WWE Unreal Producer Reveals Why CM Punk and AJ Lee are ‘Incredible’

Michael Flynn of Omaha Productions spoke with Hard Rock Bet about the latest season of WWE Unreal and offered insight into the behind-the-scenes experience of working with WWE’s biggest stars.

Season 3 premiered on Netflix this summer, featuring emotional moments including CM Punk and AJ Lee mourning the loss of their dog, Larry.

The series also follows John Cena throughout his farewell year, giving fans an unprecedented look at his final chapter from behind the scenes.

Flynn, one of the show’s executive producers, discussed what it is like collaborating with WWE superstars and revealed details of the “generous gift” Cena gave to show founder and NFL Hall of Famer Peyton Manning.

WWE Unreal Season Three is the Best Yet

Flynn opened up and spoke about how WWE Unreal was created and believes the show has got ‘bigger and better’ every year.

You must be delighted with season three, how do you reflect on it?

Michael: We are thrilled with it. It has been a project that came about a few years ago. Omaha and NFL Films already had this relationship with Netflix, where we do these follow-on documentaries. We did Quarterback—or we still do Quarterback. We took a break from it one year and did Receiver. Then this past July, we came back to do Quarterback.

So we had that relationship there, and then, at the same time, WWE became partners with Netflix, and Netflix became the home for WWE Raw. So we thought, “Wow, there’s an opportunity there to tell a different kind of follow-on documentary with a different kind of sport and sports entertainment.”

So, we all got together, approached WWE, approached Netflix, and said, “I think we can be the right partners to tell a behind-the-scenes documentary about WWE, the likes of which has never happened before.”

We just put out our third season. I would argue—and I am, of course, biased—that it has been our best season thus far. We’ve gotten bigger and better every year, and yes, all parties are incredibly proud of it.

CM Punk and AJ Lee are Incredible

CM Punk and AJ Lee deliver one of the most emotional parts of the season after their dog Larry passes away, and Flynn revealed what it was like to work with the two WWE legends.

A big moment is when CM Punk and AJ Lee’s dog Larry passes away, it created a lot of emotion to the season. What were they like to work with?

Michael: They are both incredible. I’ll start with Punk first because he has been one of our main characters—if not our main character—since season one.

In season one, episode one, we tell the story of his past and how he was this young kid in WWE who, self-admittedly, knew he was a superstar and would butt heads with creative, literally walked out of the company, was gone for, I want to say, almost 10 years in different organizations, became this older, more learned person, and came back to that same creative person he had butted heads with. They got together, reconciled all of their differences, and then it came to this great return.

He calls it the greatest return in WWE history. Still to this day, my favorite episode of the entire series is that episode one, because we spend all this time talking about this badass guy who left the company and then came back older.

Then he’s getting ready for the main event, and he has this brilliant talking-head interview where he says he suffers from what he calls “anticipatory anxiety.” I love that because that’s the whole purpose of what we try to do—to get behind the scenes and see the vulnerability and the people behind these characters.

For someone like that, who we’ve just established as this badass who has wrestled hundreds, if not thousands, of matches in his life, to still have anxiety as he approaches that main event is mind-blowing to me. I love it, and I love that he was vulnerable with us and open with us to tell that story.

Really, he set the tone for being that superstar who was open with us, and now, in the two seasons that have happened since then, we’ve had plenty of other people sign on and help tell their stories.

Then, to come full circle this year and see him talk about his wife rejoining the company and the change that she has helped bring to the company—and then, like you said, going through the death of Larry, which they admit on the show…

They’re a very private couple. It’s just the two of them and their dog. To go through that on TV with us and our cameras was amazing. Then, at the end of episode five, he gets through a WrestleMania main event and is still talking about how he feels vindicated.

For 15 years, he felt like this should have been happening, but he’s proud that it’s happening now. He says he’s the best wrestler at age 47, and next year he’ll be the best wrestler at age 48.

So he has been incredible to cover. AJ Lee this year was not somebody we knew was coming back or ever envisioned coming back. I think that’s the story we tell—that nobody knew this would ever be a possibility.

To see her come back in real time as we were filming it, and the pop that she got, and the reaction from the fans… Triple H says there were girls cheering in the crowd who couldn’t have even been born when she last appeared in a WWE ring.

Then to hear her talk about growing up in the early 2000s—I think she says she was an Attitude Era kid—the women wrestlers then did not get the opportunities that they get today.

They weren’t necessarily put in the best situations or given the types of matches that we would never have today. She came in towards the end of that and helped spin that wheel forward, like she says, not only to get the same respect, but also to get paid the same way that the men did.

Again, they’re a couple who give amazing talking-head interviews. She has this amazing line where she mentions that the change you fight for is not something you expect to experience yourself.

Being able to come back 10 years later and actually see the path she helped pave—her husband being there, women being given longer matches with legitimate female superstars—is great.

I think she calls it a “badass moment.” They’ve both been incredible to work with and deal with, and we’re happy they’re leading this season.

WWE Provide Unlimited Access

Seth Rollins features on the new series and it includes the moment he injures his shoulder and is ruled out of future plans alongside Bron Breakker.

What is it like when you are filming and something dramatic like Seth Rollins injuring his shoulder happens?

Michael: It is a scramble, but it’s more about making sure we have cameras in all the places we’re allowed to have cameras.

There are certain things that happen that we might not be aware of in real time, which we catch later and then tell the story afterwards. But it goes back to when we started this series. Anytime you’re dealing with a new organization, you’re not sure of the type of access you’re actually going to be provided. WWE was a new entity to us.

We didn’t know whether they were going to let us into the spaces we wanted to get into.

They’ve let us everywhere. We’re in the writers’ room with them all the time. We’re backstage at all of their events. We’re outside the ring and away from the business with their superstars. It has been incredible.

So it really speaks to the unprecedented access WWE has given us, and that’s what has made the series possible—and great.

John Cena’s Farewell Tour

John Cena’s legendary career is a major focus of Season 3, which captures his final match at Saturday Night’s Main Event as he falls short against Gunther.

The 17-time world champion played a central role throughout the series, and Flynn praised Cena for his incredible commitment, highlighting the time, access, and content he provided to the show.

Another magical thing in the series is obviously John Cena’s farewell tour. It concludes with his defeat to Gunther, but in between you can see him speaking with Triple H, and they kind of pivot when something isn’t working to go in a different direction. What was it like to work with John?

Michael: He is amazing. Again, sorry to go back to the beginning of the series, but everybody was sort of hesitant because this is something that’s never been told before.

He agreed to do an interview with us for season one. He was great in season one, but I think there was still some hesitancy as to how it would come across and how we would tell their story.

Between seasons one and three, he came out publicly and said that we did an amazing job telling his story.

He gave credit to Omaha Productions and our partners at NFL Films for the way they told his story. I’ve interviewed him, and to let that come across on screen meant a lot because he’s one of the biggest superstars in the world.

We weren’t sure that, with him retiring, he was going to sit down with us for season three and give us another interview.

He did. He went out of his way to make sure he sat down with us. I think we were originally given a 45-minute window. He sat for 90 minutes.

If you’ve watched the episodes, you should hear it in the way he talks. He is so genuine. He was so thorough in speaking through every single part of his retirement tour, beat by beat, and admitting that some things, maybe, like you said, didn’t go to plan.

Triple H approached him in the middle of it and said, “I think we need to pivot a little bit here.”

He was completely accepting of that and went on with it. I think it made for a great story. He is incredible.

At Omaha Productions, our founder is Peyton Manning, who knows a thing or two about being a champion as well. Peyton recorded a video for John for his final Saturday Night’s Main Event in Washington, D.C., along with many other retired superstars and celebrities.

John sent him an incredibly gracious thank-you text afterwards.

Then, right before this season came out, John—again, we didn’t ask him to promote anything—but he tweeted our trailer, which is something we never expected in a million years that he would do.

Peyton sent him a text thanking him, and John sent back another incredibly gracious message. He’s the best.

Road Dogg and Triple H Are Best Friends

Triple H is the face of the WWE when it comes to making decisions and he features heavily across all three seasons.

What is it like when things get tense between people? For instance in the previous series, you can see Road Dogg gets emotional when speaking about R-Truth to Triple H?

Michael: It did. It’s what we wanted in the series, and I think it’s what WWE fans wanted too.

Obviously, we’re not in those rooms ourselves—we’re monitoring the robotic cameras that are there—and that was probably the top example of us thinking, “Oh, this is exactly what we meant when we pitched the series.”

When we were pitching it and saying, “You’ll let us backstage? You’ll let us into the writers’ room?”—that moment was it. It was so personal because Road Dogg and Triple H are genuinely best friends. He obviously cares about him greatly.

Again, going back to the Attitude Era, that’s Triple H talking to Road Dogg, talking to somebody he’s known for decades. So, it was cool to see, and it was exactly what we wanted.

Triple H comes across as a great boss and mentor to the WWE superstars, were you happy with the moments you captured?

Michael: Yeah. Again, it’s something I don’t think we expected. When you think of the wrestling industry, you think of these big, tough guys who maybe aren’t emotional and aren’t—going back to the word—vulnerable.

He’s great at making sure each and every one of his superstars is looked after and pushed when it’s the right time for them. He makes sure they are celebrated and that they feel any praise and everything showered on them afterwards is deserved.

Those are very real moments in Gorilla Position. Not only afterwards, but before matches too.

When he’s pulling somebody aside and telling them, “This is your first WrestleMania. I know you’re playing this beast of a character out there, but you need to look around and realise, ‘This is WrestleMania.’ Have that real-life moment right here, and never forget it.”

Watching him act the way anybody in real life would want their boss to act—looking out for their best interests and making sure they feel wanted and that they deserve what they’re getting—has been great. Those are natural moments.

Again, we have handheld cameras in Gorilla, but most of them are robotic cameras, and we’re just catching him here and there. Those moments are real, they’re great, and they make you feel good.

Season 4 Has Not Been Confirmed

Will we see more of Cody Rhodes for season 4?

Michael: I can’t confirm anything for season four. I legitimately don’t know. It’s not in my power to do that. But hypothetically, if we were to go forward, I would say that as long as Cody is in WWE, anything we would cover would include him.

Again, he was one of those superstars who was in season one, episode one. We got to know his family. We got to know the history with his dad. In season three, we’re with him visiting the WWE Archives.

We’re with him when he takes that brutal punt from Randy Orton. We’ve been through every single part of his journey. So yes, Cody is great, and I don’t know how you can tell the story of WWE without Cody Rhodes.

That punt to the head by Randy Orton as well…

Michael: There’s also a moment later in the season where Liv Morgan looks at the camera and says, “I am a sicko, aren’t I?” She takes a brutal head bump later on. It’s the same thing with Cody.

There’s a talking-head interview after that match where he says, “I could have moved my head a little more, but I didn’t.” These guys are professionals. They know what’s coming, and they know what they’re willing to do to tell a good story.