During rehearsal for tonight’s Raw at the US Bank Arena in Cincinnati, there was a minor incident involving the show’s pyrotechnics. As a precaution, the limited number of people in the building during the incident were successfully evacuated, and the fire marshal has given a safety clearance for the show to proceed as scheduled at 8/7pm CT. There were no injuries.

Raj Giri of WrestlingINC.com recently interviewed former WWE creative writer Court Bauer. During the interview, Bauer spoke extensively about his time with WWE as a member of the creative staff, here are some highlights:

His First Day In WWE: “I’ve been around wrestling. I’ve seen it. I’d been my own boss for a lot of that and I think that was one of my biggest issues there. I got along great from jump street to finish with Vince but Stephanie and I were constantly butting heads. Michael Hayes and I were constantly butting heads. Brian Gewirtz and I were just constantly butting heads for various reasons with all three of them. Some of it was just personalities; some of it was just professional issues. Some of it was just crazy shit.”

“The first day on the job, people are kind of just sizing you up. There are a lot of alpha-males there so you’re kind of sizing everyone up. Everyone’s looking at you and everything. I was very laid back. For me — it was a little bit of vindication and a little bit of validation because of how things went with MLW. I had hoped — MLW was really — I would say — arguably, the number three biggest company during it’s run. With the TV penetration and its crowd size and what we were doing and the impact we were making. Especially with our international television.”

“So, that was something that I felt — to me, people talk about pressure and everyone warned that this is a high pressure job. I was, like, “Dude, my money is not on the line. All I’m being told is to produce talent, create stars with Vince and Stephanie and the WWE machine, write to the best of my abilities and be a matchmaker/suggester and angle-suggester. To me, this is easy. it’s like auto-pilot. I love it, I’m going to bring my A-game. But pressure? Nah. No. Not really.”

“So, people are warning me from day-one. I thought that the rest of the writers for the most part were very quiet and detached and not to outgoing. At the time, the only wrestler on the team was Michael Hayes. I think like a week a two after I got that, the “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase started. I worked a lot with Ted and to this day, we’re close friends. He’s a great guy. I’m talking about Ted DiBiase, Sr. of course. Along the way, we had a ton of wrestlers come in, trying to contribute to the writing team. Really, none of them stuck. Dusty Rhodes and Ted were there for a few years. Dusty was terrific to work with. Dusty was fun, especially after hours. Ted was terrific.”

“Michael [Hayes] was a challenge in a lot of ways. He has a lot of interesting ideas and doesn’t like to hear your ideas. He has his other issues and demons and things that if you look online, you can find out. It is what it is. We had a lot of wrestlers go through there and a lot of them had an issue trying to contribute to that kind of process. The creative department is a toxic environment, very passive-aggressive environment. Dysfunctional. If you look at the ratings and just the business in general, you’ll see a decline over the 12 year period since they started that department. There’s never really been a real revamping of the division and there’s nothing been done to address these issues. So, you can see these drops in everything… creative out-put, television content, character development… They go from a playbook of plays and pick out one and you’ve seen it a few dozen times beforehand.”

“It’s a tough thing to deal with because you want to bring new concepts to the table and produce the best product. But, a lot of the times — it’s such a hyper-political division — it becomes very tough to navigate those waters. I’ve seen masters of that try to navigate those waters and ultimately drown. Everyone remembers how it went for [Paul] Heyman at the end of his run there. The only way to really navigate those waters and have any varying degree of success is (based on) how you define success. Is it that you’re getting a paycheck, just chugging along and toeing the company line? Or, is it trying to bring the best ideas, push them forward and if it doesn’t work out, sometimes you might hang yourself because of that. And that happens. There’s other people that can’t take the travel. There’s other people that can’t deal with Vince. There’s other people that are their own worst enemy when it comes to how they present things.”

“There’s so much turnover for a multitude of reasons, but the creative division as a whole — they don’t really set anyone up for success. It’s almost like they want to watch you fail. So, it’s a very intriguing thing being in an environment like that and also try to contribute and create positive change. It’s really tough. I saw a lot of guys that could have been really good contributors and could have helped the company. We could have seen really great stuff but you had so many people that just wanted to hold on to their position (and would) pretty much sabotage them and wouldn’t give them a heads-up about something and ultimately they failed. It’s unfortunate because there’s a lot of successful people that went through there. A lot of wrestlers, a lot of wrestling fans. A lot of people that weren’t wrestling fans but didn’t necessarily have to be for their particular position within the creative team. They had been executive producers for top-rated network shows and ultimately they were shown the door.”

“So, it’s an unfortunate thing. Because they are the number one company. They are the only game and the only show in town. The central-nervous system is the creative division and it’s a very, very dysfunctional system.”

Whether He Was Encouraged To Interact With Wrestlers: “It depends on who you spoke to and what day and what time and what year and what month and week it was. There were times I was told by Vince that I’m tasked with Ric Flair and setting up his Flare-For-The-Gold retirement run that Steve Austin had pitched to Vince at WrestleMania XXIII. So I start working on it. Then, a day later, before I can even get to Ric, Stephanie tells me, “You’re going to be working on this but I do not want you talking to Ric Flair. Any ideas you have for Ric, you can bring them to me and we’ll go from there.” So, I’m like, “How the hell is this going to work and what’s that mean?””

Was He Told Why He Should Not Talk To Flair? “I asked her and then some shit-storm came into her office and never got an answer. Some def-con 5 phone call or something. I thought that was kind of a cop-out. So at that point — this was towards the end of my run there — I was like, “You know what? I don’t care. I’m going to do the best that I can.” A lot of the times, Stephanie would have erratic decisions or comments that just didn’t really add up. So, you learn to live with it and just try again. Just try to produce the best product. I never compromised my integrity in doing that. But I also realized that you’re dealing with people that have their own limitations. Sometimes, you do stuff that may hamper or hinder these things. So, I was just, “I’m going to do what I got to do and not really sweat this stuff.” I mean, it’s really strange. With Steph — there’s a great with Steph and there’s also a side that just makes you shake your head.”

Other Big Disagreements With Stephanie: “I’ll tell you a strange story where we were all sitting around the table, talking about the first time they got busted open or got color — color of course being blood. So, Vince is talking about the first time he did and how terrified he was that he was going to fuck it up real bad. Then, Ted [Dibiase] tells a story about what happened to him and where it happened and all that stuff. Michael [Hayes] tells a story, Dusty [Rhodes] tells a story. One of the writers tells a story that had nothing to do with wrestling but it was a pretty horrific story about how he gashed open his arm and you could still see the scar. Then, I tell the story about how my mentor, Gary Hart — who was a terrific booker out of World Class, was there and set them up for their run in the ’80’s and was the manager of The Great Muta, Terry Funk.”

“So, I start telling the story of when he was in MLW when he did an angle with Low-Ki and Homicide and they ultimately cracked a broom stick over me and they used the wrong side and there was a sharp edge to it that sliced my forehead open and I’m gushing blood. So, we start talking about that and everyone and it’s a very chill, laid-back conversation. Stephanie then points to me and says, “Can you come here?” after the meeting. We used to call that “getting called to the principal’s office.” She told me never to do that again. I said, “Why?” She said, “Only the boys can talk about getting color.” I said, “Well, I was in wrestling. You hired me for my experience in wrestling. I’ve been in wrestling since 1998. That was 6-7 years ago. This is 2005. This is a little shady. But that’s what she wants and I was like, “Fine. No problem.”

So, everyone came back wondering what happened. I was like, “She doesn’t want me talking about any of that wrestling stuff.” They’re like, “Really? What do you do now?” I said, “I’m just going to not say it in front of her!” [Laughs.] She’s a very quirky person and I think there some deep-rooted drama that goes back to our backgrounds and I think there was some conflict based on that.

I got along great with Hunter. Vince (and I) only once had a disagreement. It’s not that I was a “yes-man” it’s just that I could read him and tell him what he wanted to hear without compromising my concept.

What The Disagreement Was About: “I think it was a house show or something and I think we were in a predominately-Latino market or a Tennessee-type market and they had New York City-level prices for ringside seats but they were all scattered. So you had Madison Square Garden-level prices for general admission seats in a market that wasn’t going to pay that price because who would out of big, top-five markets. On top of that, all the radio was for the wrong demographic. You had Rey Mysterio on the card. I think it was in Texas in a border town. You had Rey Mysterio and maybe Eddie Guerrero on the show. Instead of promoting it on bi-lingual and Latino stations and networks, they instead were putting it on smooth Jazz or whatever it was. I think it was classic Rock and smooth Jazz or something that made no sense.”

“I said, “Wouldn’t it be better to reconfigure these prices in the market and target the talent that has huge followings according to Nielsen and according to the arenas.” It seems like this was a slight adjustment that could make a little bit of a difference. He just disagreed. Some days — Vince is just the kind of guy that you can’t just tell him something. You got to pick your battles and when you’re going to fight him and that wasn’t that day. Ultimately, we agreed to disagree on that day but it wasn’t like it was World War III or anything. It was a pretty logical argument.”

“I always had very positive experiences working with Vince and to this day, once in a while, we shoot e-mails back and forth that are non-wrestling related. Just to put it out there; I’m not looking to get back into wrestling. I’m not putting Vince over because…”

Does He Think It’s Time For Vince To Step Down?

“I only know what I’ve heard. I mean, I haven’t worked under Vince McMahon for close to five years. So, I can only say from personal experience that the Vince McMahon I worked for was a guy that was coming out of his glory years. He wasn’t a guy that I felt was incompetent at his job. I felt he had great days and some days that I fiercely disagreed with the direction. I think you could say that about a lot of people. You have good days, bad days, so-so days. I never saw the guy that I hear is running the company now. So, it’s a different guy.”

“I can only go by what I hear from other people and it’s unfortunate. When you get a guy like Vince McMahon who has been a world-beater and such a competitive guy, it’s hard to get a grip on where you are in your life. It’s not like this guy has hobbies. He’s not an avid golfer. His only hobby is lifting weightsand that’s it. He sleeps four hours a night, he runs his company 24/7/365, and he’s a driven man.”

“But when you’re yielding diminished results, you start to wonder, ‘How long should this guy be in this position?’ It’s a very hard situation. He doesn’t want to go live on an island in Bermuda. He doesn’t want to do that, he wants to do what he’s doing. There is no exit strategy, there is no, ‘I’m going to get to this age and leave.’ That won’t happen, I don’t believe that how he’s wired. Dana White’s not wired that way. There’s certain people that just aren’t wired that way.”

You can check out the full interview where Bauer discusses angles he regrets, Triple H taking over the company, how Brock Lesnar’s return has been handled, Eddie Guerrero’s death being exploited, angles he’s proud of, why he left WWE and much more at WrestlingINC.com by clicking here.

Tonight’s episode of WWE RAW will take place from the US Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The 3-hour show will be AJ Lee’s first night as the new RAW General Manager. The WWE website is promoting the following items:

– WWE Champion CM Punk will address his attack on The Rock at the end of last week’s RAW 1,000.

– AJ Lee will be in charge of the show.

– The next chapter in Dolph Ziggler’s feud with Chris Jericho.

– SmackDown #1 contender Alberto Del Rio will have to answer to Rey Mysterio for cheating him out a title shot on Friday’s SmackDown.

– John Cena will react to the fact that he is the first Money in the Bank winner to cash in his contract and not win a title.

Randy Orton’s is now cleared to return to action after serving his 60 day suspension, so it’s possible we’ll see his return. Plus, Triple H is scheduled to appear to continue his feud with Brock Lesnar.

The advertised dark match main event is a handicap match featuring John Cena vs. Big Show and John Laurinaitis.

WWE Hall of Famer The Iron Sheik recently spoke to NBC’s Matthew Kitchen. Here are some highlights

A signature move and name Jordan Burroughs could use: “‘The Jordan.’ Not like the Michael Jordan but he still the Real American. He can break the pinkie finger like Sheikie. He break people back with his pinkie. Because he a big strong [expletive] for America. I be happy. His name could be “the Real” and his finisher be “the Humble.” Give me a hell yeah!”

Ellis Coleman’s nickname “Flying Squirrel”:“Flying squirrel remind me of Ultimate Warrior because he a little rat when he jump in ring like that idiot Jose Canseco or Mel Gibson. I would never respect the squirrel because the squirrel have no [expletive].”

If he could beat any of the current Team USA members: “In my day I beat living [expletive] out of all Olympian who challenge the legend. I put them in a camel clutch, break they back [two or three expletives], and make them humble. But now I am not in same shape as before so I don’t [expletive] with them.”

How would the Olympics would benefit from adding ropes around the mat: “The rope protect you and you cannot run away like little [expletive] in ring like Jose Canseco.”

If he’s ready for a comeback: “I know if I training I can beat the [expletive] out of anybody who [expletive] with me. I am the real legend not like the jabroni the Tom Cruise.”

The the current American wrestling team:“They all workers but need to pay their due to be legend like Iron Sheik. Buy my [expletive] shirt!! USA #1!”