More on Vince McMahon’s WWE Retirement – More Backstage Reaction & WWE Creative Update

As noted before, former WWE CEO and Chairman Vince McMahon announced this past Friday that he has officially retired from the company. Prior to his retirement announcement, McMahon was under investigation by WWE’s Board of Directors over allegations of sexual misconduct and hush money settlement payments towards several former female employees and talent.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that Bruce Prichard is currently in full charge of WWE’s Creative and will be taking over many of McMahon’s backstage duties running shows at least for the time being. It was reported that this past Friday’s SmackDown show was ran by Prichard, WWE lead writer Ed Koskey, and WWE EVP of Talent Relations Paul “Triple H” Levesque.

It was reported that the backstage reaction over the current situation with WWE’s creative was mixed. Those spoken to stated that should Prichard take over for the long run, then they expect little to change compared to the current creative process. Should someone else take over, they stated that they expect the likelihood of forward progress and real change to be much higher. One talent spoken to stated that regardless of who take over, they feel there likely will be less rematches for shows due to that being an issue where McMahon liked a matchup, thought it make sense to book it, and would do so despite forgetting how many times that match had already been booked before for shows. Those within creative spoken to stated that McMahon had issues at times of remembering the names of talent.

In regards to the current direction of WWE creative and shows, it was reported that those spoken to stated that they believe that WWE’s new leadership likely will not deviate that much from McMahon’s vision of wrestling out of respect for him.

In regards to the backstage reaction over McMahon’s retirement, many talents spoken to stated that they were outright shocked. Many long-term talent reportedly stated that they felt “offput” due to WWE had held a talent meeting prior to their Money in the Bank 2022 event earlier this month reiterating that McMahon was not going anywhere. Several top talent spoken to stated that they had felt dejected over McMahon’s abrupt retirement nor had any idea it was coming.

In regards to McMahon’s inner circle, it was reported that most talent spoken to currently feel that Kevin Dunn will likely be the next to leave the company or be forced out.

In regards to if McMahon’s departure will be permanent, one talent spoken to stated “I’m not banking on anything being permanent. Triple H was phased out, Stephanie was phased out, Bruce left the company for a decade, Johnny has been in and out, and none of them has the power Vince does. I’m not convinced that he can actually stay away, especially if he feels the heat has died down.”

In regards to what McMahon will be doing going forward, many staff and talent spoken to stated that they had no idea due to them not knowing what McMahon liked to do in his spare time since he had very little of it while running WWE.