them 100%.

It was just that great mix when you have that trust and respect that produces magic, especially when you’re not like, ‘Got to get this approved and got to make sure that everyone’s happy because the person didn’t have input’.

When all three have input, it’s great, and they all knocked it out of the park.

Maybe not the writing but even for acting, I think Chris and Shawn deserve some accolades for that.”

The above-mentioned storyline took place on WWE Monday Night RAW & also several WWE pay-per-views, between April and November of 2008.