Kemo
10-26-2022, 12:41 AM
According to former WWE head-writer Brian Gewirtz, Vince McMahon once declared a WWE Superstar had picked the “worst name” he had ever heard. McMahon made his disdain for former Superstar Al Snow known during a conversation with Gewirtz many years ago.
First arriving to WWE in 1998, Al Snow widely made himself known for carrying around a mannequin head named “Head.” Amidst his run, Snow notably captured the European Championship, and acquired six Hardcore Championship reigns. In addition, he created a strong bond with writer, Brian Gewirtz — who went on to develop multiple creative pitches for Snow’s on-screen character.
Then WWE Chairmen Vince McMahon was not a fan of those repeated pitches, as Gewirtz recently revealed on Notsam Wrestling. Gewirtz said he fell into a common “trap” of “becoming friends with wrestlers too quickly,” that ultimately lead an outburst by Vince McMahon.
“There’s no name in professional wrestling worse than Al Snow.”
“In my case, I’m buddying up with Al Snow. I hit it off with him when we were shooting these vignettes with him and Steve Blackman back in the day. Al’s a great guy and he’s very funny and personable. I would push Al and Al Snow matches to the point of being very detrimental to Al himself because it’s like, ‘Oh, this fucking guy and his Al Snow obsession’ to the point where it was just like, ‘would you please stop pitching Al Snow?’
“I think the fact that I was pitching Al Snow so much probably, somewhere in Vince’s head as we were making a drive in the Carolinas, I think was like, ‘what is this guy’s obsession with Al Snow? Al Snow, [it’s a] stupid name anyway.’ Then just blurting out loud after the conversation about Al that ended 20 minutes ago, [he said] ‘there’s no name in professional wrestling worse than Al Snow.’”
I was like boy, ‘I have done a disservice to this person I’m trying to help,'” Gewirtz recalled.
Gewirtz continued on to discuss some of the ideas he initially pitched for Snow when he came on board as a writer:
“Al Snow, basically, he still had the ‘What Does Everybody Want?’ theme music and everything. But when I started, ‘Head’ was still part of his gimmick, but we were trying to do other things with him. That’s why the stuff with Steve Blackman, Head Cheese [happened]. I pitched the idea of him coming out in a different European outfit every time he was defending the [WWE] European title.
“Again, just to make it entertaining, it’s like a cold match between Al Snow and Viscera, let’s say, on SmackDown. ‘Well, what can we do?’Well, what if Al is celebrating Luxembourg because he is European Champion, All right. Then we like, ‘let’s get all these props and magic and let’s have them come out in lederhosen one day’ and all this type of thing. And Al always played it to the hill perfectly. In the midst of accidentally torpedoing his ending with Vince, that we could actually sneak in some good stuff along the way.”
First arriving to WWE in 1998, Al Snow widely made himself known for carrying around a mannequin head named “Head.” Amidst his run, Snow notably captured the European Championship, and acquired six Hardcore Championship reigns. In addition, he created a strong bond with writer, Brian Gewirtz — who went on to develop multiple creative pitches for Snow’s on-screen character.
Then WWE Chairmen Vince McMahon was not a fan of those repeated pitches, as Gewirtz recently revealed on Notsam Wrestling. Gewirtz said he fell into a common “trap” of “becoming friends with wrestlers too quickly,” that ultimately lead an outburst by Vince McMahon.
“There’s no name in professional wrestling worse than Al Snow.”
“In my case, I’m buddying up with Al Snow. I hit it off with him when we were shooting these vignettes with him and Steve Blackman back in the day. Al’s a great guy and he’s very funny and personable. I would push Al and Al Snow matches to the point of being very detrimental to Al himself because it’s like, ‘Oh, this fucking guy and his Al Snow obsession’ to the point where it was just like, ‘would you please stop pitching Al Snow?’
“I think the fact that I was pitching Al Snow so much probably, somewhere in Vince’s head as we were making a drive in the Carolinas, I think was like, ‘what is this guy’s obsession with Al Snow? Al Snow, [it’s a] stupid name anyway.’ Then just blurting out loud after the conversation about Al that ended 20 minutes ago, [he said] ‘there’s no name in professional wrestling worse than Al Snow.’”
I was like boy, ‘I have done a disservice to this person I’m trying to help,'” Gewirtz recalled.
Gewirtz continued on to discuss some of the ideas he initially pitched for Snow when he came on board as a writer:
“Al Snow, basically, he still had the ‘What Does Everybody Want?’ theme music and everything. But when I started, ‘Head’ was still part of his gimmick, but we were trying to do other things with him. That’s why the stuff with Steve Blackman, Head Cheese [happened]. I pitched the idea of him coming out in a different European outfit every time he was defending the [WWE] European title.
“Again, just to make it entertaining, it’s like a cold match between Al Snow and Viscera, let’s say, on SmackDown. ‘Well, what can we do?’Well, what if Al is celebrating Luxembourg because he is European Champion, All right. Then we like, ‘let’s get all these props and magic and let’s have them come out in lederhosen one day’ and all this type of thing. And Al always played it to the hill perfectly. In the midst of accidentally torpedoing his ending with Vince, that we could actually sneak in some good stuff along the way.”