5 Wrestling rumors we hope are true and 4 we hope aren't: Big update on Aalyah Mysterio storyline, WWE Hall of Famer to wrestle The Fiend at WrestleMania 37, Becky Lynch return plans

#1 Hope isn’t true: Reason behind scripted promos in WWE

Chris Jericho

Chris Jericho had MLW’s Court Bauer as his guest recently on Talk Is Jericho. Bauer was also a former writer in WWE. During the podcast, Chris Jericho discussed how WWE first started using scripted promos and Vince McMahon first hired writers because he wanted SmackDown to be beat Friends in the ratings

"It's funny because when I got to WWE, my famous first promo with The Rock when I interrupted him, there were no writers at that point. That was late 1999 and no rehearsals either. Rock, and I and [Vince] Russo went over in the back, but there was no going through it. As you know, a few years later, that became the norm, which is part of what my opinion of one of the issues there is everything is so overly scripted and overly processed."

"The reason why writers became a thing was when we started SmackDown, which was right after I got there, August '99, Vince made it his motto that SmackDown was going to be bigger than 'Friends'. We're going to beat 'Friends' on Thursday, and his reasoning and idea and strategy was well 'Friends' has writers, then we need writers too." H/T: WrestlingINC

Why do we hope this rumor isn’t true? Well, it just sounds ridiculous. However, there is no reason for us to doubt Chris Jericho’s story. Even if beating Friends was only a part of Vince McMahon’s reasoning for bringing in writers, it’s still quite strange.