Freddie Prinze Jr. talks about working with Kevin Dunn.
As WWE continues to undergo more shake-ups behind the scenes because of the retirement of Vince McMahon, Kevin Dunn, who has been producing and directing WWE content for decades. Through the years, many who have worked with Kevin have talked about his desire to distance himself from “professional wrestling” in favor of WWE's brand of “sports entertainment.”
Freddie Prinze Jr. who had two stints as a writer for WWE, is now talking about his own experiences working with Kevin noting that working with Vince and Kevin could be described as working for someone who loved wrestling with all of his heart and someone who always gave the impression that he never wanted to be involved with wrestling. Freddie also says that at times, pitching ideas to Kevin would be like 20 writers throwing sand against a tidal wave.
On his podcast, Wrestling With Freddie, Prinze says Dunn could eradicate six weeks of a story by saying something like, "I don't think she's pretty."
“It's a very random low-key era where the numbers weren't great and people missed out on a few wrestlers peaks like the Beth Phoenixs of the world. Like she kind of had her peak. It was at a time where Total Divas wasn't a thing yet, so the women didn't get that much love. So if she was gonna get any time as a champion, which she should have had a lot of they're like, ‘Well, we gotta pair with Santino.’ So then she had like a thing with Santino where they were, they both had a title and Santino would do his comedy stuff and then she would save him when he would like run like a girl,” Freddie recalled. “So it was this weird, low-key, under-the-radar time where we were all kind of held hostage by the whims of Vince and Kevin Dunn, man. One guy who loves wrestling right with all his heart, more than his family, more than his dogs, and then this other guy who I never got the sense liked wrestling at all.
“He was trying to turn it into the NFL, or Tyson vs. Holyfield, which is cool, man. But it wasn't wrestling. So, you just see this room of, they're probably 20 writers when I worked there, and it was just 20 writers throwing sand against a tidal wave,” Freddie added. “You could pitch for 20 minutes. Kevin would be like,’ Well, I don't think she's pretty,’ and all of a sudden, like six weeks of story, was just gone. It’s like, ‘Well, our champ has to be pretty.’ it's like, ‘Yo, do you think Mankind was pretty?’ You could throw out a number of how many less-than-handsome male champions have existed, and I shall exceed it. But it would be dead it would just be dead because he would say one thing.”
In the past, Freddie has credited The Bella Twins for helping further the women's division along but notes that in the past, Stephanie McMahon had a major idea for a WrestleMania match featuring Beth Phoenix against Awesome Kong. Learn more about that plan, and how it was squashed, here.
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