More on Monday’s Lackluster RAW After WrestleMania Show & Vince McMahon Involvement

As noted before, WWE announced on Monday that they had reached a deal with Endeavor to purchase their company and to be merged into a new company with UFC. In an interview with CNBC, WWE Executive Chairman Vince McMahon stated that he would be returning to a high level role in WWE’s creative.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that McMahon was heavily involved in the creative plans and direction for Monday’s RAW show in Los Angeles, California. Johnson reported that around 15 to 20 minutes before the show went live on the air, there were a number of late rewrites ordered for the show. Those spoken to reportedly described these rewrites as not “feeling like the type of changes talents and staff had some to expect under Paul “Triple H” Levesque”. Johnson reported that there were also additional changes being made throughout show, which were stated to have come directly from McMahon.

Those spoken to reportedly stated that there was no doubt that McMahon was firmly back in charge following Endeavor’s purchase of the company.

Johnson reported that while the night started with Levesque being on the headset running the show, McMahon was getting more and more involved as the show progressed. McMahon reportedly eventually became the point person running the show. This reportedly was different compared to McMahon’s actions at this past weekend’s WrestleMania 39 event where he was on headset producing things only a few times.

In regards to the backstage reaction, Johnson reported that several talents spoken to stated that there was a huge negative shift in moral once they realized that things were going to go back to “exactly where they were” before Levesque was placed in control. The general feeling from talents reportedly was one of McMahon would be overseeing everything again and WWE’s creative being left once again to his whims and sensibilities.

This feeling reportedly was much different compared to the feeling talent had with Levesque due to him being genuinely liked and trusted since many of them had came through WWE’s NXT system under his watch. Several talent reportedly also currently feel that the sense of security they had in the run from Summerslam 2022 to WrestleMania 39 was no longer a given and would be a far departure from it.

Other talents spoken to reportedly had shrugged off this feeling stating that they always had suspected “all roads” would eventually lead to McMahon being back in a major creative role. Those same talents reportedly are also currently in a wait-and-see mode over this would become a regular thing going forward or more of a one-night thing due to McMahon being at the show last night due to him being in Los Angeles for WrestleMania 39 and the Endeavor acquisition announcement. One person spoken to reportedly joked that “WWE was always McMahon’s world and now it’s back in the palm of his hand after he willingly gave it up last summer.”

In regards to the original plans changed for the show, Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that the original rundown for Monday’s show included two matches for a “Top Contender” Women’s tournament. These two matches were planned to be a triple threat match of Liv Morgan vs. Dakota Kai vs. Piper Niven and a triple threat match of Candice LeRae vs. Raquel Rodriguez vs. IYO SKY. This was later changed to a #1 Contender’s match for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship between Morgan & Rodriguez and Damage CTRL (Kai & SKY).

In a follow-up, Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp reported on Fightful’s post-RAW review show that Bayley was originally planned to accompany Damage CTRL for their tag team match on the show but this plan was also dropped for reasons currently not known.