Former WWE writer Tom Casiello on The Agenda Podcast (highlights)

3Rivers

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4hr interview
Episode 15: Timeline of The Revolution w/ Tom Casiello

Highlights courtesy of wreddit

  • He wrote for soaps, and didn’t watch Wwe since he was a kid

  • The turn over rate for the writers were brutal in 2010-2011, so the first two weeks some wrestlers didn’t even want to know his name.

  • TJ Wilson was super helpful, and taught him wrestling terminology.

  • New writers are paired with the women, and then would get a promotion to work with the men. This is one of the reasons why there is a no consistency in the writing for the women.

  • Eve Torres turning heel was decided 5 minutes before the show started.

  • In a production meeting Michael Cole pitched Big Show accidentally hitting AJ Lee. There was a 46 minutes discussing about it because they were worried about a man performing a violent act against women.

  • They just paired Daniel Bryan, and AJ together because there was nothing for them to do. It was a happy accident that the crowd was into it.

  • Vince saw money in AJ Lee, and didn’t see the same in Kaitlyn.

  • Kaitlyn was pitched to join the Watt family after she lost the Divas title.

  • There was a conspiracy conversation that the women’s match was just cut for Total divas drama.

  • Felt bad over how bad Beth Phoenix was treated.

  • The original plan was AJ Lee was going to throw herself through a table instead of choosing between Punk and Daniel. They changed it because they didn’t want to promote a women trying to kill herself because of a man.

  • Paige winning the belt on the first night was mandated by the higher ups.

  • The Bella Twins were excited to have a feud against one another, but hated how it ended because there was no resolution.

  • Charlotte was the one who pitched the idea of Paige mentioning Reid in her promo. No one bullied Charlotte into doing that storyline like Ric Flair mentioned.

  • No individual should be credited for starting the Diva’s Revolution. It was a combination of things.

  • They thought about doing a Seth and Stephanie McMahon love story, but they decided against.

  • During the brand spilt, Tom considered Becky Lynch to be the Daniel Bryan of the women’s division because she was the ultimate babyface. He doesn’t know how backstage feels about her now.

  • There is a disconnect between how NXT wrestlers are being trained. He feels like NXT is not helping the wrestlers be prepared to deal with storylines that the main rosters throws at them.

  • There was a lot of writers felt like the gimmicks in NXT don’t work on the main roster. When you have a character that can only work one role it doesn’t work.

  • Tom wasn’t into doing the Alicia Fox being crazy storyline. He felt like there was no real character motivation on why she was crazy. But it mandated by the higher ups, so he went with it.

  • Edit: He loves the four Hoursewomen, but Tom felt like the main roster girls weren’t giving enough credit in that 2014/2015 period. It wasn’t the women’s fault that they were given four minute segments.

  • Tom had a , “I told you so moment,” when give divas a chance was trending on Twitter. If felt like the company finally wanted to change things.

  • During the brand split a lot of the women were wondering why they weren’t put on Raw. But they all came together as a unit, and built something special. Tom felt really proud of what those six girls did.
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3Rivers

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A couple of articles that go a little more in depth about a couple of the bullet points

411MANIA | Kaitlyn Was Almost Part Of The Wyatt Family

In the latest edition of The Agenda Podcast (via SportsKeeda), former WWE writer Tom Casiello revealed that Kaitlyn was originally part of the pitch to bring the Wyatt Family to the main roster. Kaitlyn became the Divas champion in her hometown of Houston and held the title for 153 days before losing to AJ Lee in July of 2013. After that loss, she wrestled for the next six months before disappearing and leaving the company on January 8, 2014.

Casiello says that since Kaitlyn was without a storyline, there was a pitch to have her be part of the stable, and it was very likely she would have been Sister Abigail if she was. Sister Abigail is a person often mentioned in Bray Wyatt’s promos, but she’s yet to actually appear on WWE TV. Bray Wyatt himself took on the persona during a feud with Finn Balor.
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Eve Torres' Heel Turn Was Pitched Ten Minutes Before Raw Went On The Air | Fightful Wrestling

"The Eve heel turn, and I'm not kidding you on this, took place about ten minutes before we went live on the air." he recalled.

The story goes is that John Cena came up with the idea and pitched the story to Vince McMahon. McMahon then went to Casiello, who was producing the first segment, and told him the segment would be Eve revealing to The Bella Twins that she was just using Zack Ryder to get to John Cena.



But Casiello didn't think much of the story overall -- it was just supposed to be a thing that lasted a few weeks that would fill in some gaps between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania.

"Nobody thinks these stories are going to revolutionize the wrestling industry" he said "We're going to do this fun four week story...it was going to be something fun for four weeks, then lead to WrestleMania."

It wasn't so much the heel turn itself that wasn't planned out -- Casiello admits that was probably going to be the end game regardless. He feels that the best stories they did during his tenure were the ones that they stumbled into."

"All of us on the writing team saw it coming" he said. "But when it happened so quickly, we all dived in... got her character immediately. The best stories we ever did we stumbled into not."
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8WON6

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the only thing that's slightly interesting is the writers starting out with the women. All the other stuff doesn't interest me or doesn't surprise me at all.
 
The Big Dogg

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A Seth and Stephanie love story :mjlol:
wq4ArvQ.gif



Vince probably didn't okay it because he was jealous it wasn't him:lolbron:
VuB3xmF.gif
 
Psychosis

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3Rivers said:
"The Eve heel turn, and I'm not kidding you on this, took place about ten minutes before we went live on the air." he recalled.

The story goes is that John Cena came up with the idea and pitched the story to Vince McMahon.
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Click to expand...

full
Cena a dikk. Dude was tryin to smash by any means necessary. Pitching ideas to Vince like:
4UnyjfY.gif
 
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