WWE CEO Nick Khan has discusses the role of Vince McMahon in the company following the sale of the company to Endeavour and McMahon’s return to the company.
McMahon returned the company in January, six months after announcing his retirement following allegations of sexual misconduct. McMahon engineered his return to the company’s board of directors, reshaped it by forcing out some members, replaced them with his own allies, and used that new boardroom power to install himself in his old job as executive chairman. McMahon’s daughter, Stephanie McMahon who had been installed as CEO after Vince’s retirement resigned shortly after his return was confirmed.
In the months following his return, McMahon has been instrumental in organising the sale of the company which was announced on April 3. Despite McMahon himself stating he would not be ‘getting in the weeds’ of the creative process, he went on to make last-minute changes to the April 3 edition of Raw, with PWInsider reporting that there were “a number of late rewrites” to Raw just 15-20 minutes before the show and McMahon continued making changes during the show as it was happening. The general feeling of talent and fans alike was that McMahon was ‘back in charge’ and there was a “huge negative shift in morale” when people realized things were going back to the way they were before McMahon left.
There had been some feeling that this was the result of McMahon simply being in LA for WrestleMania, and this seems to have come to fruition as he hasn’t been seen at any WWE television since with many fans noticing a distinct improvement in quality of the recent shows.
Now, speaking to Lightshed Live, Nick Khan has stated that Paul Levesque remains the sole chief content officer at WWE.
“When this deal was officially announced, Monday morning, Vince sent out a company-wide email to our thousand or so employees, including myself.
“And in the email, he laid out the structure of the NewCo, which certainly you guys have read about and are familiar with.
“In addition to Vince being the Executive Chairman, Ari Emanuel being the CEO, Mark Shapiro being the President, Dana White continuing as President of UFC, and me at WWE — specifically Vince articulated that Paul Levesque remains the sole chief creative officer. Sole.
“If he wants input from Vince or Vince has ideas then he and Paul are gonna communicate, that’s always gonna be the case.
“We’re lucky to have Vince. We’re lucky to have Paul in control of creative.”
Transcription courtesy of POST Wrestling