Robert Evans and Brian James Gone From WWE Creative

[cero2k]

Source: pwinsider.com


-- Via WOR: Brian James (Road Dogg) has stepped down as co-head writer of Smackdown

-- WWE Creative team member Robert Evans was let go by World Wrestling Entertainment over Wrestlemania week, PWInsider.com has confirmed with multiple sources.

Several sources have told PWInsider.com that Evans was let go at the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony after a speech he had produced featured a mention of Vince McMahon. McMahon has strongly stressed for years that he does not want to be mentioned or praised during the Hall of Fame ceremony, to the point it has become something of a running joke. When McMahon's name was mentioned, sources stated that Evans took the blame as writer and producer of that segment. One source stated the firing took place at the gorilla position as the Hall was ongoing.

According to Stu Carapola’s WWE Hall of Fame coverage, Bret Hart’s induction speech included the story of the first time Vince McMahon reacted to the Hart Foundation and praised their work. There is no confirmation as to whether Evans worked on that specific speech yet.

The DX induction that closed the 2019 WWE Hall of Fame ceremony later featured the entire DX contingent mentioning McMahon’s name over and over in a silly way, which may have actually been sparked by McMahon’s reaction to his name being dropped earlier in the evening. After all the name dropping, Bully Gunn quipped that McMahon couldn’t “fire” him.

Evans, 35, wrestled for Ring of Honor, CHIKARA and other promotions under the ring names RD Evans and Archibald Peck after breaking into the business under the late Skandar Akbar. He signed on with WWE Creative in the fall of 2016. We are told Evans was liked by those who worked with him in the company.

Update 10:00 AM EST - Evans took to Twitter, stating that he "quit WWE."

[XIV]

Why did Road Dogg leave? Makes no sense. Unless he’s been used as scapegoat for the DX shenanigans.

[KILLdozer]

A change for SD couldn't hurt though...

[Big Red Machine]

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/repo ... ame-speech

Fightful's article basically merges the two accounts about Evans. He realized that he f*cked up so he walked up to Vince and quit, assuming he was going to be in trouble. They also note that Vince was "on edge all week" about things, and fined the referee in the Mania main event for counting when Ronda's shoulders were up (I'm perfectly fine with that last part).



I think the bigger news coming out of this (and maybe I was just being naive here) is that Creative writes people's HOF speeches for them and the segments are "produced" like any other segment. This just kills it for me even more.

[Big Red Machine]

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/repo ... -smackdown

Fightful says that Road Dogg stepped down due to frustration with Vince messing with stuff, which does seem to make this into a bigger story.

[cero2k]

From F4W

There was an incident during the ceremony that led to Evans either being fired or qutting on the spot. He wrote a line during Bret Hart’s Hall of Fame speech where Hart thanked Vince McMahon for giving him and Jim Neidhart their break together. Writers were either told ahead of time or it was expected that they knew that McMahon’s name was not to be mentioned in any speech.

Evans claimed that rather than being fired, he quit, writing so on Twitter.

One person who was there said that as he was being berated, and was about to be fired, he quit on his own. It was explained that the attack on Bret caused such a frenzy that it created a very tense atmosphere backstage when the speech was over. The incident took place right after Hart & Neidhart’s speech was over, and it was something of a you can’t fire me because I quit scenario.

Whether Vince was in a bad mood because of the attack on Hart ruining his planned show, he was furious when it was over and tore into Evans, even though the thanking of Vince was on the teleprompter, meaning it had gotten through a number of channels after Evans wrote it. One person said that it’s possible it could have been resolved but Evans quit