New AEW Talent Reflects on Their Role in Iconic WWE Segment
All Elite Wrestling has plucked another talent from their competition. Former WWE Vice President of Global Television Production Michael Mansury recently inked a deal with AEW, joining the young promotion as its senior vice president and co-executive producer. While this hire is not as flashy compared to some of AEW's in-ring acquisitions, the wrestling world has been buzzing over Mansury joining Tony Khan's company due to his extensive experience. Once upon a time, Mansury was championed as the heir to WWE's long-time executive producer, Kevin Dunn. After spending 11 years with WWE, Mansury departed his former employer in 2020.
During those 11 years, Mansury was integral to a number of now-iconic WWE segments, including one of the most infamous promos of the modern era: The Miz and Bryan Danielson's heated confrontation on Talking Smack.
"For me, as a producer, one of the main functions that is paramount in my work is to make sure my talent looks the absolute best they can look," Mansury told Renee Paquette on The Sessions (h/t Fightful). "I don't mean that just from aesthetics, I mean that from presentation to what they are saying, how they are going. It's a multi-faceted approach and we got to do some pretty cool things. We created moments."
With Miz and Danielson's segment specifically, Mansury revealed that he helped plant the seeds for it weeks before.
"What people forget was the setup we had done a week or two prior. Mike (The Miz) was left off the show. He is cutting this impassion promo to the camera and I remember going to, 'Renee, take me off the air,'" Mansury continued. "I didn't even tell Miz we were going to do this. I said, 'Renee, take me off the air. If Mike is talking about how he's underutilized, abused by the system, let's amplify it.' You didn't even wrap him up. You just did your sign off to the camera and we faded out. He's still on his harangue about being misused and wanting to bring glory back to the Intercontinental Championship and being disrespected, and it was that next step needed to get him to come back and have that epic confrontation with Bryan."
Mansury and the Talking Smack crew were given creative liberty with the after show, but WWE slowly began putting its fingerprints on it.
"We had started creating moments and enhancing characters on the show without any adult supervision," Mansury said. "Then the adults came in and said, 'You guys are doing something here, we're going to start putting a couple of writers on this.'"
Mansury is expected to play a big role in AEW's revamped presentation come the new year.
