Ever since Jon Moxley’s explosive interview with Chris Jericho regarding WWE’s creative process, criticism for the company’s weekly episodes of Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live has been on an upswing. Many wrestlers both in and out of the WWE have given their two cents on the matter, with some saying both on and off the record that the heavily scripted promos have been bringing the overall quality of the program down. But one wrestler who spoke up on Monday thinks the blame belongs elsewhere.
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Velveteen Dream, the reigning NXT North American Champion and a fan favorite in WWE’s developmental system, took to Instagram on Monday with a long thread explaining his belief that the wrestlers are responsible for the bad run of WWE television lately, not the man making all of the creative decisions.
“Let’s play a game,” Dream wrote. “Is it fair 2 critique Vince [McMahon]? I mean after all, WWE is a form of entertainment. U do know WWE is a TV show, right!?!? WWE is a TV show put on cable and network TV. By who u ask? Answer: Vince McMahon, Evil Boss ([Onscreen]) & Director of his TV show’s (OffScreen), Raw, 205Live, SmackDown, etc… George Lucas directed Star Wars, Vince McMahon directs Raw, SmackDown, 205Live and he’s directed everything else U’ve watched from WWE over the last 40 years. Point Is: when TV sucks it’s because the actors and entertainers and stuntmen failed 2 entertain u. Vince can write all day, it’s ur ‘favorites’ that have 2 make it entertaining. Star Wars was great in the 90s too! The new ones suck because the new actors suck. Game Over, [I] meant Dream Over.”
It’s possible Dream is dishing out this hot take in order to get attention. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time the former Tough Enough competitor has tried to make waves, as he once wrestled an NXT TakeOver event with the words “Call Me Up Vince” written on his tights.
According to various interviews, McMahon switched from letting his wrestlers cut promos on their own (usually with a list of bullet points to mention throughout) to having wrestlers stick strictly to scripts written by a team of writers shortly after the WWE bought WCW in the early 2000s.
“The bureaucratic red tape that you have to go through to get anything approved is crazy! It doesn’t work! It’s killing the company and I think Vince is the problem,” Moxley said during his interview with Jericho. “And not so much Vince, but whatever the structure that he built around himself probably starting around 2002 after the sale of WCW and this infrastructure of writers, producers and this is what the WWE is and what the product is, and the product sucks. [They have] great talent, amazing talent. None of this is their fault.”
