Dana Warrior, widow of The Ultimate Warrior, has joined WWE creative and fans went nuts. But Steve Cook asks “Why not Dana Warrior?”

One of the things that us wrestling fans complain the most about is WWE Creative. Ironically enough, one of the things us wrestling fans know the fewest details about is WWE Creative. We’ve gained insight through the years from former writers, though one may say that their differing accounts somewhat limit the insight we’ve gained.

We don’t know who comes up with the storylines we see play out on Raw, SmackDown & other shows. It’s not like there’s credits at the end of each segment listing out writers & producers. Sometimes we find out years after the fact who pitched things, or who was involved with tweaking things and making them better or worse. Especially with a company like WWE that has such a huge Creative department, it’s pretty much impossible for an outside observer to tell you who’s good at writing the sports entertainment and who sucks at it.

We can tell you who was good. And we can tell you who sucked.

Past tense.

So I’m not one of those people that gets all worked up over WWE’s latest creative hires. Like when they hired Freddie Prinze Jr. many years ago…my main hope was that his wife would be on Raw. I had no idea if he had any knowledge of pro wrestling, or could write a good soap opera or whatever, so why would I get all mad about WWE hiring him?

There have been a couple of additions to WWE Creative lately, at the very least in a trial/consultant role. One of them is Bruce Prichard, and I take my hat off to him for making the most out of his podcast. Dude got back in WWE & gained a fanbase that believes whatever he says. Well done. Bruce is an old school sports entertainment guy and is in league with the things Vince McMahon finds entertaining, so he’ll add that to the process.

Another recent addition is Dana Warrior. Dana, the widow of former WWE Champion Warrior, has worked for WWE as an Ambassador in the years since Warrior’s death. We typically see her at the Hall of Fame ceremony to present the Warrior Award, and during Breast Cancer Awareness Month when WWE does the “Unleash Your Warrior” campaign.

I’ll be honest with you, folks. I don’t know what types of ideas Dana Warrior brings to the table. I don’t know how long she’s watched wrestling. Examples of her creative writing aren’t easy to find. Reportedly she was brought in for “a female perspective”, which I have no doubt she brings. I have nothing good or bad enough to base an opinion on. Maybe she’ll do great, maybe she won’t.

Apparently the Internet has all kinds of insight into Dana Warrior’s writing ability that I don’t. They’ve been losing their minds over the idea of Dana having anything to offer to WWE Creative since the news was reported. I can figure out the three main reasons why without much thought…

She was married to Warrior

There’s a healthy portion of the IWC that has a hatred in their hearts for the Ultimate Warrior that knows no bounds. To be fair, Warrior said some hateful stuff in his life & I am with the people questioning the usage of his likeness for things like breast cancer awareness that he wouldn’t have given a hoot about when he was alive. Just like when WWE tried to name a battle royal after the Fabulous Moolah, the legacy makes things complicated.

That being said, I’m not going to dismiss Dana’s ability to contribute because of the sins her husband committed. What happened to judging people based on their own merits? Am I supposed to dismiss everybody that has been friendly with anybody I find morally reprehensible? That doesn’t sound like an intelligent way to live life, especially as a bleeding heart liberal living in Kentucky.

She’s a woman

Not that I’m saying that everybody in the Internet Wrestling Community is a sexist. It’s just I’ve noticed over the years that whenever women get some creative power, the complaints tend to ramp up. Stephanie McMahon was blamed for everything bad to come out of WWE Creative for years on end. The idea of Christy Hemme joining TNA’s creative team was ridiculed. Madison Rayne got a little less flack than Christy did, but the bottom line remains.

Booking wrestling matches has always been a bit of a boys’ club. Adding women to the mix makes people uncomfortable…even some the fans watching the stuff. Somehow we take issue with women writing stuff for male characters, but are more than fine with men writing for female characters. Weird, right?

We complain about everybody they hire for Creative

When’s the last time WWE hired somebody on the writing team that we all thought was a good idea? Paul Heyman? Most of them are people we’ve never heard of, but hear a bit in their resume that we don’t like. David Lagana wrote an episode of Friends, so we wondered what the heck that had to do with wrestling. I’m pretty sure somebody else wrote an episode of Homeboys In Outer Space, though that may have also been Lagana. We even complain about the wrestling people. I remember being confused when Dusty Rhodes was hired for creative. He hadn’t exactly done the best work in TNA just before getting the job.

When we make all of these complaints for all of these reasons, we’re all missing one important point: It all goes through Vince McMahon anyway. What does it matter if it’s Dana Warrior, Paul Heyman or Freddie Prinze Jr. pitching the ideas when the same guy’s making the final decision?

I say give Dana a chance. We might find out years from now on whatever the next thing that comes along after podcasts is that she had a ton of great ideas that powered WWE through 2019. Stranger things have happened.