During the “Insiders” podcast on AdFreeShows.com, former WWE writer Jimmy Jacobs looked back on his time with the company. 

During it, he shared a Vince McMahon story, alleging that McMahon wanted to fire a writer once for not knocking before walking into his office. 

“Vince is a legend. Anything I say, it’s with a certain amount of respect and love, and it’s only from the perspective and the experience I had there. So none of it is meant to disparage him because it’s his company. It’s his sandbox. You’re playing it. That’s what you have to understand when you’re there. You go, ‘Why isn’t this different? Because it’s not your show. That was my motto. That was my mantra. It’s not my show. If it was my show, this is how I would do it. It’s not my show, so we’re gonna do this.”

“When I first got there, I thought that Vince was going to be a dude, a billionaire, but a dude. Like when I first got there, I was like, why is everybody so scared of Vince? Everybody, like, just treat him like a human, guys. What are you talking about? Then I learned almost immediately I was like, oh, yeah, and I started becoming scared of Vince. One of my first, maybe my first month there, my closest friend on the team, on the writing team, almost got fired because he came into Vince’s office without knocking. Vince had said,’ Fix up this promo and come back to me.’ So he fixes the promo and he comes back to him. He doesn’t knock, and Vince wanted to fire him. Dave and Ed, great bosses, great dudes, they saved him. The guys name was Ryan Callahan. Saved his job. He just, have to go on the home team. Can’t go on the road and be in front of Vince. He’s got to bring him to the home team. Ryan, Callahan, not Ward, Ryan was an incredible writer, and he’s there now. He’s one of the lead writers of SmackDown. He’s brilliant guy. You start to realize that you’re one weird interaction with Vince away from being in the doghouse or being fired. Then you just start to behave in a way to try to not get fired. Then your ideas become ideas in an effort to not get fired. Pretty soon you have a whole bunch of people that are playing to not lose instead of playing to win.” 

H/T to WrestlingNews.co