For all the criticism WWE writers receive (and I've certainly given them my share), it still annoys me to no end to go to wrestling sites or forums and see people who post "what would happen on next week's Raw/SD if they booked the shows", and then they get a ton of replies from their fellow smarks congratulating them on their genius and declaring that they should apply to WWE for a job on the writing team, because surely they can do a better job than the current group.

You gotta be kidding me.

You think because you can write one or two shows, that you're cut out to be a WWE writer? Well here're some questions for you:

1. How much time did you put into it? Could you have written the same thing at the last second if you had to?

2. Do you have effective storylines plotted out for the majority of the characters on the roster for whichever show you're writing for?

3. Did you take into account that your ideas might not coincide with the "company direction", or Vince McMahon's own personal goals for a certain show or character?

4. Did you take into account that certain wrestlers might not agree to do something you've written for them, and if that happened, would you be able to re-write an entire scenario for them on the fly?

5. Did you take into consideration that you can never plan too far ahead on account of potential injuries to members of the roster, guys walking out, contract expirations, etc?

6. Are you aware that it would never be just you on the writing team, and that your ideas would simply be thrown into the melting pot along with not only the other writers', but also Vince McMahon's, Stephanie's, whichever wrestlers happen to be attending the meetings (Shawn Michaels, Hunter, and other top guys are known to contribute), and that in the end, the final decision is Vince's anyway? Which makes your entire "If I booked the shows" crap on some smark forum kinda meaningless, because frankly even if you were on the writing team, it still wouldn't be you booking the shows.

7. Are you aware that if your ideas for potentially major storylines are "leaked" to those sites you love so dearly, and WWE finds out about it, they very well may decide to drop a potential storyline entirely and go with something else to make things more "unpredictable"? This is what happened with the "Higher Power" storyline involving Austin, Undertaker, and Vince several years ago. It wasn't originally supposed to be Vince (as far as I know), but by the time it came down to it, the internet had already listed all the potential candidates for the Higher Power, from Shawn Michaels on down, which would've made damn good TV- so WWE ended up going with Vince, as he was basically the only one who hadn't been guessed.

8. Would you always be able to throw together original, creative, and entertaining ideas, even five months down the road after you started the job, or did you just create your little "fantasy Raw/SD" out of a few great ideas that popped into your head on one given day at random? Nobody has constant creative energy; that's the main reason why this site doesn't get updated very often.

What it amounts to in the end, is that your "ideas", no matter how great they might be, when thrown through the system, combined with factors like injuries, uncooperative talent, your fellow writers, and your bosses, probably would not amount to squat. You might be able to slap together two or even three well-thought-out shows on your own, but you're doing it from the comfort of your own home and on your own time, and you don't have to deal with the factors which real WWE writing team members do. Being an armchair booker is ten times different from being the real thing.