Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media Analyst If anyone has a sense of what Vince McMahon means to the WWE league he founded, it’s Brian Gewirtz.
Currently SVP of development at Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson-led prodco Seven Bucks Prods., Gewirtz spent 15 years working as a writer with McMahon to script the drama in and out of the ring at the wrestling empire.
It’s a wild experience he recounts in his new memoir, “There’s Just One Problem: True Tales from the Former One-Time 7th Most Powerful Person in WWE.” Now that McMahon has retired in the wake of a scandal that could impact the future of WWE, Gewirtz believes his former company is in good hands under the triumvirate of its current overseers, co-CEOs Nick Khan and Vince’s daughter, Stephanie McMahon, as well as her husband, chief creative officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque. “I think they’ve been put in a position where it’s not like Vince is gone and all of a sudden it’s the scene from ‘Airplane!’ — ‘Does anyone know how to fly a plane?’ — and it’s just mass panic and they’re waving their arms and screaming,” said Gewirtz on the latest episode of Variety’s “Strictly Business” podcast. “They’re put in a position to now show their worth.
And I think if it is any indication of the past month or two, they’re doing just that.” Gewirtz also dishes on what it’s been like to move from one larger-than-life wrestling legend to another: former grappler Johnson, who became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
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