Michael Leonardi recalls getting fired from WWE after changing a controversial line in a promo for Neville (PAC).
After a stint with the company in the early 2000's, Leonardi returned to work for WWE as creative writer in 2015, but his second run with the company was short-lived, coming to an end just eight months later.
About a month ago, Leonardi posted two seperate videos to his LinkedIn page, where he chatted about the current controversy surrounding Vince McMahon, WWE, and TKO.
In the first video, Leonardi recalled getting fired over a segment that involved R-Truth, Titus O'Neil, Mark Henry, and Neville. According to the writer, the segment called for Neville to say a controversial line that played on Martin Luther King's historic 'I Had A Dream' speech.
“So, I was fired over a very particular segment which quite frankly, still rubs me the wrong way and I still think about what I could have done better, if anything, to have not gotten fired. So, essentially, I was given a segment and this had already gone through a couple of rewrites and this was one of the days where there was a lot of late minute rewrites, there was a lot of backup with shooting segments. We had another big segment being shot at the time with New Day and they were doing a eulogy for their trombone that got destroyed or something. My segment though, was involving four talent, three African Americans. It was R-Truth, Titus O’Neil, Mark Henry, and Neville — a Caucasian guy. This happened to be the Martin Luther King edition of Monday Night Raw, it took place in Columbus, Ohio and it was on a Monday, January 16th or something like that, I forget the date. Anyway, when I finally got the new script, we did not have a lot of time to shoot it and essentially, the script called for Neville to speak up and tell everyone else that, well, you know, he’s got a dream too and that dream is to win the royal rumble. I remember Neville coming up to me after he read it and he was like, ‘Mike, man, I can’t say this.’ For anyone that is trying to understand this, trying to compare that these things are comparable in some [way], a wrestler who wants to one day win the Royal Rumble to one of of the most iconic speeches in American history about civil rights and how important that was. To try to play on that, it was just dumb. It was poor writing and I’ll tell you why. Number one, it doesn’t make Neville look like a face. That would be something that a heel would say, right, to undermine the importance of that speech at at the end of the day, right? So not only was Neville not comfortable say it, the other three guys in the room, Titus, R-Truth, and Mark, they were like, ‘Yeah, this is fucking terrible.’ So, we did not have time to go back and get rewrites, and I was not comfortable at all, nor did I even think this was an option, quite frankly, to try and get them to do it as is. The talent didn’t want to shoot it that way. So what do you do? We worked together and tried to find a way to pull this off where it wouldn’t come off as racially insensitive or to basically mock to some degree, one of the most prolific speeches of all time, by a guy that’s supposed to be a good guy too. There was no way that was going to be pulled off. We ended up having R-Truth say it. R-Truth is a hall of famer, he is so incredibly about delivering things, so we had R-Truth say it for Neville in a way that made it fun and warm and not insensitive in any way. So, we shot in that way. We were running out of time, everybody liked it. My boss, Dave Kapoor, was in the room and he approved it. Afterwards, Dave said to me, ‘Hey Mike, why don’t you just go down to gorilla and tell Vince what we did here.’ I go down to gorilla and Vince is sitting in gorilla where he always used to sit, he’s got his headphones on. I said, ‘Hey, Vince, just wanted to give you a heads up, we shot this thing, the talent had a little bit of an issue with how this was written so we had R-Truth say the line as well. We felt good, we’re happy with it. I know it’s my responsibility but just wanted to let you know.’ I remember, I’ll never forget this. He’s staring at the screen, he takes off his headphones, he turns to me and he said, ‘So you didn’t give me what I wanted?’ My eyes got big and I said, ‘Yes sir, I know, I understand.’ I explained to him again what we did, the circumstances around it, the limitations that we had. I took full responsibility for it and then he just chewed me the fuck out. Chewed me out."
Leonardi continued on in the second video and recalled doing a segment with Titus O'Neil the very next day.
"Imagine getting chewed out by Vince McMahon and he got really heated. I remember when it was over, Brian James, Road Dogg, was right next to me. He’s waiting to talk to Vince, and I turn around and the look he gave me was like, when he does that, what do you do? There’s nothing you can do. It’s clear that [Road Dogg] has been in that position before and he’s not the only one that was on the other end of a lashing. Vince was chewing me out and I’m saying to him, ‘Yes sir, yes sir.’ I’m just trying to tell him that I’m acknowledging, I’m listening, I’m just trying to learn and then he goes, ‘Stop saying that, you’re only saying that because you just wanna get out of here.’ I’m like, what do you want me to say? I’m just listening and acknowledging you. It was a disaster. I remember the next day we were at SmackDown, he had basically given me another thing with Titus O’Neil and the assignment was that Titus has to say this and do this whole segment literally word for word. Not one word in the two paragraphs that he had to learn, memorize, and say. He had to deliver it, every single word exactly the same. Every word that was written on that paper had to be said. It ended up taking us two hours to shoot it. Here’s the thing, so many times, this is the double standard. There have been people that have ad libbed in these things over and over, there’s been times where things have been changed, it happens all the time. I had gotten to a place with Vince, people said that you have to break through this wall with Vince. If you don’t, you’re gone, you’re done. You have to kind of break through this wall with him to not be almost at the threat of being fired. I just never got there with him and clearly that was something that he was really pissed off about, the script being changed, despite explaining the circumstances. The fact was, we were all just trying to protect the company. We’re trying to protect the company from putting out a segment that was racially insensitive, that was just poor, and that could’ve potentially put us in a bad light. Here’s what I want to say, I’m not the only one. There are thousands of stories about Vince. In light of what’s going on right now, which is incredibly terrible, awful, ugly crap that has risen to a place of legal ramifications for him and other things. There are thousands of stories of him doing things that aren’t illegal, but just mean or unethical or whatever that is. That’s nothing to sue someone over in that sense. But the one thing I want to say, is I have replayed that moment thousands of times in my head and I’ve asked myself, could I have done something to not have gotten fired. The only thing I could have potentially have done, although quite honestly, I wouldn’t have never known this — and my boss didn’t say this, he didn’t bring this up as an idea. I could have gone to Neville and said, ‘Hey man, listen, we’ve gotta give this — this is what Vince wants, this is what’s on paper. We have to shoot this. However, why don’t we shoot is as Vince told us, and why don’t we shoot an alternative with the way that you, myself, and the rest of the talent thought was the best version where the segment comes off funny and warmhearted and doesn’t put the company in bad light.’ That would’ve been, I can tell you, the best outcome. When you have a talent that is like, I’m not saying this, I’m not comfortable saying this — and you have three black guys on a racially insensitive thing [saying], ‘This is terrible, we can’t put this out.’ You have no time to get rewrites, you’ve gotta make calls on the fly sometimes. What did we do? We collaborated, we all put our heads together, my boss included, and we put together what we thought was the best possible thing. But Vince thought that was a major no-no, and I got fired for it.”
Earlier this week, TKO's Mark Shapiro said that he's doesn't know what the motive of Vince McMahon is in regards to his TKO stock. Fans can learn more here.
Fans can see the current lineup for the March 1 episode of WWE SmackDown by clicking here.
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