In an interview with Fightful.com, Alexander Wolfe talked about the creative process in WWE:
“We had a meeting with Shawn Michaels and Triple H. Hunter told us we were getting called up to SmackDown. He told us and then everything would change from talent relations department. You get the emails and the main roster appearances and TV production days. We came up and Mark Carrano was talent relations and he told us all the fantastic things we would do. It was cool because they kind of, not promise, but they told you all the candy you will get and in the end you end up with celery. They told us big plans and everyone was high on us and Vince wanted to work together with us and we were (gonna be) on every show and pay-per-view. Empty promises, but that’s the business.”
When we started, we got put on house shows right away. The first thing on television was attacking the Usos and then we got beaten clean in a six-man right after. Then we got vibes of, ‘Oof, first loss’ and people were telling us, ‘Don’t worry about it, people will forget this after a month’. We felt like, ‘Maybe, but not the internet’. They felt sorry and told us sorry. Guys in the back were like, ‘You lost? Your first match?’ We thought how could repair it and justify it? We had a restart where we attacked New Day and at the time we had been on every house show and the more you work, the more money you make. They have two payment systems, which is weird. You make more money in the end. After the New Day feud, we had a match at Extreme Rules, which we won, and the SmackDown after we got beat clean again and disappeared. We also disappeared from house shows. For us, that was, ‘Yikes, that’s not a good sign’.”
“Not on house shows and not on television. If you’re not on television, you’re not on house shows because fans are like, ‘Who are those guys?’ You have no exposure and when you come out in deep Kentucky, you hear crickets. At that point, we had the feeling we were dead in the water. There was a time where he had two or three appearances on television and it led to an eight-man tag. We had a little spotlight, but they always took it away and I don’t know why. We were dead in the water and dropped the ball with that. We all believed they could have done more, not even putting us in a wrestling match, but being backstage and doing vignettes or promos. Just give us 30 seconds. We pitched a lot of ideas. At that time, there was a restructuring of the writing team and some writers were let go and others went to SmackDown. Everyone got a writer and you had the chance to pitch to the writer and they had to pitch ideas at the meeting in Stamford. When you have a writer who doesn’t have the time or courage, I don’t know what it is because Vince McMahon can be intimidating, then you’re also dead in the water because your ideas will not reach the top of the mountain and they cannot use it for material.”
You can check out the full interview below:
