Former WWE writer and current IMPACT Wrestling producer Jimmy Jacobs was interviewed on WWE Hall Of Famer Booker T’s podcast, “Heated Conversations.” Jacobs talked about how writing and producing professional wrestling became his goal, and some advice from Vince McMahon that really stuck with him. Check out the highlights here:
How writing and producing professional wrestling became his goal: “I was working on the independent level for a long time, ten years for Ring of Honor.” Jacobs said. “So I’ve wrestled all the guys that are there now, your Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins and I were a tag team for years, and Dean Ambrose, and Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, everybody. And my career, it pretty much plateaued.
“And I’m not the best athlete anyway, my in-ring game was never my strong suit. It was my promos. It was the creativity. So I had started just on the independent level, that’s what I did. And it dawned on me one day, like, my time here in this business is not about what happens here in the ring, it’s gonna be about the creativity.
“And I called Daniel Bryan and I was like, ‘Hey man, I want to go to WWE and I want to be a writer. What can you do? Put me in front of the right people. And Daniel Bryan and Joey Mercury, they brought me to a show, they brought me to the manager of the writing team, Dave Kapoor, and they said, ‘Hey man, this is Jimmy Jacobs, he’s a genius, he belongs on your team.’
“And that started the process going. I had to go through an interview, and writing sample, and all that stuff and I had a fun couple years there.”
Advice from Vince McMahon that really stuck with him: “I didn’t always agree with Vince McMahon on things but I learned a lot from him,” Jacobs said. “One of the best pieces of advice that Vince ever gave me, I’d written this promo for Bo Dallas and it was about how he had taken some guys knee out, and the guy could barely walk.
“Vince read it and he just goes, ‘These are just facts. I don’t want facts. Tell me a story!’ And it’s true, man, people identify with a story. I mean, we’re all bred to where stories are facts but they’re facts that we see how it applies to life, so I came back in to him with a promo about this pet bird that Bo Dallas had as a kid, who’s wing was broken and he took this bird in, and finally the wing healed, and the bird flew again.
“And it was a great piece of advice. I don’t want facts, tell me a story. People identify with stories and that’s something I really try to tell these newer guys.”
H/T Wrestling Inc. for the transcriptions
