Backstage Reaction To Vince McMahon Plotting WWE Return

WWE

Earlier today, a new report from the Wall Street Journal was released, claiming that Vince McMahon was plotting to make a return to WWE in order to orchestrate a sale of the company.

This news came after a follow up report from the Wall Street Journal last month, where it was noted that he had told those close to him that he was planning on making a return to the company.

The report stated that “people familiar with McMahon’s comments” said that McMahon claimed he “received bad advice from people close to him” at the time he decided to step down.

McMahon claimed that he is using his power as the majority shareholder to elect himself, George Barrios and Michelle Wilson to the board.

The move to reinstate Mr. McMahon, which the board previously rebuffed, and the others will require three current directors to vacate their positions.

The article notes that McMahon sent WWE’s current Board of Directors a letter last month “detailing his desire to return to the company he ran for four decades, to help spearhead a strategic-review process, the people said. Mr. McMahon believes there is a narrow window to kick off a sales process because WWE’s media rights—including for its flagship programs “Raw” and “SmackDown”—are about to be renegotiated, according to the people.”

The report claims that WWE asked Vince “to confirm his commitment to repay expenses incurred by WWE related to an investigation of the allegations and requested that he agree not to return to the company during government probes of the matter, the people said. Mr. McMahon said in response that he remains willing to continue working to complete any reimbursement for reasonable expenses related to the investigation, to the extent they aren’t covered by insurance, but he declined to agree to not return to the company.”

The WSJ article also claims that McMahon has told the WWE Board of Directors that, unless he has “direct involvement” as Executive Chairman “from the outset of a strategic review”, McMahon would not support or approve “any media-rights deal or sale.”

Fightful Select (subscription required) has reached out to various names backstage in WWE, to gauge the reaction to the news.

Fightful notes that nobody in any department of the company was given any information before or immediately after the news broke, with one talent saying:

“Not one bit, but considering some people from his regime were kept this long, they must have known it would happen. We’ll see if they talk to us tomorrow,”

Another top WWE talent noted that they were not only not any information, but were asking what this would mean regarding McMahon potentially returning to creative, with the idea of Vince McMahon returning to creative being a ‘common concern’ among talent in the company.

Two sources that Fightful spoke to from the creative department said that they had not learned of any changes to their duties, and claimed they were sent notes for tomorrow’s (January 6) SmackDown show prior to the release of the Wall Street Journal article.

Furthermore, those in the production of the company were also not informed of the news, with the unanimous reaction from those that did comment was either bad news or ‘news above their pay grade’ that they wouldn’t concern themselves with unless necessary.

One talent said:

“Findng out online is scary, and it’s Vince so I don’t believe a word that he says. I’m hoping current management and everything doesn’t change, but only time will tell,”

The talent then went on to note that they have a lot of respect for Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, with another talent saying that they believe that Vince McMahon returning to head up the company’s creative would cause ‘roster uproar’.

One concerned WWE higher up said:

“I can’t count how many interviews I’ve read or people I talked to outside of the company that said ‘Vince liked me, but I got fired.’ He didn’t like you, he didn’t like any of them he fired or they wouldn’t have been fired during a pandemic,”

Another recently signed WWE talent said that they would be ‘blown away’ if McMahon were to return to creative.

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• Backstage
• Vince McMahon
• Return
• wwe

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