As WWE’s television ratings continue to hit record lows, the company reportedly fired one of its top writers from the Monday Night Raw staff this week.
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Fightful‘s Sean Ross Sapp reported on Monday WWE had fired Raw’s lead home writer Ryan Callahan on Thursday.
Sapp added that the firing did not have anything to do with Raw’s quality or ratings, but rather his relationship with WWE’s senior vice president of creative Dave Kapoor (known as Ranjin Singh from his time as The Great Khali’s manager).
“Kapoor felt that Callahan took creative changes a little too personally, and was difficult to work with, not setting a good example for the rest of the writing team,” Sapp wrote. “Callahan was subsequently fired the evening of Thursday, May 2.”
Callahan’s firing comes less than a month after Road Dogg stepped down as the lead writer for SmackDown Live.
With Raw’s viewership dropping below two million for last week’s third hour, the WWE is looking to give the Red Brand a boost by having Roman Reigns open this week’s show despite being moved to SmackDown Live during the Superstar Shake-up.
“I’m back on #SDLive, but I still have some business on #Raw. I’ll see y’all Monday. #ProtectTheYard,” Reigns tweeted on Saturday.
WWE’s official account said Reigns’ decision to appear on Raw was rejected, but he followed-up by saying he’d open the show. Reigns kicked off his move to SmackDown by hitting both Vince McMahon and Elias with Superman Punches, prompting the ladder to start a feud with the former world champion while being assisted by Shane McMahon.
Dave Meltzer pointed out on a recent episode of Wrestling Observer Radio that Reigns might not be the only SmackDown star to appear on Raw this week, given that the company opted to cancel the SmackDown house show that was set to take place on Monday night during Raw. Since the two upcoming Money in the Bank ladder matches will involve wrestlers from both Raw and SmackDown, it’s possible that a fight breaks out between the eight Raw wrestlers and the invading eight SmackDown wrestlers.
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