Former WWE Writer Kazeem Famuyide Discusses Selling Elias on Seattle Promo, Wrestlers Benefitting From Wale’s Fandom

– Fightful recently interviewed former WWE writer Kazeem Famuyide, who discussed working with Elias and a lot more. Below are some highlights, courtesy of Fightful.

Famuyide on a segment with Elias referencing Seattle’s lack of an NBA team: “When that’s going on, I’m in Gorilla. I’m in a who’s who of people I grew up watching. It’s like American Idol, when you walk out for an audition — Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul are sitting there and you have to do your think. They know what’s coming, but after that it’s all about how the crowd reacts, how it comes off on TV. Obviously the Elias Seattle moment was huge, but there’s a whole lot of moments where your (favorite) part is coming up on a movie, and you wanna tap someone like ‘you haven’t seen anything yet, watch here.’ That’s how it felt with the Elias segment.”

Famuyide on how Elias wasn’t sure about the segment and how fans would react: “I knew how passionate Seattle were about the SuperSonics, but Elias didn’t know. He was kind of like ‘are you sure it’s going to work?’ We had a whole different thing, but it wasn’t ready yet. It was Vince or Ryan Callahan, who helped write that, that said ‘we’re going to do it the way it’s written.’ Elias was like ‘are you sure they’re going to react to it?’ Yes I’m sure! He came back and we were laughing up a storm.”

Famuyide on how wrestlers have benefitted from Wale being a fan of wrestling: “If he likes something, he obsesses about it, and that’s how he feels about pro wrestling. A lot of wrestlers have benefited off of that. I don’t think Apollo Crews would have met Mark Henry if it wasn’t Wale tweeting about him. Guys like Lio Rush, Ricochet — Wale’s been a champion for a lot of these guys.”