It can’t be argued that WWE’s production team has their highs and lows. Their video packages alone are undisputedly the best in the business. If they wanted, their incredible pre-match hype videos could turn The Great Kahli vs. Hornswoggle into the main event of Wrestlemania. There are many examples of WWE’s video packages enhancing the story; everybody will remember Daniel Bryan’s “Monster” video package ahead of Wrestlemania 30, or the Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels’ “Running Up That Hill” video package for Wrestlemania 26. The most famous example of WWE's profiency with promotion is The Rock vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin’s “My Way” video package for Wrestlemania X-Seven.
Kevin Dunn heads WWE’s production team as Executive Producer and is Vince McMahon’s right hand man, one of WWE’s longest tenured employees, and has been producing Raw since its inception. He has seldom appeared on WWE programming, but his name is one wrestling fans would have heard of one way or another.
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The WWE product undoubtedly looks good, generally speaking, as Dunn is clearly a talented TV director/producer, the WWE sets are undeniably gorgeous, the live crowds are always well lit and visible, and entrances always make their wrestlers feel like superstars. The shows, more or less, run week to week without incident. Every other wrestling company has production teams, but WWE stands head and shoulders above the rest in that regard.
In a time when the world was shut down, WWE and Kevin Dunn created the Thunderdome. When all of sports were trying to figure out how to make arenas look good with nobody in the building, WWE managed it with ease. The Thunderdome looked so good, it even bumped the rating for a few weeks, giving WWE some level of normalcy in a time it was desperately needed.
The Worst of Kevin Dunn
Fans may not know Kevin Dunn personally, or even know what he looks like, though many have probably heard the plethora of less-than-flattering descriptions of him from former WWE creative team member Jim Cornette. Needless to say, Kevin Dunn has built up quite the roster of enemies during his time. And while he may be a talented TV producer more often than not, Kevin Dunn has undoubtable picked up a few bad habits over the year, the most notable of them being the use of a ridiculous amount of camera cuts. The camera cuts have become obnoxious over the years, one example having 32 cuts in a span of 34 seconds. Is that really necessary?
But those are just the small issues during run of th mills segments. It’s not like Kevin Dunn ever misses the big moments. Right?
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Well, can we forgive WWE for cutting away from Edge’s first Spear in 7 years during his return from the Royal Rumble 2020? Or what about missing AJ Styles’ big reveal in his WWE debut, staying on an inexplicably long shot of Roman Reigns instead? According to CageSideSeats, a lesser known example of this was in a Shield/Triple H segment, with Dunn missing a crucial shot of the Shield standing over Triple H’s prone body. Obviously, WWE's COO wasn’t happy about that, though fans have speculated that Dunn did it on purpose, as he and Triple H have had a lot of issues over the years. Many speculate this is the reason many NXT call-ups don’t have much success on the main roster, with Dunn purposely burying them to Vince McMahon. There is even speculation that if Triple H ever takes over WWE, Kevin Dunn will be the first to be shown the door.
For Dunn, he has never produced a wrestling show, it has always been "sports entertainment" show. And this is clear as Kevin Dunn is one of the main proponents for turning the word “wrestling” into a dirty word that should never be used on WWE TV.
Whether or not fans are fond of Kevin Dunn’s work, it isn’t likely to change anytime soon as he has a job for life in Vince McMahon’s eyes; he’ll be around for as long as Vince himself is. Dunn undeniably has had some hits, having been the producer for every Wrestlemania, every legendary moment in WWE history, every segment, and every match for over three decades.But are those hits good enough to outweigh his misses these days?
