WWE Chairman Vince McMahon retired from the WWE last July after he had paid out nearly $20 million in previously unrecorded expenses, almost $15 million of which were hush money for the sexual misconduct allegations he received from four women over the past 16 years and $5 million to former United States President Donald Trump’s now-defunct foundation through donations in 2007 and 2009. Vince McMahon has since stepped down from his duties as the company’s CEO, Chairman and Head of Creative with Nick Khan being named the CEO and Triple H being named as the Executive Vice President of Talent Relations, the Chief Content Officer and the Head of Creative.
Vince McMahon forcibly made his way back to the company, returned to the Board of Directors and would ultimately be named the Executive Chairman of the Board. It was believed at the time that Vince would not be involved in the day-to-day affairs and the management structure would remain unchanged and the only reasons he came back is to help the WWE be sold, while also helping the WWE with the talks for a new media rights deal.
Fightful Select previously reported that when Vince McMahon left the company the backstage morale has “improved significantly” and people in the WWE’s locker room have even gone as far as to say that the backstage culture has changed for the better. It was also stated that almost everyone Fightful talked with said going to work in the post-Vince McMahon era of the WWE is more fun and easy going and there is less of a feeling that a wrestler can get fired for things beyond their control. It was then noted that things no longer appear to be so frenetic backstage and there is a lot of optimism in regards to Triple H’s booking even though there are a few hiccups, but things are most definitely different from how they when Vince was in charge.
The atmosphere that was described as tense whenever Vince was around and the feeling among talent and staff that you have to walk on eggshells in order to avoid getting put in the dog house or even being let go is slowly returning once again as the mood backstage has begun to change with Vince continuing to work on getting the WWE sold and with that comes the uncertainty of what the sale will mean moving forward.
According to PWInsider’s Mike Johnson, things backstage in the WWE previously described as walking on eggshells is starting to return again and that “unbridled energy” that Triple H and Stephanie McMahon brought to the company a number of months ago is starting to fade away. Mike Johnson also stated that he doesn’t hear it as much from the talents but from the people who work backstage. It was also noted that it is not as terrible as things once were, but talents backstage are starting to feel the energy change because once WWE gets sold it is inevitable that changes will be coming as well and when a new owner or when new owners come aboard, then you can expect a house cleaning or quite a number of stars being released.
