WWE’s “trademark” rapid camera cuts have become a polarizing style, and Mike Mansury sheds some light on just exactly why it started in the first place.
The latest episode of AdFreeShows.com‘s The Insiders featured Mike Mansury, WWE’s former Vice President of Global Television Production, giving a behind-the-scenes look at how the promotion operates. One of the things WWE has adopted over the years was a rapid camera cut for beatdowns and strikes, which has drawn some criticism online.
Thompson explained that the rapid camera cuts have become known as the “WWE style” and some have blamed Kevin Dunn for the practice, but heard there were other reasons the format was introduced, such as the cuts being a way to hide some of the “magic” of wrestling, like a strike not connecting just right. Mansury explained that he knew whose call it was to implement the camera and chose to omit their name, but did share when and why it was introduced.
“I will say that the rapid camera cutting, to my recollection Conrad, that came into play when the Shield debuted. And the whole purpose was, because there’s the movement in the camera, ‘ready 3, ready 4,’ going back between all the angles, the initial design behind that initial style of shooting was to make what you were seeing on-screen for the three characters of The Shield, and just the push they were getting at the time, just to make it seem all that more chaotic.
And at the time, it worked. I can see now how after so many years of doing it, a lot of viewers feel like they’re on a pretty queasy-induced thrill ride. But that was the intent behind it initially, and yeah, you’re right 100%, a lot of it is to also done to protect the magic, right? You don’t want to expose the business. A big part of the business is how it’s presented on TV, and if you’re exposing the magic, you’re killing it for everybody. So that’s the approach right there, but the rapid camera cut situation, it was born out of just creating an exciting and chaotic feel for when The Shield were doing those 3-on-1, 3-on-2 beatdowns very early in their run.”
Thompson noted that it just became in fashion and stuck, and the company is still doing it regularly on TV. Mansury agreed and said it’s hard to break some habits, but shout-out “to the gentleman that shares my initials that created that concept.”
Mansury started working for WWE in 2009 and left in 2020.
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