Vince McMahon Allegedly Created A Hostile Atmosphere Amongst WWE Writers

The recent Mr. McMahon documentary on Netflix featured a lot of talk about the backstage environment in WWE, which was led by Vince McMahon for decades. Over the years, several stories have emerged regarding strange goings on away from the ring and in the writer’s room, including McMahon ripping up scripts, plans changing, ideas being ignored, and more. A piece by Krystie Lee Yandoli in The Rolling Stone has taken a big peak into the world of WWE’s writer’s room, telling stories from the perspective of multiple former WWE writers. 

When it came to writing WWE shows, one former writer alleged that the atmosphere was a hostile one, which was created and crafted by McMahon himself due to his love of watching others squirm. Even when pitching ideas McMahon liked, the writer went on to explain that scripts would still get constantly torn up before shows. 

“It doesn’t really matter what he said in that creative room or if he loved it [at an earlier point], it was still going to get torn up before the show. By the time Monday rolled around and we were all in the production meeting, something else was gonna happen. It almost felt like a joke, like we were just there to satisfy Vince’s whims. We were all Vince McMahon transcribers. I think Vince enjoyed the manipulation. He liked changing things. He liked keeping people on their toes. I genuinely felt like, this isn’t to benefit the show or the storyline, Vince really just enjoys making people squirm.”

Some of the conduct in meetings was revealed by former writers, who claimed it was a toxic boys club with insults, jibes, and “good old boys locker-room talk. The more someone was promoted and the closer they got to that innermost circle, the more volatile it got, and the more you dealt with some of these ‘good old boys’”. 

It was also explained that the atmosphere inside the room changed whenever McMahon wasn’t present, with it becoming far more peaceful, jovial, and easy. In the same article, several female writers shared stories about inappropriate conduct and feeling unsafe, which is delved into here.