5 former WWE writers: Where are they now?

In a job that involves countless hours cooped up in a plane travelling from city to city, that sees your work rewritten seemingly on a whim, and where you need to remember to avoid using even the most straightforward of wrestling lingo, there’s little wonder we see a fairly high turnover of WWE writers.

But what do the guys get up to once they’re out of that daily grind and back in the realm of relative normality?

Luckily, we have ourselves some answers, thanks to various names whose future endeavours have seen them drift back into the limelight for all kinds of reasons. Whether it’s due to the way in which they left the company in the first place, the work they’ve done since departing WWE, or simply for dishing some dirt on life behind the scenes with their former employers—there are some interesting tales to be told by ex-Creative Team staff.

Here, we check-up on five former WWE writers, noting their current whereabouts, their claims to fame (or infamy), and of course the obligatory gossip that comes with working for the biggest pro wrestling company in the world.

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#1 Chris DeJoseph

AKA Big Dick Johnson

Chris DeJoseph was a part of the Creative Team for six long years between 2004 and 2010. That means his tenure coincided with angles such as Mr McMahon’s staged death stunt, as well as his own personal highlight in the form of Edge’s live sex celebration from the Jan 9, 2006, showing of Raw.

He also claims the dubious honour of being afforded his own on-screen role under the ill-fated Big Dick Johnson guise. And if that’s a reference that’s lost on you, it may be best to keep it that way...

Still, that gimmick wasn’t enough to put him off the wrestling business altogether. Today, he very much remains in the industry as a co-executive producer of Lucha Underground, where his WWE connections helped him play a part in bringing in the likes of John Morrison and Matt Striker.

You may also have heard his name bandied about in light of recent allegations made about WWE approaching Lucha Underground talent. In January of last year, he very publicly—and boldly—claimed that his former employers had “basically tried to sign our entire roster, and pretty much tried to shut us down”.

#2 Kevin Marshall

After spending just under a year with the company between October 2013 and August 2014, Kevin Marshall’s time in Creative was a relatively short one.

Unlike the aforementioned DeJoseph, he’s no longer strictly in the wrestling business, having returned to Spike TV as a producer where he'd previously worked pre-WWE. But he does share some commonality with the former Big Dick Johnson in that he’s since made remarks of his own about the company in light of his departure.

And perhaps unsurprisingly, they weren’t particularly favourable, either.

Marshall recently spoke out about Vince McMahon “micromanaging everything to death” as well as how the show was often written “well in advance” only for everything to be “scrapped and rewritten” by the big cheese himself.

On face value, that may sound slightly ridiculous, but if you take one look at the current product with its overly-scripted promos and stilted dialogue, it suddenly becomes entirely believable.

#3 Andrew Goldstein

Another former writer to leave the company but remain within the television industry is Andrew Goldstein. Working primarily on ECW and SmackDown, Goldstein joined the company back in 2006 before leaving the very same year.

Since then, he’s been credited with writing various TV shows. IMDB cites Uncommon Sense with Charlamagne and a number of MTV specials on his résumé, whilst he was also a producer for VH1 where he worked on Big Morning Buzz Live for a couple of years.

Add in the podcast that he also co-hosts—the fittingly named ‘Sorry I’ve Been So Busy’—and somehow his schedule post-WWE sounds even more hectic than the one he had whilst working for the company.

On top of all that, he still has time to maintain some ties to the world of pro-wrestling, contributing guest pieces for sites like Complex and ESPN, including his recent article speculating “how the WWE would script Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor”.

#4 Brian Gewirtz

Brian Gewirtz is perhaps one of the more well-known names to feature on this list, having been with WWE for more than a decade—with the vast majority of those years spent as the head writer of Raw.

His tenure ended in 2012 when a dud rating saw him removed from his position and replaced by newcomer Ed Pankowski. However, Gewirtz was kept around as a consultant, partly because he still had a contract with the company and partly because he just so happened to be Dwayne Johnson’s personal writer.

Still, the writing was on the wall and it wasn’t long before he was out of the company altogether.

Luckily for him though, those ties to Mr Johnson would continue to serve him well in life beyond the wrestling business. Gewirtz was hired by Seven Bucks Promotions as Senior Vice President of Development in 2015. That's the very same production company that is owned by Johnson and his ex-wife (and current manager) Dany Garcia and is currently working on the upcoming movie about Paige and her family.

#5 Ranjan Chhibber

Dr ChhibberFew writers can claim to have had a post-WWE career quite like that of Ranjan Chhibber, not only for his accomplishments after leaving the company but also for the way in which he departed in the first place.

Chhibber reportedly quit WWE in protest when SmackDown head writer Paul Heyman was sent home after clashing (once again) with the McMahons. Call me a cynic, but in a business born from carny roots, that kind of integrity seems fairly rare —malmost as rare as then going on to pursue a career in academia.

Having worked at George Washington University prior to accepting the WWE gig, Dr Chhibber, as he's officially known, returned to his roots and was teaching "Asian Horror Films and the Dark Side of the Asian Humanities" at Florida State College in Jacksonville, FL, as recently as 2015.

There, he was nominated for the Professor of the Year award. Meanwhile, WWE Raw was busy scooping a second successive prize for Worst Television Show in the annual Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards.

I know which one of those I'd rather be winning.

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