From the cutting room floor: 'Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti' on WrestleMania
This was too good to not share: WWE and Garcetti's staff hashing out a manufactured quote. WWE's initial draft is...flowery, to say the least.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appearing in the real world. (Photo: Gage Skidmore, used with permission under Creative Commons license.)
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I’ve got a new article at MEL Magazine looking at what I was able to get—mainly financial information—out of the public record requests that I’ve filed with WrestleMania host cities over the course of the last year or so. There as one item that was—understandably—cut out for flow, though, but it’s so good that I couldn’t let it die. Specifically, it’s from the emails I got in response to my request to the Los Angeles mayor’s office about next year’s scheduled WrestleMania 37. The bulk of the response was just a bunch of daily article packets and the like, but the first few pages contained some emails trying to figure out how to best construct a fake quote from Mayor Eric Garcetti about how excited he was to bring WrestleMania to L.A. Below is my draft telling the story—slightly modified to make more sense pulled out of the MEL article—along with some select screenshots from the emails.
The response from next year’s host city, Los Angeles, was minimal, consisting entirely of emails about the announcement of the 2021 events, but featured something similarly amusing to the list of “WWE Dos and Don’ts” from Tampa. Specifically, Mayor Eric Garcetti’s communications team went back and forth with their Government Affairs contact at the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams about how to best massage a manufactured quote from his honor.
“We are thrilled to have Los Angeles host WrestleMania Week,’’ began WWE’s initial draft of the “quote” from the mayor. “With the rich history WWE has in our city alongside the Hollywood Icon status of their charismatic Superstars, it’s a perfect fit. We look forward to hosting WWE fans from around the world as they converge on our beautiful city in 2021, while also providing a significant economic boost for the region.”
The mayor’s staff, though, “would prefer not to put a branded phrase in the quote,” attempting to extensively trim down the rhetoric and drop the reference to “Superstars,” but WWE asked that “Garcetti” not refer to their talent as “performers.” The result was a significantly trimmed down statement: “There is nothing quite like WrestleMania Week,” the quote in the final press release read. “It is a one-of-a-kind event that provides an economic boost to the region — and fans from around the world will find a city that is ready to host them and welcomes the spectacle.”
In other words?
WWE’s original proposed “quote” from Mayor Eric Garcetti:
“We are thrilled to have Los Angeles host WrestleMania Week,’’ said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “With the rich history WWE has in our city alongside the Hollywood Icon status of their charismatic Superstars, it’s a perfect fit. We look forward to hosting WWE fans from around the world as they converge on our beautiful city in 2021, while also providing a significant economic boost for the region.”
Garcetti’s comms staff’s initial edit:
“There is nothing quite like Wrestlemania Week,”said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “It is a one-of-a-kind event that brings an economic boost — and performers and fans from around the world will find a city that is ready to host them and welcomes the spectacle.”
WWE’s edit to that (“So sorry to do this to you, but there was a request by WWF for a slight modification in the quote,” said Maria Camacho, the Rams’ Director of Government Affairs. “WWE was wondering if we could make the below change to mayor’s quote. Change is from ‘performers’ to ‘WWE Superstars.’”):
“There is nothing quite like WrestleMania Week," said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “It is a one-of-a-kind event that brings an economic boost — and WWE Superstars and fans from around the world will find a city that is ready to host them and welcomes the spectacle."
Garcetti’s comms staff’s final edit because “we would prefer not to put a branded phrase in the quote”:
“There is nothing quite like WrestleMania Week,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “It is a one-of-a-kind event that provides an economic boost to the region — and fans from around the world will find a city that is ready to host them and welcomes the spectacle.”
This whole back and forth doesn’t mean much, of course, but it’s a funny look behind the curtain, regardless.
(And no, WWE hasn’t trademarked “Hollywood Icon,” so I don’t know why “icon” in “Hollywood Icon status” was capitalized. Well, other than it being a byproduct of how the language of WWE borders on an extraterrestrial approximation of English at times.)
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