It pays to be friends with The Rock! - Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Former head writer of Monday Night Raw, Brian Gewirtz, has left WWE for an executive role in Seven Bucks Entertainment, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's production company. 

The lesson of Brian Gewirtz seems to be that there's no better friend to have in the wrestling business than Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

As you may recall, Gewirtz was once the long time head writer of Monday Night Raw, who was removed from his position and demoted to being a mere creative consultant due to flagging ratings on October 8th, 2012. It is believed that he started falling out of favour with Vince McMahon when he started working from home more, which made him an unsurprising target of McMahon's wrath when Raw's ratings fell to their lowest level in 15 years due to a combination of strong competition from Monday Night Football, the new three hour format of the show leading to viewer burnout, and general fan apathy with a stale product. If it wasn't for Gewirtz's close friendship and working relationship with The Rock, he'd likely have been fired on the spot by Vince McMahon, rather than being kept on WWE's payroll to largely stay at home and offer suggestions that would likely be ignored.

Since then, Gewirtz hasn't been used much by WWE apart from writing The Rock's promos on the rare occasions he was in town, as Johnson would always request that Gewirtz be used as his personal script writer. Thus, the news in this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Gewirtz has decided to leave WWE for an executive job in The Rock's production company should come as little surprise:

"Brian Gewirtz, who had been with the company for about 15 years, gave notice a few weeks back and said his goodbyes at the 6/29 Raw show in Washington, DC.... He left WWE for an executive role in Seven Bucks Entertainment, which is Johnson and ex-wife Dany Garcia's production company."

Sounds like a pretty sweet gig! It looks like Gewirtz will have little trouble thriving outside of WWE, despite being a part of the company for so long.