Endeavor CEO’s Reaction To Vince McMahon Being Involved With WWE After Sale

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If you were hoping the CEO of Endeavor might do something about Vince McMahon being involved with WWE, you may need to think again.

There has been a massively negative reaction, from fans and wrestlers alike, to McMahon running the show at Raw this past Monday after WrestleMania 39.

Creative plans were being changed just before – as well as during – the show.

There does, however, seem to be one man who’s a big fan of McMahon, and that man is Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel.

As well as being the CEO of Endeavor, Emanuel will also be the CEO of the new WWE/UFC merged company when the deal is fully approved and completed.

The second person in the hierarchy of the new merged company will be McMahon himself as the Executive Chairman.

That means Emanuel would be above McMahon and theoretically would be the one person that can stop McMahon from doing things… if he wants to.

Unfortunately for those hoping for less McMahon, for now at least, it doesn’t seem like he wants to.

Nick Khan had recently claimed that McMahon told the WWE Board he was “100% open” to a deal to sell WWE that involved him not continuing in a role with the company.

In the CNBC interview announcing the deal on Monday (obviously before what happened with Raw that night), when asked if he wanted McMahon to stay, Emanuel swiftly replied: “Oh my god, yes.”

When asked if he had to be convinced by Emanuel to stay, McMahon said:

“Not that much. I love what I do. I’ve loved building WWE all my life, it’s my passion, and to have an opportunity to have it grow like this from an exponential standpoint of like… can’t be better than that.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

McMahon said he was “absolutely” ready to walk away from controlling WWE if that’s what the best deal called for, and then Emanuel jumped in and said:

“I wasn’t gonna let him. We have a relationship for 23 years. There’s a trust, there’s a friendship. When you’re going into business and going forward, I think that’s important. I’m glad he chose us because it was a very competitive situation. But for us it’s an honor and also we’re so lucky because of his vision about where the business is and where it’s going.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

When asked what would happen if the two of them happen to disagree on something, McMahon first joked that they would have “a little contest in the ring”, but again Emanuel jumped in and added:

“If we disagree on something that we wanna do, guess what, we’re not doing it. It’s the relationship I have with Silver Lake and it’s the relationship I have with Dana (White).

“Dana’s got the say as it relates to the UFC, Vince has it as it relates to the WWE. He’s gonna have the say. We have nothing to do with the creative process. That’s Vince’s and that’s Dana’s situation.

“All the back stuff, we’re gonna try and do what we do, I think that’s what he wants, but if there’s a disagreement, that’s called a relationship, we will work it out.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

And of course there was the now infamous quote from McMahon when he was asked if would be involved in the WWE creative process as much as he was in the past, as he said:

“Yes and no. On a higher level, yes. In the weeds, which I always loved  to get in the weeds in the past, no. Can’t do that.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

When given the example of if McMahon wanted ‘Mr McMahon’ the character to return to TV, Emanuel said it would be “purely” McMahon’s choice.

Of course this was all said before Raw, so we’ll have to see if Emanuel has a change of heart if the reaction to McMahon being so involved continues to get worse.

There’s still a chance that McMahon was only at Raw on Monday because he was already in LA for WrestleMania weekend and the announcement of the new deal, so Friday will be big in the sense that if McMahon travels to Portland for SmackDown and runs the show again, it looks to be something he plans on doing consistently, not just as a one-off.

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• Ari Emanuel
• endeavor
• Vince McMahon
• wwe

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