PWInsider’s Mike Johnson is reporting that Smackdown’s head writer Alex Greenfield has recently given two weeks’ notice and will leave WWE’s creative team as of this week (the timing of this means he will not have to repay WWE for relocation expenses they handled upon initially hiring him). His horror film Midnight Movie is about to enter pre-production and another film has been greenlit, making it impossible for him to stay on board with WWE, since he’ll have to be in Los Angeles full-time. While the McMahons weren’t happy, and some are speculating that he’s just trying to leave before Stephanie returns to work full-time, he was upfront which is good for points with the company if he is looking to return down the line. He has been with the company since last July, and seen as a “rising star,” according to Johnson. He moved into the head writer role once Dave Lagana was reassigned to ECW, and he is responsible for the Jimmy Wang Yang character and some of the DX/McMahon angles on RAW. Michael Hayes will step up to lead the Smackdown writing team, in a decision that was made last week. This was announced today according to Dave Meltzer at WrestlingObserver.com.
Speaking of stars on the rise, TNAWrestling.com has confirmed that the “A Starr Is Born” vignettes do indeed pertain to a name change for former ROH World Champion Austin Aries. “Austin Starr” is set to debut on October 22 at Bound For Glory.
In other news, SLAM! Wrestling has an interesting story up on WWE’s recent Canada tryouts.
