Mikael Vierge is a 25-year-old French professional wrestler, who was seen in NXT as Marcus Louis, and who also appeared briefly in TNA as Baron Dax in a stable called the Tribunal. with Al Snow and fellow former NXT competitor Sylvester LeFort (as Basile Baraka).
He also might have the key to how to fix WWE's creative problems.
He posted this open letter to his Facebook page, and it is absolutely worth your time to read it.
“In my quest for wrestling inspiration, I watched Raw which I hadn’t in well over a year.
I think WWE really needs to stop recruiting wrestlers until they have solved their screenwriting issues.
I know a lot of these guys on a personal level, I’ve seen them in the ring, I’ve seen them do interviews, I know their personalities and most importantly I understand their characters. There is so much that could be done. I have no doubt that there’s a detrimental level of laziness going on. Let me explain something that WWE has failed to understand:Pro Wrestling is not MMA and Pro Wrestling is not acting either. You cannot hand your guys scripts and have them act your play for the very simple reason that they’re not actors, they will fail at that exercise.
Their job isn’t to fight either, you can’t just have them wrestle and hope for the best, you cannot hope to recreate nor capture sports excitement/intensity, this is not what you’re dealing with, the wrestlers will fail at doing that too.Get to know your performers on a personal level, listen to them, observe them, know their strengths and their weaknesses, study them. You should know everything about a Kalisto, a Gable or a Crews before you start putting pen to paper. It’s crucial you do so.
Once you know your guys, start writing WITH them. Don’t wait until Monday evening 6pm to tell them about your vision and hand them a script. It takes weeks of preparation for a trained and experienced actor to pull a role off. A pro wrestler cannot remotely come close to succeed at such task. Start brainstorming weeks, even months ahead, go on the road with your wrestlers, travel with them, spend time with them, that way they’ll have time to absorb the ideas and create a custom made role.
Same with the promos and interviews. Listen to how these guys and girls talk, listen to their voice, understand their vocabulary or literacy levels. You should know this inside out before you write anything for them. If not you’ll have these horribly painful microphone segments we’re enduring with guys reciting lines they’ve learned an hour ago trying to be someone they have absolutely nothing in common with, especially when it comes to “voice”.
It’s hard work, yes, 100% but what do you want out of it? Do you want to write a mediocre show poorly acted? or do you want to write a compelling, entertaining show that feels organic and real?
Quit the office vs boys nonsense too, Vince or HHH needs to see WWE creative more like a newspaper team. Be the editor in chief so to speak, lay out the general idea but assign a multi week/months storyline to a writer and send them on the road with the 2 or 4 wrestlers they’ll be writing for, give them the freedom to write something good and trust this group to come up with something good and organic. Then you report back weeks before the deadline so the story is well explained, well understood and fits into the bigger picture. That way it leaves enough time to re write if absolutely necessary. But then again, the decision makers need to start trusting their writers and talent as well as being prepared to put that kind of work in. Teamwork I guess.
It takes long term planning and management but once again, do you want a good show?
Last but not least, you’d alleviate a lot of frustration and passive aggressiveness from your performers. They’ll be more involved, more motivated, they’ll be doing the things they love and bring a level of passion WWE is yet to see on screen.
WWE needs to rethink what they do. They’re missing out on what this show could be.”
Hey, Vince.
