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WWE’s latest hire may be shaping the future of professional wrestling as we know it with the integration of AI. Last week, The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported that WWE has hired Cyrus Kowsari as the Senior Director of Creative Strategy. Dave Meltzer specified that his job will be focused on integrating AI into storytelling. Reportedly, Paul Levesque (Triple H) introduced him to the creative team. Videos by VICE There have reportedly been two instances where WWE has attempted to integrate AI into stories. The first experiment was abandoned because “it couldn’t understand wrestling storylines.” Then, the platform Writer AI was fed WWE scripts, but it doesn’t seem that AI understands the term “kayfabe.” One of the hilariously bad attempts had the AI script writer pitching Bobby Lashley returning as a wrestler obsessed with Japanese culture. Lashley wasn’t even with the company at the time. On last week’s episode of WWE NXT, Matt and Jeff Hardy hyped their tag title match against DarkState. In their promo, there’s a clear use of AI. Matt spoke about its use on the most recent episode of his podcast, The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy. “It was interesting, it was cool how they were able to do that and give a look of how the transformation happens underneath the water. That’s always been left up to the imagination before,” Hardy explained. “I was okay with it. If you’re going to use that, it was a decent time to use it.” However, for the most part, Hardy isn’t on board with the use of AI, especially where his promos are concerned. “I’m still writing mine,” Hardy said when asked whether or not he’d be using ChatGPT to write his promos. “My wife is current with that stuff but I have no interest in any of it. Technology has already dumbed us down way too much as it is.” WWE is always on the pulse of sports Innovation Fightful explained that, while WWE has had AI software for several years, it’s a “glorified creative assistant” that’s barely been used. It’s supposed to help eliminate background noise in camera shots and organize files more efficiently. Fightful‘s report emphasizes that WWE isn’t looking to eradicate its writing team by replacing them with AI. The updates don’t exactly give much assurance, though. WWE has always found innovative ways to stand out amongst its competitors. They merged with the UFC to become the sports powerhouse known as TKO. Earlier this year, WWE’s $5-billion-dollar deal with Netflix went into effect. Most recently, they partnered with ESPN as part of its new direct-to-consumer streaming service. Just because AI might not be producing perfect content now, doesn’t mean they can’t explore that down the line when it’s fed better content and works out the kinks. In that case, they’d eliminate the need to hire writing assistants, who largely do these day-to-day tasks. Then, there’d be no need to shape a new generation of writers at all. One top WWE talent that spoke with Fightful said, “Michael Hayes, Ed Koskey and Paul Heyman are not AI,” emphasizing there is still a creative process behind WWE that won’t get replaced by robots. At least for now. Stay tuned to VICE for news on WWE.
