Ex-WWE Writer Was Warned Against Traveling With Seth Rollins
A former WWE writer was given a blunt lesson about traveling with talent, including then-World Champion Seth Rollins.
On the latest episode of Café De René, Jimmy Jacobs looked back on his time with WWE and his shocking firing in 2017.
The former ROH star joined the writing team in April 2015, but he was unceremoniously fired less than two and a half years later. Jacobs’ exit came after he shared a photo of himself with the BULLET CLUB outside of where Monday Night Raw was being held as part of a skit for Being The Elite.
However, that didn’t stop Roman Reigns from asking the former ROH World Tag Team Champion to become his personal writer.
Driving With Seth Rollins Wasn’t A Good Idea
During the same conversation, Jacobs recalled early on during his WWE tenure when he wanted to travel between towns with Seth Rollins. The pair had a long friendship going back several years, and they won their first of many tag team championships together back in 2007.
So naturally, when Jacobs saw an opportunity to travel with his friend and make life easier (he thought) for WWE and the creative team, he was ready to jump at the chance. However, Michael Hayes intervened, pointing out that it wasn’t a good look for someone from the “office” to be so close to “one of the boys.”
“As far as we interacted, he (Michael Hayes) was always gracious to me. I kind of f*cked up early on, like my first day on the road there, he pulled me aside and had a little talk with me…
It was like my first day on the road. We were in the Northeast. It was a drive from Connecticut to that town and then SmackDown was on Tuesdays so then we would just drive from that town to the next town. We had to get rental cars — the creative team did. I come from the indies where… (Jacobs laughed) Resources are limited.
There’s limited room on this car. You’re squeezing people in so I’m not used to WWE where there’s like excess of everything so from Raw to SmackDown, the writers had rental cars but Seth Rollins who was the World Champion at that point, he’s also my old tag team partner. So he asked me to drive with him from Raw to SmackDown, and I thought, great, I got a ride and I’m not burdening the writing team with — they don’t have to account for me.
Like, kind of I’m doing them a favor by getting a ride somewhere else because who knows if there’s enough spots in the car?
Because I still have that mentality of, like, on the indies and so, at the end of the night after Raw, the writers are in the room and they’re divvying up the car, who’s gonna be in what car and they go, ‘Aye Jimmy, you’re gonna be with Ryan here’ and I go, ‘Oh, actually, I think I’m riding with Seth,’ and then Seth pops his head in, he goes, ‘Hey, you f*cks! He’s riding with the champ tonight!’
And the next day, Michael pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, I know you guys are friends, but, you’re on this side of things now. You’re on the office side…’ And that took me a minute. It took me a minute to understand that I wasn’t one of the boys, that there’s a difference between the office and the boys, and there is. That took me a second to really get that.”
After being fired by WWE, Jacobs resumed his in-ring career and went on to hold positions on the creative team in both TNA and AEW. He reportedly left the latter in October 2024.
Jacobs is currently working with former TNA President Scott D’Amore and Maple Leaf Wrestling.
H/t to Fightful