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Michael Leonardi used to be a writer for WWE. But his run in the Stamford-based promotion was cut short as he was fired by Vince McMahon. Recently, Leonardi shared a video via LinkedIn to explain the real reason why he was fired from the company.
Back when Michael Leonardi signed with WWE in 2001, he was an Associate Producer. He mentioned that he left the company in 2005. But when he returned to the company in 2015, he was a Writer and Producer. While speaking on his LinkedIn video, the former WWE Writer mentioned that he left the company in 2005 because the company’s way of working was seemingly against his morals and ethics.
“I left (WWE) in 2005 for reasons I’ll get into in another video. But, it was something that there was major misalignment with my own morals and ethics and what the company decided to do in the face of some controversial stuff around terrorists and beheading and certain things.” [H/T Post Wrestling]
The reason for being fired still rubs Micheal Leonardi the wrong way
Then, Leonardi shared the story of how he was fired in 2016. It was a single promo segment that took place on a Martin Luther King Jr. Day edition of Monday Night Raw. Neville (now known as PAC) was supposed to say a line claiming that he has a dream too.
“So I was fired over a very particular segment which quite frankly still rubs me the wrong way and I think about it all the time and I always think about what I could have done better if anything to have not gotten fired. So, essentially I was given a segment and this had already gone through a couple of rewrites and this was one of the days where there was a lot of late-minute rewrites, there was a lot of backup with shooting segments. We had another big segment that was being shot at the time with New Day and they were doing a eulogy for their trombone that got destroyed or something.
“My segment though was involving four talent; three African-Americans. It was R-Truth, Titus O’Neil and Mark Henry and Neville, a Caucasian guy. So this happened to be the Martin Luther King edition of Monday Night Raw. It took place in Columbus, Ohio and it was on a Monday, whatever. It was like January 16th or something like that. I forget the date. Anyway, when I finally got the new script and brought it in, we did not have a lot of time to shoot it, and essentially, the script called for Neville to speak up and tell everyone else that, well, he’s got a dream too and that dream is to win the Royal Rumble.”
Neville told Michael Leonardi that he was not comfortable saying it
Former WWE Cruiserweight Champion, Neville was not comfortable saying those lines.
“And I remember Neville coming up to me after he read it and he was like, ‘Mike, man, I can’t say this.’ For anyone that is trying to understand this, trying to compare — these things are comparable and some face, he was a good guy, a wrestler who wants to one day win the Royal Rumble to one of the most iconic speeches in American history about civil rights and how important that was. To try to play on that was dumb. It was poor writing and I’ll tell you why, number one, it doesn’t make Neville look like a face. That would be something that a heel would say, right? That would be something that a bad guy would say in that way to undermine the importance of that speech at the end of the day.”
Everyone involved in the segment believed the writing was terrible
R-Truth, Mark Henry, and Titus O’Neil all felt that the script was terrible.
“So not only was Neville not comfortable saying it, the other three guys in the room, Titus and R-Truth and Mark Henry were like, ‘Yeah, this is f*cking terrible and so we did not have time to go back and get rewrites and I was not comfortable at all, nor did I even think this was an option quite frankly to try and get them to do it as is. The talent didn’t wanna shoot it that way. So what do you do? So, we worked together and we tried to find a way that we could pull this off and it not come off racially insensitive or to basically mock, to some degree, one of the most prolific speeches of all-time by a guy who’s supposed to be a good guy too. There was no way that was gonna be pulled off.”
How did Michael Leonardi and the other writers rewrite the script?
With the wrestlers sharing their honest thoughts about the script, Leonardi after getting approval from his boss at the time, Dave Kapoor tweaked the script a bit.
“So we ended up having R-Truth say it who R-Truth is a Hall of Famer. He is so incredible about delivering things and so we had R-Truth say it for Neville in a way that made it fun and warm and not insensitive in any way or not basically making light of just an — on the day of M.L.K. Day! So we shot it that way, we shot it that way, we are running out of time and everybody — my boss, Dave Kapoor was in the room and he approved it and afterwards, Dave said to me, ‘Hey Mike, why don’t you just go down to Gorilla and tell Vince what we did here, and just give him a heads up.’ I said, ‘Okay.’”
What was Vince McMahon’s reaction?
When Vince McMahon saw that he was not happy.
“So I go down to Gorilla and Vince (McMahon) is sitting in Gorilla where he always used to sit. I mean he’s got his headphones on and I said, ‘Hey, Vince, just wanna give you a heads up. We shot this thing. Talent had a little bit of an issue with how this was written. And so we had R-Truth say the line as well. We think it felt good, we’re happy with it. I know it’s my responsibility. But, just wanted to let you know,’ and I’ll never forget this.
“He’s staring at the screen. He takes off his headphones and he turned to me, he said, ‘So you didn’t give me what I wanted?’ And my eyes got big and I’m like, ‘Umm…’ And I said, ‘Yes sir, I know, I understand.’ I explained it again, what we did, the circumstances around it, the limitations that we had. I took full responsibility for it and then he just chewed me the f*ck out, pardon my French. Chewed me out…,” Michael Leonardi said.
Leonardi also mentioned that this did not sit well with McMahon and as a result he was fired from the company.
Do you think it was unfair for Leonardi to get fired?
