Paige Talks Vince McMahon, Creative; Kurt Angle, Eric Bischoff Talk WWE Roles

Bleacher Report catches you up on the latest news from the WWE Universe. 

Paige Says Vince, HHH Supportive of Creative Differences

WWE's creative process has been under fire since Jon Moxley's interview with Chris Jericho. Talent has come out and expressed a seeming endless slew of changes and frustrations, most revolving around Vince McMahon.

The WWE chairman seemingly took notice when he appointed Paul Heyman (Raw) and Eric Bischoff (Smackdown) as the new creative leads of the promotion's two biggest brands. 

That said, some have come to the defense of McMahon and WWE creative of late. Seth Rollins has been arguably the most vocal supporter. In an interview with Tom Fordy of The Sun, Paige revealed Vince and Triple H are actually her most reliable sources when it comes to expressing creative frustrations.

 “If we don’t get used I get really frustrated because we’re a good tag team and we need to be utilized," Paige said of her manager role of the Kabuki Warriors.

“Sometimes the writers have so much on their plate with everyone else’s storylines, they put things on the backburner. I have to remind them, ‘Ok, but there is a women’s tag team title… I’m like, ‘What the hell dudes? Let’s make something happen.’

“It frustrates me but once you actually get to speak with Vince and Hunter about your problems and frustrations, they’re always the first to say, ‘Let’s change this.’ If you go up to writers it’s like talking to a brick wall sometimes, whereas if you go to Vince and Hunter they’re like, ‘If you have a problem we can change that for you.’"

While this is at least a window that shows McMahon is willing to change, it also shows how much power he wields. By calling the writers "brick walls," Paige is essentially saying they don't budge—all but confirming they're powerless to the whims of Vince, who himself is open to discussing changes with talent.

We'll have to see whether this shifts under the new regime.

Kurt Angle Talks Creative Struggles of PG Era

Likewise, Kurt Angle appeared on Busted Open Radio this week and discussed WWE's attempts to liven up its creative with the Heyman/Bischoff hirings. Angle said he thought the moves were designed to boost stagnant ratings but highlighted the fact that WWE is hamstrung by its PG rating. 

"The ratings have been pretty stagnant," Angle said (h/t Erich Pilcher of Wrestling Inc.). "It just sounds like they want to give something a try and I do not blame them. The WWE right now, they are a publicly traded company that makes more money now, than they ever did before, that includes the Attitude Era.

"They (WWE) are making more money now because of TV deals, and these shows (international specials), WWE Network, merchandise, endorsements, the money just keeps coming in. They have shareholders, they want to make sure it's a family program and geared towards kids. The writing gets to be a little more difficult when you're trying to write PG all the time."

While it is more difficult in some ways to tell stories that are PG, there are a lot of episodic television programs that do it on a weekly basis. The wrestling itself in WWE is arguably better than it's ever been; the storytelling and character development is among the worst it's been. You can tell stories and have characters that have clear motivations while still producing a PG product; NXT does it all the time.

While the Raw/SmackDown audience wants some level of broader entertainment, WWE can and should do much better at treating its guys like replaceable action figures and give them stronger motivations for their actions.

Bischoff Talks New Role

Bischoff opened up about his move to WWE and called it the greatest opportunity of his professional career on his 83 Weeks podcast (h/t Fightful): 

"I wanna let everybody know, the magnitude of this opportunity, the challenge and commitment that goes along with it, is not lost on me. There’s been a couple times over the last few days where I’ve been driving my truck or taking my dog on a hike and going, ‘Wow, this may be…’ it’s not maybe, this is the biggest opportunity I’ve ever had in this industry, granted, when Bill Shaw made me President of WCW. Obviously, that was a very big moment, but I was learning on the job there. I had nothing to lose there. I was taking a company in WCW that had never turned a dollar a profit, that was just a number two to WWF at that time that we weren’t really even number two. A company that was fraught with bad history and internal issues, so I had nothing to lose, and in this situation, this is an entirely different ballgame here. This is a very sophisticated company.

"In WWE, there is a great team already in place. They are moving their SmackDown show to FOX network which is obviously gonna have a lot of eyeballs on it in every way. So the magnitude of the opportunity is not lost on me but I said this in a tweet—this is probably the only thing I’m really gonna say beyond this, and I mean this, almost a tear in my eye saying it: I’m honored, I’m humbled and I cannot express, even here, because this is a different kind of excitement for me. I haven’t felt this way, maybe in forever but at least twenty years. This is a whole different ballgame.”

For Bischoff to put it in that context, means he understands the Herculean task ahead of him. But it's been a long time since Bischoff had control of a wrestling promotion, so it'll be interesting to see what he does with the product.