Andrew Goldstein on Vince McMahon, Daniel Bryan and an Epic Ric Flair Story

Fred: What’s up, everybody? This is Fred Richani of The Sports Courier, here with former WWE writer and current VH1 “Big Morning Buzz” producer Andrew Goldstein. You’re a Temple alum and a Philly sports guy, and Philly is an awesome pro wrestling city. I was there live for Money in the Bank, an experience I’ll never forget. Did you grow up a wrestling fan?

Andrew Goldstein: I did, man. I’m a nice, polite Philly fan, by the way. I date my wrestling love back to around 1986. My brothers and I were big “Saturday Night Live” fans, and we turned it on one night and it wasn’t on. “Saturday Night’s Main Event” was on, and I caught my first glimpse of Hulk Hogan. Then, I always tell the story, on WWF Superstars on Saturday morning I watched Paul Orndorff turn on Hulk Hogan in a tag team match against Studd and Bundy. I just could not fathom that Paul Orndorff would do that to Hulk Hogan. It upset me so much as a child, and it hooked me. I’ve been a fan ever since. I’m more of a fan now than I was as a kid. If I’m reading a book on vacation, it’s going to be a wrestling biography. I listen to podcasts, I do shows and podcasts, and I tweet about wrestling. I just love it, even though the product is obviously not where I’d like it to be.

Fred: The product has definitely fallen off the last four months. At SummerSlam it seemed like they were clicking on all cylinders. Daniel Bryan beat John Cena, which made my jaw drop, and then they follow that up with him getting beat up on like seven straight shows by The Shield and The Authority, and having him win the title for a cup of coffee only to lose it or have it stripped from him. What’s the problem with giving Daniel Bryan at least a two- or three-month reign?

Andrew Goldstein: It’s funny you say that, because literally everyone in the company has had a two- or three-month reign. Jack Swagger has held a title. Ziggler, Kane, Big Show, on and on. The thing about Daniel Bryan is he’s the complete antithesis of a Vince McMahon champion. He’s kind of like a Bob Backlund to Vince. But they have to listen to the crowd, and the crowd loves the guy and his whole story. I think they’re waiting to give Daniel Bryan his WrestleMania moment, so they’re teasing us with a title reign, then he’s stripped of the title, then another reign, and he’s screwed out of the title again. Now he’s off with the Wyatt Family, but I think it’s all going to cycle back to some kind of WrestleMania moment, that sort of Rey Mysterio or Chris Benoit moment where it’s, “Oh my God, they actually put the title on this guy,” and then a two-, three- or four-month reign until Vince and Hunter get sick of it and go back to Super Cena.

Fred: I hope you’re right to an extent, although I’d rather see him booked more like Chris Benoit as world champion, as opposed to Rey Mysterio.

Andrew Goldstein: Yeah, but what can we expect? All we’ve seen is him being booked like Rey Mysterio. I just feel like they’re doing themselves such a disservice by not telling the full Daniel Bryan story. They did it a little bit leading into SummerSlam, with the package of him being trained by HBK, but I want to hear the whole story of him suffering on the indies, being the indie darling, getting fired by WWE and getting rehired. Look at what UFC does with its champions and the history packages, or HBO’s “24/7” in boxing. Give me that kind of gritty reality.

Fred: They’re talking about shifting toward more of a sports approach, with their TV contracts coming up and rights fees going up and up. Do you think they should take more of a sports approach as opposed to entertainment?

Andrew Goldstein: I can’t say they should stop doing what they’re doing. They’re a multibillion-dollar company, and their bottom line is not suffering. I’ve been at WrestleMania the last three years, and the thing sells out. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But as a wrestling fan, I grew up on the NWA, the UWF and World Class, where it felt real. It felt like a sport, like these guys were legitimately upset with each other. The best thing about wrestling is that line of what’s real and what’s not. Right now with WWE, 90 percent of the time it’s like a bad kindergarten play. I wish they would even it out, maybe 60-40 or 50-50, with that ’80s and ’90s gritty feel where the line is blurred. They hit on it sometimes, like the CM Punk pipe bomb and the Mark Henry retirement swerve. They dangle that carrot, and it’s like, “Holy crap, this is going to be great,” and then they go right back to the circus, Hollywood teleplays backstage and contrived plotlines.

Fred: What bothers me is they derail these potentially great storylines. They derailed CM Punk with Kevin Nash, which never got paid off, and two years later they derailed Daniel Bryan with the Big Show. They focus on the kids, because the kids buy the merchandise, to the disservice of the older fans, and I think that’s a mistake. We’ll get back to the current product, but you got started with WWE in 2006, and prior to that you were working in media. Was it always one of your goals to get involved in wrestling?

Andrew Goldstein: No way, man. I had no idea that was even an option. I was working on a show called “Web Junk 20” on VH1, sort of a precursor to “Tosh.0,” hosted by the late, great Patrice O’Neal, who by the way served time on the WWE creative team. The show came to an end, and I’m on a media job website, and there’s a posting for a WWE creative position. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’m still an old-school, kayfabe wrestling fan. I went for it and didn’t get it the first time, waited a year, tried again and got it. One day I was a wrestling fan, and the next day I was literally at the table with Vince McMahon.

Fred: We hear all the time they don’t like guys with wrestling backgrounds or guys who are actual fans. Did you have to hide your fandom?

Andrew Goldstein: It’s kind of a misnomer. When you’re interviewing, they say you need to know the product, and they test you to see how much you know. You think, “Perfect, I’ve been a fan my entire life. I’ll fit right in.” Then you get in there, and they really don’t want you to be a fan. They want a clean slate they can mold in their image. They get really excited when you come in with TV or movie credits: “We hired a guy who wrote sitcoms, a guy who wrote soap operas, a comedian.” I came in with a little TV writing experience and a lot of TV production experience, and they wanted me to unlearn everything and operate the WWE way. The guys who were interns at WWE and moved up through the system to the creative team, those dudes lasted six, eight, 10, 12 years. Guys like me and Alex Greenfield came from entertainment, and once we got in there, they really wanted you to forget all that.

Fred: You were there from ’06 to early ’07, about a year into the John Cena-Batista era. What was the atmosphere like backstage?

Andrew Goldstein: It was a weird time. The brands had just split, and they added a third brand, ECW, so talent was stretched thin. There was no real developmental system. It was kind of just OVW in Louisville. You had a lot of WCW guys on their way out and a lot of ECW guys on their way in, but Vince had no interest in elevating them. You had CM Punk, who everybody knew was a star, but the powers that be weren’t ready to let him be a star. We had Kurt Angle in his final days in WWE, Ken Anderson, MVP, Rey Mysterio, Batista and Booker. It was the King Booker era on SmackDown, and on Raw you had Rated-RKO and Cena. That was the top of the card, and The Miz was just starting out. There was a huge drop-off from the top of the card to the midcard.

Fred: You worked with MVP and Ken Anderson in the early days. Does it bother you that they never got to that next level? They certainly had the potential.

Andrew Goldstein: It stinks. On the SmackDown team we wanted to be a completely independent show, and we had meetings about making Elijah Burke the guy, making MVP the guy, Ken Anderson. But we were stuck with Batista, Booker, Cena, Orton and Edge. It was an uphill battle to get anybody else to that level, and if you look today, besides Punk and Bryan, it’s the same template. Everybody else is fighting for scraps. Cena got injured this year, and as much as I would never wish an injury on a guy who works as hard as Cena, I was kind of relieved. I was like, “Here we go. Six months without the crutch of John Cena. Let’s see who steps up.” And they brought Cena back within two months. It happened when I was there, too. The SmackDown-only pay-per-views weren’t doing well, so they brought Cena over from Raw and tagged him with Batista. As much as I respect the guy, after 10 years of John Cena, even the truest Cena fans have to be ready for something new.

Fred: His work ethic is undeniable, and he’s had a lot of great matches, but I think they’re doing him a disservice, too. There’s nobody credible out there for him. Why are they so gun-shy? I don’t see the UFC going, “We have way too many top stars.”

Andrew Goldstein: It’s an old-school wrestling mentality. In the territory days, promoters would put the title on themselves, their kids or the one guy in the company they could trust not to leave them high and dry. The world is 100 percent different now, but it’s the same thing. John Cena is a rock for Vince McMahon. Vince knows what he’s going to get out of him. He knows he’s not going to take his ball and go home like Stone Cold, he’s not going to leave for movies like The Rock, and he’s not going to get in trouble like Randy Orton. John Cena is the safe pick for the office, just like Bob Backlund was the safe pick to hold the title for years until they found their next guy, who ended up being Hulk Hogan.

Fred: Were there any ideas rejected by Vince McMahon that you look back on and say, “Wow, that could have been awesome,” or “That could have been really bad”?

Andrew Goldstein: The biggest misconception is that the writers are just as culpable as Vince. People say, “Those writers come up with the worst ideas.” Dude, the writers are just as big of fans as you guys are, and they come up with all the good ideas that get fantasy booked on Twitter, and those ideas get shot down because of the filter. It’s getting better now, because at least you have Triple H, who has his own complications, as the guy you pass ideas through. But when I was there, all our good ideas passed through a man in his 60s who didn’t get the pop culture relevance. To him, wrestling is done one way, and that’s how we would do it. We had so many fun pop culture ideas during DX vs. Rated-RKO that never got off the ground floor.

Fred: They have Dutch Mantell, Zeb Colter, and Paul Heyman under talent contracts, yet to the best of my knowledge they haven’t used these brilliant wrestling minds creatively. Why?

Andrew Goldstein: It’s crazy. I think if they asked Paul Heyman, he would say no at this point. He knows what that job entails and what it’s like working with that hierarchy, and it’s oil and vinegar. Dutch Mantell is a fantastic booker, and it would be great if they used him. But they’re very tuned into Hollywood writing six hours of TV a week, not booking wrestling. Honestly, and I was one of them, I would fire all of the creative team members and let the agents book everything. But they’re never going to go back to that. It’s an antiquated system.

Fred: Is the idea that a lot of writers and people backstage are job-scared a misconception, or is it closer to fact?

Andrew Goldstein: It’s not just writers. Every single employee of WWE, whether they’re on the production or creative team or on the corporate side, is job-scared. That whole company is run on fear, and look, it works for Vince, so I can’t knock it. I’m just saying it wasn’t the most conducive environment for creativity. One of my favorite stories is the one Hunter and Shawn tell about when the Kliq was rolling. They made Vince come to a house show, pulled him aside and said, “Listen, this product sucks. Give us the ball and let us do our thing.” Vince, to his credit, did that, and that’s basically what started the Attitude Era. But it took something drastic. There aren’t many people in that company right now who are going to sit Vince or Triple H down and say, “Your product sucks,” because they look at their bottom line and sold-out stadiums and think what they’re doing is fantastic. But you and I as fans look at all the missed opportunities, the fantastic matches they’ve yet to book and the stories they’ve yet to write.

Fred: To Vince’s credit, he’s been able to put personal differences aside to bring guys back, like Paul Heyman as an on-air talent and Bruno Sammartino. A lot of credit goes to Triple H for that. Do you think Triple H can do the same when he’s fully in control?

Andrew Goldstein: As an outsider watching what Triple H has done so far, on developmental and recognizing legends, there’s a focus on the history of WWE, like the world heavyweight title history package and bringing Bruno back. I tell this story all the time. One of the most frustrating periods for me when I was there was Survivor Series, when Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes were on a legends team together. All of us writers were like, “Oh my God, this is momentous. The biggest rivals of the ’80s are on the same team for the first time. We need to talk about this.” And Vince told us nobody cares. In 2006, that was his mindset. Now I see the real focus on the Hall of Fame and Dusty being brought back in the Rhodes brothers storyline. If you watch Triple H’s DVD, he’s been a fan his entire life, so I’m hoping with him in charge, there will be a refocus on the history and the legends.

Fred: He says the right things, but then I see that promo he cut before Hell in a Cell, where he told Daniel Bryan he’s not a star and buried Chris Jericho, Edge and RVD for no apparent reason. It’s kind of like Jekyll and Hyde.

Andrew Goldstein: I watched that promo and thought it was genius, because I thought Triple H was working everybody. I think Hunter knows the knocks on him, the trope that he buries guys, and he purposely played up that persona. Maybe I’m being too cynical. I try not to believe Triple H is that guy, even though I watch the Daniel Bryan story being pushed aside for the Big Show and the CM Punk story being pushed aside for Kevin Nash. But he’s doing great things with developmental, so I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. I think it was half work, half shoot, and if you heard Chris Jericho’s comments, I think he alluded to that.

Fred: There’s big news on the independent scene. Court Bauer is now part of Ring of Honor, helping with its presentation. What does he bring to the table for a company that has been struggling the last couple of years?

Andrew Goldstein: I’m a huge Court fan. I worked with Court on the SmackDown team, and we’ve actually become closer since. He’s a super creative, super funny guy and really passionate about the wrestling business. He learned under the learning tree of Gary Hart when he was running MLW. Gary Hart mentored him and taught him how to book wrestling, how to present it and how to run a wrestling business. What Court brings is a creative mind for how to market a business in 2013, not that 20-years-ago way of looking at a wrestling company. He has a forward-looking view of where wrestling can go in the next 20 years, kind of like Paul Heyman in that regard. Ring of Honor is lucky to have him.

Fred: TNA isn’t a bad show at all, but there’s not that breakthrough guy. In the mid-2000s you had Samoa Joe catching fire, Kurt Angle’s awesome feud with Joe and the X Division. Can TNA capture fans’ imagination again?

Andrew Goldstein: That’s been their cross to bear for 10 years. They just haven’t developed that breakthrough guy. Look at all the guys Ring of Honor has turned out, who have mostly gone to WWE. TNA has been so reliant on the AJ Styles and the Samoa Joes, and we’ve seen every incarnation of the Bobby Roodes and the James Storms. There just hasn’t been a guy who didn’t come from WWE who elevated into the face of the company. EC3 is very entertaining, but I don’t think he’s there yet. There’s talk of guys like MVP coming over, and he’d do great somewhere like TNA, but I don’t think that’s the answer. They need to develop a guy, but all the young guys who want to be stars are looking at the WWE developmental system.

Fred: You were released by WWE in 2007. How long before you bounced back?

Andrew Goldstein: I was lucky, man. I got on “TRL” within a month of being fired from WWE. When I was there, I worked closely with the agents, guys like Michael Hayes, and those dudes are so protective of their jobs. A guy like Michael Hayes has spent his entire adult life in the wrestling business, so where’s he going to go if WWE wishes him well in his future endeavors? Not to say I’m better than Michael Hayes. He’s a legend in the business. But I spent a cup of coffee in the wrestling business, and when it was over, I went back to MTV and worked on “TRL” for about a year.

Fred: What did you learn in WWE that you were able to use in other gigs?

Andrew Goldstein: I got the WWE job way too early in my career. I didn’t have the confidence as a TV producer and writer to get what I needed out of those guys. When I left, I really focused on learning how to be a TV producer and how to get what I need out of a piece of talent. I spent three years at Spike producing short-form programming, and I worked with TNA a little bit and helped with the rebrand, the whole “Wrestling Matters” campaign. Comparing how I worked with those guys to how I worked with talent in WWE, I was a completely different person. I had a confidence about me. WWE was a big mirror for me to look into and ask, “Why didn’t it work out?” I wasn’t experienced enough.

Fred: Let’s get to some viewer questions. One viewer wants to wrestle. Since you were around wrestlers backstage, any advice on how he should carry himself?

Andrew Goldstein: Be respectful, know the history of the business and get into it for the right reasons. Don’t do it because you want to be a millionaire WWE Superstar who gets into movies and TV. Get into it because you love wrestling. Otherwise you’re going to take all these bumps and bruises, it’s not going to be worth it, and your heart’s not going to be in it. As Jim Ross always says, get your education first, then pursue the dream. There are so many good books out there. Learn about the territories and the legends and what those guys went through. Focus on being a pro wrestler, not a sports entertainer.

Fred: I swear this is a real question: A viewer says his favorite wrestler is JTG and wants to know if WWE will ever push him.

Andrew Goldstein: First of all, it’s amazing JTG is still with the company. I was there when we got the email about those guys coming up from developmental, and we had a whole email chain about what their name should be. The name I wanted for the tag team was the Thuggernauts, like juggernauts. There was a final list of about six names, and then all of a sudden Vince told us they were going to be called Cryme Tyme. They had a nice little run. I liked when they were sort of John Cena’s backup. I guess he’s a good hand, and that’s why they keep him around. JTG is a nice guy, but when’s the last time he’s been on television?

Fred: Should WWE do more squash matches? It obviously got Ryback over last year.

Andrew Goldstein: I love the squash match era. I grew up in it. It’s my theory, and I’ve argued with many people about this, that Monday Night Raw, as good as it is and as much of an institution as it’s become, actually ruined the wrestling business, because it set the standard that every match on weekly television has to be a main event guy versus a main event guy. For 50, 60, 70 years before that, wrestling did very well on TV with barely any main event matches. It was mostly a showcase of wrestler X against a guy you’ve never heard of, and you got excited about finally seeing him wrestle somebody of his caliber. Nobody’s going to put an hour of squash matches on TV today, but like the viewer said, it worked really well for Ryback. I think you could work the squash match back into modern-day wrestling.

Fred: One last viewer question: Any Ric Flair stories, since you were with WWE when he was still on the active roster?

Andrew Goldstein: In fact, it’s my best story from my time in WWE. It’s really only done justice face to face, but I’ll try. Rated-RKO was feuding with DX, and Flair was part of that, and they had a deal where they were going to beat the crap out of Ric Flair. Edge is in the ring and cuts a promo calling out Ric Flair, and Flair doesn’t answer his music. He calls him again, Flair doesn’t answer, so Edge throws to his backstage correspondent, Randy Orton, who has caught up with Ric Flair. We cut backstage, and Randy Orton is standing over a bloody and beaten Ric Flair. You never see Flair get beaten, so that’s what we had to produce.

I was assigned to the Ric Flair portion with an agent, Bruce Prichard. We had to get Ric Flair bloody and beaten for about 10 seconds on camera, so I said to Bruce, “What are we going to do? Is he going to use the fake stuff?” Bruce said, “Oh, you know Nature Boy. He only does it for real.” So I told Ric the creative, and he said, “All right, when we’re five minutes out, tell me, and I’ll get ready.” Five minutes out, I say, “Mr. Flair, we’re about five minutes out.” He goes, “OK,” and he’s looking right at me, and blood just starts trickling down his face. He’s cutting himself backstage. He’s not in a match. It’s because we need him bloody and beaten on the floor with Randy Orton standing over him.

Now we’re about a minute out, and he feels he’s not bloody enough. So he flops onto the concrete and goes, “Randy, get on top of me. Open me the hard way.” Again, this is not a match. Randy gets on top of him and starts pounding his forehead with his fist to open up the blood. Randy stands up, the camera cuts to them, Randy cuts his promo, the camera shows Ric Flair bloody and beaten on the concrete floor, and they drag him through the curtain to the ring and put the boots to him. TV goes to commercial, and Ric Flair, a bloody, beaten mess, comes back through the curtain, walks up to me and says, “Blood. Crimson mask. How’d I do?” I was just awestruck. I watched the guy open up his forehead for no reason other than to sell a backstage vignette.

Fred: That’s an amazing story. It just goes to show you how old-school Ric Flair is. There’s only one Nature Boy. Andrew, thank you so much for the time. Where can everybody find you online and on TV?

Andrew Goldstein: Hit me up on Twitter. If you tweet me about wrestling, more times than not I’ll write you back. I tweet about wrestling on Monday nights along with everybody, and I tweet a lot of jokes, too. My show is 10 a.m. on VH1, Monday through Friday, and it’ll be back in March after a short break. Thank you, Fred. I appreciate the time.