The big news regarding WWE today is the Business Insider piece about Vince McMahon’s decision to replace Stephanie McMahon’s work duties. According to the story, WWE wants to accomplish what UFC has done and bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in sponsorship revenue. Stephanie McMahon, according to the report, was not meeting those objectives.
As PWMania.com previously reported, Dave Meltzer claimed on the Wrestling Observer Board that it was her decision to take a “leave of absence” from WWE, but there are top people in the company that has been burying her on the way out.
“Her leaving was 100% her choice. She had been talking about to close friends from when Paul had his heart issues. That said, key people in the company once she was gone did want to bury her on the way out. That shocked a lot of people including me and those close to her. When I noted to someone very high in the food chain about the burial starting, they told me that if they did that publicly it would be career suicide, only to find out they had already started and the burial was going to come from the top.” Meltzer said.
Meltzer added, “here is a much bigger story here. The company outright wanted to bury her here. Something happened after she left clearly. The company did a total 180 on her about two weeks after she left. They never even did that for [George] Barrios & [Michelle] Wilson..”
Andrew Zarian of the Wrestling Observer discussed a chat he had with someone high up in WWE last week during a special “We’re Live Pal” podcast, and he was stunned by what was stated about her ability as an executive.
Zarian said, “The comment was that internally, there was doubt put on Steph [and] her abilities as an executive. And a lot of this started after she absorbed some of Michelle Wilson’s responsibilities after she left. One [responsibility] being ad sales and sponsorship. And the comment that I found interesting was that they mentioned that the investors were questioning why they weren’t performing as well. And internally, there was some questioning as to why that wasn’t performing. I think a month ago, [WWE’s Head of Global Sales & Partnerships] Claudine Lilien…she went over to handle that and she was released a month ago and Nick [Khan] has taken over all these responsibilities. When the Shane issue happened at Royal Rumble, WWE was pretty quick to kind of say, yeah he got sent home for all the reasons that you heard, right? I was not expecting the words to be used for Steph because at the end of the day, the McMahons are the McMahons and they are the most protected people in that company.”
Stay tuned to PWMania.com for more.
