Veru insightful interview by Kevin Kelly

[Kurt Angle Mark 0]

From 1wrestling.com

 

A lot of people can speculate about the political situation of the WWE, but GIR had someone on the show this week that really witnessed it. Kevin Kelly, a 7 year WWE employee talked about it all this week right after the boys settled their feud with SD Jones in a heartwarming segment. Listen to the archive at www.getinthering.tv and tune in live every Sunday at 7pm Eastern in NY 540 AM WLIE and streamed live on www.wlie.com.

 

-Kevin Kelly joins the show and right off the bat talk turns to SD Jones, and how the boys just made peace with him. Then Phantom awkwardly asks Kevin if he left WWE or was fired, to which Kevin confirms he was fired on March 21st 2003. He was with the company for 7 years, and Sir Adam says “it sucks” that he got fired. He puts over Kevin as an employee who seemed to contribute a lot to the WWE product, and that there are some others that probably could’ve been let go before him. Kelly says it was one of the things that left him scratching his head, because he saw many people come into the company over the years that didn’t really respect wrestling the way he did. He never said a name, but said “they weren’t wrestling people, I’d say ‘hey did you watch the show last night?’ ‘No,’ ‘well why not?’ ‘I don’t like wrestling’, I can’t tell you how many times I heard that over the years.”

 

-Sir Adam asks what the WWE is looking for when they post job openings for writers, because he feels most of the people who get the jobs are Hollywood b-team players. Kelly says they continue to look for the same types of people, until they get one who fits. “You’re trying to find the right mix of players…they are reevaluating everything constantly.” Phantom asks if his firing was a shock, Kelly replies “the timing was, because we were two weeks out of Wrestlemania, and what I usually did was write the voiceover notes for the announcers, which usually turns out looking like a press kit. Probably 30 pages of documentation, stats on each wrestler, and I noticed the announcers would rely on that heavily, some more than others.” That was one of the things that bothered Kelly, that he didn’t have the chance to do that this year, and he didn’t purchase Wrestlemania this year, “because it was 40 bucks, and I just got sacked”. Phantom talks about how this year the WWE extended invites to all the Wrestling Press for a pre-Mania conference in NY, and says it was the first time he was treated with some semblance of respect by the WWE. Kelly says, that’s the way it should be, invites sent out to all media outlets. Talk turns to the WWE and why they love getting their guys on mainstream media outlets such as the Byron Allen show, and how they don’t allow them to go on fine shows such as Get in the Ring. Kelly says that the “braintrust” in the WWE believes that the core wrestling audience will always be there, “they feel like they could put a WWE logo on the bottom of TV test patterns and wrestling fans will still watch….Listen this is not what I believe, I believe that if you have good quality wrestling first and foremost, then good storylines you have a winning formula, but it’s always about the wrestling.”

 

-Sir Adam asks if Kelly was encouraged to send ideas to the writing department, Kelly said he was always encouraged to do so, but his ideas were never followed up on by the staff. “99.9% of the time, they might be read, and you’d get an email saying thanks for the idea, of course they wouldn’t use them.” Kevin Kelly feels responsible for “ruining the wrestling world” because the one idea he sent in that the WWE did use was the marriage of Stephanie McMahon and HHH, and Stephanie turning on Test several years ago.

 

-Phantom reveals that he once reached out to Kevin because he hated his last day job so much. He felt that Kevin seemed to be the most approachable of the WWE staff, and sent him some ideas and tried to get into the company thorough Kelly. While the Phantom felt that Kelly genuinely wanted the help him, was apprehensive about doing so, and asks “Is Big Brother always watching you there?” Kevin responds, “It’s difficult when you have to deal with anything involving Human Resources….. when it was just strictly, ‘let’s create, let’s have fun, let’s tell some stories and entertain’, easy simple, the more complicated you make the business, through the business structure the harder it is to get things done.” Kelly then explains the red tape involved in getting an idea from an outside source, and how he had to CC so many people and if you forgot to CC one person “you’d get an email saying ‘why didn’t you CC me?’” Phantom then says that Kelly got fired just a few weeks after they traded emails, and at the time hoped it wasn’t because they were conversing, to which Kelly replies, “You are powerful, but not that powerful.”

 

-Kevin Kelly laughs when Sir Adam says that the WWE “obviously puts some money into Byte This”. Kelly says, “the only thing we had was access to great guests”. Phantom brings up the Steve Austin appearance on Byte This before his 8 month hiatus last year, and how fascinating it was to listen to a Superstar be dead honest with the way he felt about the WWE product. “I had to give him the chance to talk his way out of it…give him the opportunity to say he was misquoted…if he said all of that negative stuff, you don’t need me saying ‘well Steve you said this’ no, let him talk about it himself”. Then Kelly talks about how they turned around and used the Byte This content on Confidential “which really made me proud”. Phantom asks if Kelly thinks he was let go because his philosophy of “more insider stuff” was opposite from WWE’s “less insider stuff” philosophy. Pointing to his stint as producer of Confidential and how it seemed like during his watch there was more “inside” subjects. Kelly says he “wanted to do more cross promotion, using the website, Byte This, and Confidential to progress storylines”…Kevin puts over the efforts of the crew of Confidential and says he used to come up with the ideas for shows but names producers and editors that make the show “as good as it is, and it’s a shame not more people watch it.”

 

-Kelly says the talent always responded positively to all of his work in WWE, but says one time he had words with Steve Austin in 1998. During the pre-Wrestlemania hype, Kelly did an article in the WWE magazine about Austin and brought up all the injuries he’s suffered over the years. Austin felt that those injuries wouldn’t be an issue and took offense to Kelly laundry listing them. Kelly explained his point that his win would even be more heroic to the reader when they read just exactly what he had to overcome to get to where he was. Kelly said that there was always a mutual respect between he and the talent, and that he felt a lot of the underused guys would go to him to voice their concerns. He wasn’t known as a “stooge” who would tell the front office when someone was complaining.

 

-Kelly knows that wrestling locker rooms have a tendency to thrive on controversy. “They love the dirt, it’s like a fraternity environment…. Everybody’s in your business, that’s one of the more problematic things that the Superstars have to deal with when their on the road”. Sir Adam asks if radio shows such as GIR are brought up a lot if a Superstar says something on it. “If a Superstar is quoted with saying something that another takes offense to, you will hear about it.” Kelly says that the recent fight between Shane Helms and Rodney Mack is probably going to be the talk of the locker room for a few weeks. “Now Hurricane is 0-2 in wrestling fights, didn’t he get beat up by Buff Bagwell a few years ago?” To which the boys say he hit Buff with a frozen water bottle, Kelly then responds, “Yeah he’s a real tough guy… once everything is settled the fights become a running locker room joke.”

 

-On hazing: “one person can consider these pranks good fun while another considers it hazing. The line changes from person to person…I can tell you in all the time I’ve known Bradshaw he’s never done anything to intentionally hurt someone, it’s always in fun. The thing he does is give you a big Texas slap on the back, it might sting a little bit but that’s just him. If you went up to him and said hey John please don’t do that to me anymore, he’d say fine.”

 

-Kelly talks about “a disturbed young man” who has a Kevin Kelly fansite. “The good thing is that he’s in England and can’t stalk my family”.

 

-Kelly loved when he used to do the hermaphrodite bit with the Rock. It never bothered him, Kevin believes that Rock’s success as a Hollywood actor all hinges upon how well “the Rundown” does at the box office, because when he was successful with the Mummy/Scorpion King wrestling was hot, it isn’t anymore.

 

-Kelly feels it’s a mistake to use the McMahons so much on WWE TV these days. “it’s alienating new fans, and taking airtime away from guys who could carry the company in a few years when wrestling becomes hot again.” Phantom asks if the McMahon kids are forced into the spotlight by Vince or if they actually seek it themselves, Kelly says “With Shane, he’ll do whatever is asked of him but I don’t see him as someone who likes the spotlight. Stephanie seeks it out I really believe she enjoys being Stephanie McMahon, the TV character.” Kelly hated when HHH was handed a championship belt, “I was off the road for a while, but I know when Stephanie took over the creative team, that’s when it started to spiral out of control. I know the creative team tried to get RVD and Kane to be victorious over HHH for the title. HHH vetoed the ideas because he was ‘better than both of them’” Kelly said he might have a point, “but hello it’s fake! It’s a work!”

 

-Kelly still lives in Connecticut and works for New England Championship wrestling, and Jim Kettner’s ECWA Delaware Fed, who he puts over as the “standard to which all other indys are based.” Kelly said the WWE gave him 4 months of severance pay, “so I can’t complain”, Kelly was sent to a resume writing course by the WWE, with another guy who was a WWE accountant, with the company for 20 years, and a guy who was in the TV studio for 15 years. He feels that the WWE had a business model that counted on the XFL being successful and when it wasn’t jobs had to be cut. He thought when Vince attacked Bob Costas after his XFL questions, it was a case of the real person being taken over by his TV character.

[Enigma 0]

See? Even Kevin Kelly confirms that Shane doesn't want to be on TV and is just doing what is asked.

[Guest Mulatto Heat]

Then maybe Shane should be smart enough to say out loud "Wait, maybe the focus of my match shouldn't be about ME, but on Kane, a potential challenger for Goldberg!"

 

Kelly should have been asked if his wife still thinks that another Katie Vick angle would still bring back female viewers.

 

I find it hard to believe that Bradshaw merely slaps people on the back.

 

Speaking of the Rock, yesterday when grocery shopping I noticed Rock on the cover of Muscle & Fitness. Nowhere on the cover did it say "WWE" or "wrestling". Rock is so above wrestling now that his success won't depend on how well wrestling is doing, or whether it's "on a natural downturn" (pppffffttt).

[Lord of The Curry 0]

See? Even Kevin Kelly confirms that Shane doesn't want to be on TV and is just doing what is asked.

Then Kevin Kelly is a fucking liar.

[The Tino Standard 0]

Does anybody else almost get the impression Kevin Kelly was somewhat happy about being fired from the WWE?

 

I'm not necessarily saying happy to be fired, but instead, happy to have a reason to be out of the company. Judging by what he said in that interview, he didn't like an awful lot of things going on there and for him to be out isn't the end of the world.

 

And yeah, Rock's Hollywood career now has little if any connection to wrestling. Considering he's had only one successful leading role, how well this movie performs will mean a lot to his career. But the state of wrestling will have little to do with it. He's on his own now.

[SamoaRowe 0]

I really hope The Rundown is a smash hit. I'd be proud of The Rock.

 

 

As far as what Kelly said, it makes sense. I also will forever hold a grudge against him now for suggesting the HHH/Stephanie union on television. That on air role lead to them being a couple off-air and now look what's happening. HHH is the potential future owner of WWE.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

Best part:

 

"Kelly hated when HHH was handed a championship belt, “I was off the road for a while, but I know when Stephanie took over the creative team, that’s when it started to spiral out of control. I know the creative team tried to get RVD and Kane to be victorious over HHH for the title. HHH vetoed the ideas because he was ‘better than both of them’” Kelly said he might have a point, “but hello it’s fake! It’s a work!”"

[Guest Coffey]

I wouldn't say that there was a "best part."

[Guest MikeSC]

Does anybody else almost get the impression Kevin Kelly was somewhat happy about being fired from the WWE?

 

I'm not necessarily saying happy to be fired, but instead, happy to have a reason to be out of the company. Judging by what he said in that interview, he didn't like an awful lot of things going on there and for him to be out isn't the end of the world.

 

And yeah, Rock's Hollywood career now has little if any connection to wrestling. Considering he's had only one successful leading role, how well this movie performs will mean a lot to his career. But the state of wrestling will have little to do with it. He's on his own now.

I never could understand why Kelly was never given a shot as an on-air commentator.

 

Heck, his commentary with Mick Foley is the ONLY way one can actually enjoy the Kennel From Hell match.

-=Mike

[Guest Eagan469]

I never could understand why Kelly was never given a shot as an on-air commentator.

He did commentary for the weekend shows (Shotgun, Heat, Metal, Jakked, etc.).

[Guest MikeSC]

I never could understand why Kelly was never given a shot as an on-air commentator.

He did commentary for the weekend shows (Shotgun, Heat, Metal, Jakked, etc.).

Well, here in SC, we never got the syndicated shows, so I never saw him on those. And I honestly don't recall his stint on Heat.

 

Not saying you're lying --- I just don't remember it at all.

 

There is no way he's worse than, say, Lawler or Lita (who was on Heat for friggin' ever).

-=Mike --- who wonders if Teddy Long's stable is the first where the manager is the ONLY reason to watch them.

[Guest Eagan469]

WWF Sunday Night Heat

August 8, 1999

Live from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan

With Michael Cole and Kevin Kelly

 

Match 1: Val Venis vs. D-Lo Brown

- D-Lo comes out with both the Intercontinental and European titles.  Before

Val and D-Lo can hook up, Jarrett and Debra walk on down to ringside.

Jarrett joins Cole and Kelly for color commentary and blames his title loss

all on Debra.  After a couple minutes of solid stuff from D-Lo and Val,

Jarrett says nobody is getting a shot before he is and Val won't win the

title tonight.  He rolls in and clobbers Venis from behind.  D-Lo then hits

Jarrett, as he and Val exchange punches to Jarrett before he rolls out of

the ring and exits with Debra.

 

Al Snow comes out with the Taco Bell dog he calls Pepper.  He challenges

Bossman to a match for the Hardcore title at Summerslam.  Here comes

Bossman.  He says he's gonna stick the nightstick up the dog's ass and make

a corn dog out of it.  He slobbers some other disgusting things, then says

he's going to crush Al and the dog at Summerslam.  Lame.

 

Vanity.  Loyalty.  Intrigue.  Body paint.  Tori.

 

Match 2: Tori vs. Lexi Fife

- Tori is looking good.  It seems the only move Lexi Fife knows is an Irish

whip.  Tori eventually hits a spear and pummels away, and then gets the pin

after a running powerslam.  Ivory runs in after the match and hits Tori with

the Womens Title.  She then paints SLUT on Tori's stomach, rolls her over

and paints SKANK on her back.

 

Starburst Slam of the Week: Test busts up Rodney's arm.

 

Coast Guard Rescue of the Week: Kane saves X-Pac.  Big Show saves

Undertaker.  Kane does Chewbacca.

 

Match 3: Road Dogg/Kane vs. The Acolytes

- Road Dogg comes out and does his usual stuff.  He introduces Kane, but The

Acolytes come out from the crowd and just demolish Road Dogg.  The lights go

out and the crowd pops huge.  Kane makes his way to the ring, and its 2v1

since Road Dogg is out cold I guess.  Wait a minute, its the BIG SHOT!

Hardcore Holly stands in Kane's corner, and tags himself in.  He joins the

Acolytes in beating down Kane, but eventually gets into it with the

Acolytes.  Faarooq and Bradshaw pummel Holly.  Undertaker and the Big Show

are seen watching backstage, Big Show wants to go out and help Holly but

Undertaker says no.

 

The Rock is seen entering the arena.

 

Terri Runnels is backstage fixing up a drink as an exhausted Meat comes in

to picture.  She tells him to drink up.

 

Match 4: Godfather vs. Prince Albert

- Match never starts.  Vic Grimes attacks The Godfather.  Droz and Albert

join in until Val Venis hits the ring.  And then Chazz hits the ring as well

and a brawl ensues until its broken up by referees.

 

Al Snow has Pepper lifted up somewhere, and he's telling Pepper he's got to

be a hardcore dog.  Tells him to jump, but then Pepper says no and Al says

he needs a table to break through.

 

Smackdown promo.. August 26th.  "The most dangerous soap opera invades

network TV."

 

26 hours, 41 minutes until The Millenium Countdown ends.

 

Meat telling Terri he can't go out there "like this" (pointing down).

 

Al Snow is seen showing Pepper to the Blue Meanie.  Meanie says it looks

more like a gerbil and then asks if he can put some pepper on his taco later

on.  Al gets pissed, throws Meanie onto the table, and brawls.

 

Match 5: Meat vs. Bossman

- Meat comes out with a noticable bulge in his trunks (not that I was

looking).  Bossman wins in a borefest.

 

The Rock is STILL walking, and the people are going nuts.

 

The Rock makes his way the announcers table to be the guest commentator for

the following match.

 

Match 6: Billy Gunn w/ Chyna vs. Undertaker w/ Paul Bearer and The Big Show

- The Rock is telling it like it is, "You're a complete idiot Michael Cole."

UT and Mr. Ass brawl.

 

"Don't sit out here and kayfabe like an idiot." - The Rock

 

"What? Kayfabe?" - Cole

 

"Oh, shut your mouth." - The Rock

 

Inevitably, The Rock interferes and beats on Mr. Ass outside the ring until

The Big Show comes over and clotheslines The Rock down.  Back inside the

ring, Undertaker hits the tombstone on Billy Gunn for the win.  The Rock

gets rolled in and gets the SHOWWWWSTOPPA as Heat goes off air.

 

In honor of Lawerence Taylor being inducted into the Football Hall of Fame,

WWF.com showed LT's involvement at Wrestlemania 11 in full immediately after

Heat.

[AndrewTS 0]

Kelly says it was one of the things that left him scratching his head, because he saw many people come into the company over the years that didn’t really respect wrestling the way he did. He never said a name, but said “they weren’t wrestling people, I’d say ‘hey did you watch the show last night?’ ‘No,’ ‘well why not?’ ‘I don’t like wrestling’, I can’t tell you how many times I heard that over the years.”

 

-Sir Adam asks what the WWE is looking for when they post job openings for writers, because he feels most of the people who get the jobs are Hollywood b-team players. Kelly says they continue to look for the same types of people, until they get one who fits.

 

Nothing we didn't know before, but eh...

[Fökai 0]

Additionally, Kelly teamed up with Shane McMahon in the early months of HEAT! - basically when it was a lead-in for Pacific Blue.

[Guest The Old Me]

Hermie gave a good interview. KUDOS.

[Steviekick 0]

I really hope The Rundown is a smash hit. I'd be proud of The Rock.

 

 

As far as what Kelly said, it makes sense. I also will forever hold a grudge against him now for suggesting the HHH/Stephanie union on television. That on air role lead to them being a couple off-air and now look what's happening. HHH is the potential future owner of WWE.

Actually, HHH can never get a majority ownership share of WWE. I remember reading about this in one of the stock filing papers when the company went public. The stock that the McMahons own can ONLY be transferred to blood relatives/descendants of Vince and Linda. Bascially once they are gone, Shane and Steph inherit everything equally, and when they die, their children divide up the inheritance and so on. Ownership of the company will never be HHH's, as in case it will only be Steph's and their kids. If he divorces out of the family, he can't get any stock int he company because it's protected.

[rising up out of the back seat-nuh 0]

I really hope The Rundown is a smash hit. I'd be proud of The Rock.

 

 

As far as what Kelly said, it makes sense. I also will forever hold a grudge against him now for suggesting the HHH/Stephanie union on television. That on air role lead to them being a couple off-air and now look what's happening. HHH is the potential future owner of WWE. 

Actually, HHH can never get a majority ownership share of WWE. I remember reading about this in one of the stock filing papers when the company went public. The stock that the McMahons own can ONLY be transferred to blood relatives/descendants of Vince and Linda. Bascially once they are gone, Shane and Steph inherit everything equally, and when they die, their children divide up the inheritance and so on. Ownership of the company will never be HHH's, as in case it will only be Steph's and their kids. If he divorces out of the family, he can't get any stock int he company because it's protected.

I dunno, I would guess that if Shane wants to sell his stock to Steph after Vince and Linda die, he'll be able to do so.

[Steviekick 0]

Shane can sell to Steph, which would cause the end of the WWE. I bet they would both have to agree on seleling their ownership of the company to another corporation or something.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Shane can sell to Steph, which would cause the end of the WWE. I bet they would both have to agree on seleling their ownership of the company to another corporation or something.

I'd laugh if I opened up the Wall Street Journal to read "WWE Owners Sell Stock To 'Mystery Consortium'"

 

 

By the way, I notice that Raw Champion is reading this thread. Is he an officially recognized poster?