Former writer talks altercation between Kurt Angle and HBK, Vince wanting to censor Christian's face

Former WWE lead writer Alex Greenfield was a guest with John Pollock this week discussing a ton of topics including the build up for SummerSlam this year, the WWE’s production infrastructure and lots more from his own time in company from 2005-06. The full show is up at this link.

Below are some highlights from the chat, transcribed by Chris Maffei:

Vince McMahon wanting to censor Christian’s face on television with a blue dot: “Right before I started, there was a big show, I think it might have been in Toronto. Christian was just so completely over, and everybody thought he was going to get a push at, I think it was the World Heavyweight Championship at that point. We were on the plane one time shortly after I started, and Vince was just like ‘God damn, I just don’t like his face. His face really bothers me.’ I was like, ‘He’s ugly, Vince?’ ‘No, it’s not that he’s ugly, it’s just, I don’t know, it’s ratty! You know what we should do? That Kennedy gimmick.’ And we’re all like, ‘What?’ Some scion of the Kennedy fortune I guess got arrested for rape in the 1990s at some point. When the woman who was accusing him was on the stand, all of the networks put a blue dot over her face. Vince was like, ‘God damn, you know what we should do? We should put a blue dot over his face whenever he comes out.’ It was the flight to Sheffield, England, also the flight where the Spirit Squad idea was invented. This was a whole flight of bad ideas.”

Backstage argument Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels had back in 2005: “I always found Shawn to be an entitled prick. He tried this thing with Angle one night; Angle wasn’t having it, and threw him around like a rag-doll. I remember I was supposed to do some sort of stand-up interview, a backstage deal with Angle afterwards, and Shawn comes up like a house of fire, like ‘You were taking liberties!’ And it’s because Shawn was booked to lose a match and started his overselling nonsense, because that’s the kind of thing he always did because he’s a guy who hated losing. I don’t argue with anyone that, when he’s working with friends in exactly the way he wants, yes, he’s one of the best performers of all time. That doesn’t mean you’re one of the best performers of all time, though, if you can’t do it with people who aren’t your friends.”